I mean, I agree with you, but if you've only realized that now, you've missed out on some really weird stuff going on for the past couple of years.
And the corporations won't fight this. They're in it for the money and they're willing to bring actual gold bars to White House to ensure it keeps rolling in. They know what they're doing is corrosive and debasing, the more conscientious of them probably want to vomit on the inside. But they mostly suck it up and do it anyway, for their investors will discipline them if they don't.
Either people run candidates and vote for the ones that campaign on stopping this, or it happens.
Worse: they'll be sacked and replaced with someone who will.
Like Trump's FCC chair was saying he'll revoke the license of stations that make republicans look bad. Those stations will then be replaced with more copies of Newsmax. CBS either toes the line or it gets shut down and replaced by a station that will.
The idea that somehow the current actions are 'real' history and what people were doing before is fake just feeds the claim of inevitabiility, a basic psyops maneuver - you can't win; our victory is inevitable.
People have made history for centuries of Enlightenment - the whole idea is that we can control our fates as individuals through reason and compassion (humanism), and we have done it. We have transformed the world. The only problem is people giving up - despite the incredible success of this idea over centuries - and accepting that they can't control their fate. Certainly MAGA-ish conservatives believe they can make history.
The "return of history" is snarkily pointing out how historical trends have been reasserting themselves, and Fukuyama (the author) was, at best, overly optimistic
> historical trends have been reasserting themselves
Western liberalism is an historical trend, just like the others.
After they use violence to discipline their own side, everything gets much more serious. But it's also a point of risk for them, because it might break their coalition. So it's important to defend the rights even of those who are on the side of autocracy . Because if they are successful in establishing violence as their right over even their own allies and followers, there may be no way back without civil war.
At first jail, where they release them after a day or two, then in warehouses converted into jail-hospitals, where people stay weeks, get treated, sometime lose teeth. Almost always syndicalists and KPD supporters, sometimes SPD local leaders, it was often political?
Oh sorry, you talked about the US?
I would say, when the administration openly refuses to follow a court decision. (And in practice, it's going to have to be a Supreme Court decision, because the administration seems to appeal every lower court decision that is against them.) Or, when they openly and blatantly interfere in the 2026 election (either by cancelling it via martial law or state of emergency, or interfere in it via troops or ICE in the streets or state of emergency, or after the fact refusing to accept the results because of some claim of invalidity).
If someone like that wants to be in a position to warn society of actual harms, they'd have to behave differently.