Stacey Abrams: “We Are in the Midst of an Authoritarian Regime”

MICHEL MARTIN: Thanks Bianna. Stacey Abrams, thank you so much for talking with us once again.

 

STACEY ABRAMS: Thank you for having me.

 

MARTIN: So we called you specifically for an essay, a pretty strongly worded essay, that you just published in Time. It’s headlined, “We Can Stop the Rise of American Autocracy.” Why now? What, what, what is it that triggered this piece now?

 

ABRAMS: Because we are in the midst of an authoritarian regime. We keep talking about it as though it’s something that’s looming and it’s critical that we understand it’s already happening. But if we want to reclaim our country, we have to understand the moment we’re in, and we’ve gotta start fighting back immediately.

 

MARTIN: Who’s the “we?”

 

ABRAMS: The “we” is the American people. Anyone who actually believes that democracy should be the organizing principle for how we live together in this country. Autocracy, authoritarianism is an alternative. Under the proposed regime of this current administration and its supporters in the Republican Party, we have an authoritarian regime where we’ve seen an expansion of executive power, a sublimation of competing powers — both Congress and the courts. But we’ve also seen attacks on the media, attacks on communities. We’ve seen the kidnappings of people in our country, including citizens. But we’re also watching the military occupation of our cities. That’s what happens in authoritarian regimes. And that is being led by the Republican party, spearheaded and helmed by Donald Trump.

 

MARTIN: Well the reason I ask who the “we” is, is one of the points that you make in your piece is that historically, governments that have taken on an authoritarian cast or have become, you know, true authoritarians, are often voted in. 

 

ABRAMS: Absolutely. 

 

MARTIN: It has to be said, the Republicans in Congress were voted in, the president was voted in. We could dispute what the margins are. But those, but that is the truth of it. So does that suggest that there is a critical mass of people who agree with what he’s doing and with what the Republicans in Congress are supporting?

 

ABRAMS: Not at all. So one of the features of modern-day authoritarianism, we are used to thinking about autocrats, rising dictators rising through coup d’etats and through military overthrows. But the modern version is actually winning elections: Erdogan in Turkey, Modi in India, Putin in Russia. We’ve forgotten that he was elected to these — they’ve been elected into these positions. And they maintain elections in those nation states. Bolsonaro, Maduro — Maduro has elections. Venezuela has elections. But there is no question that it’s an authoritarian regime. And it is a naivete that we hold in America that it’s only authoritarianism if we didn’t vote for those people in the office. The question isn’t, What did we vote them for? It’s, What are they doing with the power they have now? 

And the reason this is so important is that we are not protected from authoritarianism because we have democracy. We ushered in authoritarianism using democracy, and now it is our responsibility to protect democracy from those who would take it from us.

 

MARTIN: Your argument is — well, you, you lay out what you call a 10-step process and you say that we are at about step nine. Well, let me go through the steps. You say you have a free and fair election, but it’s the last time. Exceed the limits of their executive power. Numerous executive orders, claiming authority that the president, president doesn’t actually hold. They take competing versions of power Congress and the courts and make them complicit or neuter them. Go after the media — obvious. Gut, the government, fire the people who know how to do stuff. Go after the people who do the good work. You sue law firms and nonprofits. You have to have someone to blame. If they can push that forward, then we’re fighting each other instead of fighting for our country, they incentivize private violence. Now that’s what you say we’re at step nine. 

What do you mean by that, “they incentivize private violence?” And where, what do you mean by that? And how do you see that?

 

ABRAMS: Well, we saw what happened in Minnesota to Speaker Hortman. But let’s broaden it out. One of the ways private violence takes hold as a means of control is that people feel threatened. They feel a constant sense that their rights and their physical bodies are under duress. And what we have seen happen is that we have a private police operating in the United States called ICE. They go around masked. They do not operate under the rules that we understand in terms of due process. They do not have to reveal themselves. They have blatantly opposed actually complying with existing law. And now we have the president of the United States summoning up National Guardsmen. We have had a court in California say, No, you cannot use the threat of emergency or the declaration of a false emergency to justify this occupation. And we are seeing it happen in Washington D.C.

The way private violence takes hold in a tyrannical, authoritarian, autocratic add — (08:57): You know, insert language here — the way it takes hold is because people start to believe they aren’t physically safe. And they believe that it is okay to respond to that lack of safety. But you also see people thinking that violence is the way to respond to harm. And that is why we saw the assassination of a speaker — a state speaker. We have seen political violence rise in this country. We’ve seen threats of political violence rise, and we can’t see these as separate pieces. They are of a piece and they work together. 

And, and that goes to your, your question about step nine. When we were writing this piece — and I’m so proud to be working with Professor Kim Sheppell from Princeton University — but the point of this is these things can happen simultaneously. We are actually watching step 10 unfold as well. When Texas gerrymandered in the middle of the decade to intentionally strip people of color of their voting power and to hand power to a political party. (09:53): That was step 10. When Georgia purged 471,000 voters with very clear understanding of what effect it would have on minority voters. That was step 10. We are watching this happen around the country. 

When you interfere with elections — the end of democracy doesn’t mean the end of voting. It means the end of voting actually making a difference. And that is what we’re facing right now. So I would actually say we’ve now hit all of the 10 steps. And the question is, how much more will we see? Because these steps repeat, they amplify, and they can happen simultaneously.

 

MARTIN: Step 10 is, You make sure no one ever votes again. Now you have them captive. Now you’ve got them scared. Now you’ve got them poor, and now you have the power. 

This is a violent country and there are a lot of guns, a lot of people have access to weapons. And I’m just sort of wondering if not to quibble with your, your kind of steps here, but how do you identify that particular facet of American life with what you call this authoritarian takeover or this authoritarian push?

 

ABRAMS: So part of the responsibility — you asked me at the beginning, Who did I mean by “we?” “We” as the people, but “they,” the authoritarians, are the state. And that’s the place where we have to put responsibility. Violence is part of human nature. As you pointed out, political violence has always attended any political system. If you’re reading the Bible, violence is rife throughout the Bible. The difference is who is wielding violence as a tool for the accrual of power. And that’s why it’s so important that we understand it and we identify it. 

Incentivizing private violence is a step in authoritarianism because it’s when the state starts to co-opt the people into doing its will. Because when you have us fighting each other, we are not fighting against those who are taking our power from us. 

I’m not diminishing how harmful it is and how often we see political violence happening, but what I am saying is that when the states suborns that, when the state incentivizes, that when the state mimics the kinds of behaviors that the people then start to believe are necessary to protect themselves, then that’s when authoritarianism has to be rooted out and has to be noted as the cause.

 

MARTIN: It’s interesting because speaking of violence, the U.S. attorney, the newly named US attorney in Washington D.C. — who, because of, you know, the district’s unique sort of legal framework and relationship to the federal government also prosecutes local crimes in D.C. — recently issued a ruling that gun crimes  you know, carrying, conceal, et cetera would not be prosecuted, But that she has brought felony charges against individuals who were protesting. Like there was a, an individual who threw a sandwich 

And was charged with a felony. The grand jury declined to indict. In fact, the grand jury — grand juries in D.C. have repeatedly refused to, to, to, you know, validate charges in some of these cases. 

Especially noteworthy given that that this, this, you know, president refused to call in the National Guard for many hours when his supporters were violently attacking the Capitol, but yet his appointed representatives have charged, you know, issued felony charges or tried to charge people with felonies for throwing a sandwich at somebody. 

 

ABRAMS: And, and that’s an important distinction. The reason they went after the person throwing the sandwich was because that was someone who expressed dissent. And in an authoritarian regime, you respond to dissent with overwhelming force. A man threw a sandwich and faced a federal grand jury. The weight and heft of the federal government came after a man who in a moment of panic and anger, threw a sandwich. 

Authoritarianism amplifies the smallest behaviors of citizenship and turns them into crimes. That’s important to understand, because if you could go to jail for a sandwich, then how dare you protest in the streets? How dare you take action against — how dare you sue? It’s why they defunded public television. You defund public broadcasting because public broadcasting dare to tell the truth. And instead of just being angry and fighting in the court of public opinion, you strip public broadcasting of its ability to do its job. 

And so it’s critically important that we actually look at these small moments and knit them together. And that’s why the 10-steps are so important, because we need people to see not these as individual distinct moments, but as part of a pattern of behavior and a coordinated attempt to undermine the democracy of our country and make authoritarianism seem normal. That is not normal.

 

MARTIN: Why do you think it is that, you know, there is supposed to be an opposition party in this country, and in fact, the margins in the Congress are very, very narrow. There were a number of moments where people could have stopped some of these initiatives for, for, for example. And you just, I’m just curious why you think it is that they’re just – if the situation is as dire as you describe, why more people aren’t willing to object or say no?

 

ABRAMS: So let’s talk about the people in power there. The question isn’t, are they voting against those, their self-interest? It’s what interests do they hold? 

If you are Senator Dan Sullivan, who watches his colleague, Senator Lisa Murkowski, go to the floor of the Senate and play a recording of your constituents who were facing a typhoon — a tsunami. And that tsunami warning only came about because of public broadcasting. Lisa Murkowski voted no. Dan Sullivan said, yes, it’s true that this will cause them harm, but I’ll fix it later. Because his best interest in that moment, his self-interest was power. His self-interest was basically becoming complicit and not offending the authoritarian leader, in this case, Donald Trump. 

And so we have to stop thinking that self-interest is one thing. If the interest you have is power, then sublimating yourself to this current authoritarian regime feels like not just survival, but it gets you a ticket to the dance. And so we have to understand that those who are elected to represent us will not do so unless we hold them accountable. (22:23): And not just at the ballot box during midterms, but every single day. 

But here’s the other piece, holding them accountable does not mean they will be better. There have been protests in authoritarian nations since the moment those autocrats came to power. And that is why the urgency is now. We have not fully fallen. We are in an authoritarian moment, but we are not so far in that we can’t find our way out. We have to recognize where we are. We then have to activate ourselves to do something about it. 

And that’s to your point about who’s voting for this, who’s supporting it. There’s a reason that Republicans stopped having town hall meetings because they didn’t want to be held accountable because they know people aren’t happy. And when we see the economy collapse because of rising inflation, rising unemployment, and slowing economic growth, the reason the president of the United States is trying to remove a member of the Federal Board of Reserve Governors is because he needs to be able to manufacture an answer to why the economy is not doing as it should.

So we have to recognize, we have to activate and most fundamentally, we have to reclaim our rights as citizens to a country that works for all of us.
And ultimately, that’s what I want. I’m not here just to harangue the authoritarians, I’m here to call into action those who believe in democracy. And even if you don’t think you believe in democracy, if you believe in your right to make your own choices, if you believe in your own freedom and your own power, then we’ve gotta stop those who would take those things from us right now.

 

MARTIN: What about the Democrats in this moment? 

 

ABRAMS: Yeah. 

 

MARTIN: What’s their role and are they fulfilling it?

 

ABRAMS: We are in a moment where we are looking for leaders, but I actually believe what we need is leadership. Leaders anoint individual people to make decisions for us. This is a moment where we all have to own for ourselves the role we can play.
I am a very proud Democrat, and what that means is I’m part of a very large party that has multiple roles and responsibilities. We are the minority party, which means we do not have the normal levers of power, but Democrats have to still show that we can deliver. And that means that when authoritarian behaviors impact our people, we’ve gotta do something about it. When people start going hungry, we’ve gotta be there to provide access to food. When people can’t get what they need, we’ve gotta help them find solutions. 

That doesn’t mean we can solve every problem, but we cannot bemoan our fates and hold our head in our hands. (31:23): We’ve got to do the work. And so what I would say to Democrats is, No, we may not hold the majority, but we are watching across this country. As leadership is being shown, Washington, Oregon, and California have said in response to the decimation of the CDC, We’re gonna provide public health to our people. But also down in small communities, they’re doing community gardens because they know that the USDA food that they relied on is no longer coming. 

We have to, as Democrats, at every level of government, show that we understand the problem, that we see the pain, and that we’re willing to do something to mitigate it. We can’t solve it until we have power again. But we can use the power we do have, because before we had power, before we had money, we had each other, and Democrats are best when we were doing the work of the people.

 

MARTIN: And before we let you go, I’ll tell you one thing that people say to me, maybe they say the same thing to you, which is, I don’t pay attention to the news anymore, it’s too depressing. So people say that. They say, I just don’t, I just, it’s just too depressing. I just have to focus on my house, my family, my garden, whatever. And what —  do people say that, I’m curious if people say that to you, and if they do say that to you, what do you say?

 

ABRAMS: They do. And my point is, do you want to be able to stay in that garden? Or do you want someone who can come along and say that they want your garden for themselves? And there is no one to go and you can’t call the police because they no longer answer to you. You can’t call your city council member because they no longer get to make decisions. You can’t go to your job because they’ve decided your job is obsolete because they’ve decided that the work you do is no longer valuable to the regime. 

Our individual freedom is yoked to our national belief in freedom. If we do not have it at a national level, we cannot enjoy it at a local level. And authoritarians want to take what we have. They want to take what we know, but most importantly, they want to take our will to want more. We can fight back. 

 

MARTIN: And how come you aren’t discouraged? What keeps you going?

 

ABRAMS: My grandfather, my, my mother’s father was born 25 years after the end of slavery. Within two generations, his granddaughter became the first Black woman in American history to be nominated to be governor of a state. That arc of history tells me that we can hold this country. That even those who were trampled upon did what they could to preserve our nation. 

It is not that we don’t get to be depressed, but we don’t get to allow depression to steal our futures from us. They want us to feel broken. They want us to feel beaten. I was raised in a family that has overcome so many odds, but more importantly, they’ve always believed that despite how little their citizenship was valued, that belonged to them, and they were going to use it to its fullest extent. I am here because, and I am, I’m engaged because I want the full measure of my citizenship to be made real.

 

MARTIN: Stacey Abrams, thank you so much for speaking with us.

 

ABRAMS: Thank you for having me.