One recent evening in Chicago, I noticed the shadow of a would-be burglar
outside my window and couldn't help but wonder: If danger were imminent,
should I call 911 or the U.S. Marines?
This was a joke, of course. But under Donald Trump's second term, the
scenario is no longer far-fetched. The White House has already dispatched
hundreds of military personnel to Los Angeles to round up illegal immigrants,
and federal agents and Marines are patrolling Washington, D.C. Chicago
could be next.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson responded: If the goal is truly public safety,
why not deploy the military to red-state cities with higher rates of violent
crime? The answer is obvious: This isn't about safety, but about power.
Fighting crime is just a pretext; the real target is local self-government itself.
The streets of Washington, D.C., are indeed messy. From Obama to Biden
to Trump—and earlier, from Bush to Clinton—no president has ever satisfied
everyone. Protesters have always filled the streets, their grievances as varied
as their slogans. Once, we believed the Founding Fathers had defined such
behavior as legitimate dissent, inscribing its protection in the Constitution in
black and white.
But what if, one day, the streets are left only with songs of praise and
applause—as in Johannesburg before apartheid fell, or in Pyongyang today?
Would we truly be happy then? North Korea has no protests, no bickering,
and everything runs efficiently. If you curse Kim Jong-un on the street, you’ll
be arrested within thirty minutes across a radius of a hundred kilometers.
That is not order. That is the efficiency of fear.
History shows that a commitment to order is often a gateway to
authoritarianism:
• Hugo Chávez redistributed Venezuela's oil wealth, winning widespread popular support. He then used this support to amend the constitution, paving the way for his lifelong rule.
• Vladimir Putin, before becoming president in 2000, ruthlessly suppressed Chechnya, setting the stage for his presidency. During the years of high oil prices, he offered small handouts to the population. With this iron-fisted control and these handouts, Putin garnered overwhelming public support, then, through a series of seemingly reluctant constitutional amendments, has ruled Russia for 25 years.
• Adolf Hitler also gradually undermined democracy by seizing Jewish property and creating a false sense of economic prosperity.
These three dictators all came to power through democratic processes. But in the name of providing order, security, or prosperity, they ultimately destroyed democracy. The pattern is strikingly similar.
Putin's "rule by fear" is not new. When the Mongols conquered Khwarizm, all men taller than a wheel were slaughtered. Women and children were spared—as laborers or sex slaves.
Terror is not a byproduct, but a means of control. Its meaning is clear: the only way to survive is to submit and remain subservient.
In the United States, the militarization of police forces and routine military patrols on city streets also threaten democracy. When people believe that security means relying on the military to maintain order, rather than the police to combat crime, each such action fuels authoritarianism.
True democracy is not measured by the number of protests, but by its tolerance of ineffective protests; it is not measured by the presence of order, but by whether that order is built on freedom. Happiness does not come from the security of soldiers patrolling outside your window, but from the freedom to think freely in your own home.
Americans must remember: if the punishment for stealing a carrot is cutting off a finger the same size as the carrot, in the short term, society can achieve absolute order. But in the long term, it will be a giant prison.
Hayek was right: what we see in front of us may look like flowers, but behind them lies a trap.
