Rule Number 3

Of Trygve Olsen's 7 Rules For Defending Democracy

If you don’t follow Trygve Olson’s work,

now is the time to do so. Trygve is a subject matter expert in dealing with autocrats, having devoted his entire professional life to studying and helping democracies survive and thrive. His area of expertise is profoundly topical: democracies under authoritarian threat. In studying the efforts of democrats while on the ground in Poland as it transitioned from communism, he coined 7 rules for the “small d” democrats as they fought the forces of authoritarianism. All the rules are applicable multiple times and places, but today we need to focus on the third one, because it matters today.

Here is Rule Number Three:

Don’t Hand the Autocrats Battering Rams with Which to Beat You- The game you are in isn’t about policy or ideology. They will use what you say and do to divide you from your allies, who you need to win the battle for democracy.

As I write this, US Marines from Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms are “deployed” to Los Angeles, California. The mission is, ostensibly, to protect federal government buildings from looters and provide protection for federal agents conducting immigration roundups. The impetus for this deployment is, to date, a handful of protests which blocked traffic for a few hours, and a handful of burned driverless cars.

But neither the protests themselves or the safety of ICE agents is why this is occurring. This is a photo op, a propaganda operation so that MAGA can justify its “less than lethal” munitions, and if Tom Homan and Pete Hegseth play their cards “right” (ie in the manner Stephen Miller is instructing), the lethal weapons are not far behind. And the protestors are giving them the images they want.

Black face masks and Mexican flags help no one except Donald Trump. The most successful movements towards any sort of change in this country have all understood this. There were no masks at the National Mall for MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Suffragettes did not march with their faces obscured. The moratorium to end the war in Vietnam did not march with Viet Cong flags; they marched with US flags, Peace flags, and South Vietnamese flags. This is a battle for public opinion, and emotional stunts, even if they feel good, are usually counterproductive.

A question meant to imbue caution posed to midshipmen at the US Naval Academy in my younger days, prior to a school break, was always “would this look good on the front page of the Washington Post?” The point of the hypothetical was to remind you that downstream consequences for others you care about, in addition to your unit and military, can occur as a result of your actions. We would do well to remind ourselves that this is a battle of attention, and MAGA is skilled practitioners of that art. We must always ask ourselves, “What would this look like on Fox News?”

That’s the battlefield we fight on.