Exhaustion of imagination becomes literal exhaustion. For a populace already demoralized by political gridlock, economic precarity, and an impenetrable morass of disinformation, resistance can feel like too much work. The only people left with any ambition are those bent on abusing it. When cynicism slides into compliance, the autocrat has won…
The first blow against autocracy is the refusal of cynical complacency. Right after Trump’s first election, the Russian émigré M Gessen proposed some “rules” for surviving autocracy. Among them: “Be outraged ... [I]n the face of the impulse to normalize, it is essential to maintain one’s capacity for shock.”…
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/27/trump-corruption-autocracy
