Signal and Noise

So much noise...

Although I wouldn’t call reading about modern authoritarianism in my spare time fun, it is grounding for me because it puts the daily chaos and cruelty in perspective. It helps highlight the signal in the noise, continually orienting me to what’s important. Here I’m going to highlight a few of the insights that have helped me put what’s happening in context.

This graphic, from The Authoritarian Playbook for 2025, is a good summary of the steps in dismantling a democracy. Almost every behavior on the part of the current Republican administration falls within this framework. Once you see them for who they are, their behaviors are less shocking. Infuriating and heartbreaking, yes, shocking, no.

I’ve also found it helpful to identify the way ideas and propaganda are being used by the current administration. The book Autocracy, Inc., by Anne Applebaum, and her other writings have helped me understand the tactics of modern anti-democratic movements as they unfold in my own country. Over the past year in the U.S., I’ve heard a lot of historical analogies, which are sometimes helpful, but Applebaum’s book really distills what is unique about anti-democratic trends in the past 30 years.

In Autocracy, Inc., Applebaum describes the ways that propagandists in modern authoritarian states play up visions of chaos, disorder, and crime in democratic countries to reinforce the belief that the system offered by the autocrats, as bad as it may be, is better than the alternative. She writes:

“A few autocracies still portray themselves to their citizens as model states. The North Koreans, famously, hold vast military parades with elaborate gymnastics displays and huge portraits of their leader, very much in the Stalinist style. But many of the propagandists of Autocracy, Inc., have learned from the mistakes of the twentieth century. They don’t offer their fellow citizens a vision of utopia, and they don’t inspire them to build a better world. Instead, they teach people to be cynical and passive, because there is no better world to build. Their goal is to persuade people to mind their own business, stay out of politics, and never hope for a democratic alternative: Our state may be corrupt, but everyone else is corrupt, too. You may not like our leader, but the others are worse. You may not like our society, but at least we are strong and the democratic world is weak, degenerate, divided, dying.”

As I’ve watched ICE and National Guard troops invade and terrorize major cities over the past few months, it occurred to me that what the current Republican administration is doing to justify waging war on Americans is the same thing Applebaum describes established autocracies doing internationally. By claiming that cities are terrifying wastelands, Trump is building his vision of that frightening alternate reality, the one that his autocratic state can protect us from. He’s doing the same thing that the Chinese and Russian propagandists are doing when they spread disinformation about Europe or the U.S., but he is doing it within his own country. Just look at how bad things could get if not for me.

So, when the current Republican administration makes absurd claims about American cities being terrifying wastelands, they are building this fear and cynicism that pave the way to acceptance of their oppressive regime. It has nothing to do with actual crime or urban problems, and so statements accusing Trump of hypocrisy for not supporting programs that actually address crime are beside the point. This may not resonate well with those who live in cities and can look out their window and call bullshit, but it resonates well with Trump’s right-wing base, largely rural or suburban and already primed to fear cities by unfamiliarity, xenophobia, and a long history of racism.

The fear of the alternative primes people on the right for compliance. At the same time, a constant flood of shocking statements and actions, disinformation, and the war on independent media erode something more subtle for all Americans, by promoting confusion, apathy, and exhaustion. Applebaum describes this strategy as well, in The Atlantic:

“Keep the public off-balance. Tell jokes, lies, and amusing stories or publish sinister AI-made videos, not in order to get Americans to believe government statements but in order to make them distrustful of all statements. If they aren’t sure what the U.S. military is really doing, then they won’t object. If people don’t believe anything they read anywhere, then they won’t be motivated to argue, to discuss, or even to engage in politics. Modern authoritarian propaganda, of the kind we are about to receive from the Pentagon and perhaps other government agencies, isn’t designed to produce true believers or mass movements. It’s designed to produce apathy.”

Those already in the resistance movement might be more informed than some and recognize more lies for what they are, but the constant barrage is still a drain on our fighting energy. Processing and responding to the madness takes mental energy and attention, both precious and limited resources, especially in a hyperstimulated, chronically online world that already imperils our ability to focus.

So resisting the efforts to erode our ability to think, care, focus, and know the truth isn’t just self-care (though that’s important, too), it’s an integral part of resisting the fascist, authoritarian power grab. Seeing that cynicism is part of their strategy helps see the meaning in anything I do to preserve the balance of my mind and that of those around me. This includes being very selective in what media and information I consume. For example, I rarely if ever watch videos of Trump speaking or read his social media posts when they’re reprinted/reposted. They are hateful, circular word vomit intended to exhaust and confuse, and I can understand what is happening in my country well without that exhaustion and confusion.

Having the insights to see the big picture helps me to make decisions on what I don’t need to waste energy on, and what I really should try to understand better and build my knowledge of. What are you doing to preserve your heart and mind amid the chaos, so that you can keep fighting? It’s a hard problem to solve, but a necessary one.