Mexican Flags Have Become Republican Fodder, but Protesters Keep Waving Them

[muriel_volestrangler]

54. Do not obey in advance.

Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.

Anticipatory obedience is a political tragedy. Perhaps rulers did not initially know that citizens were willing to compromise this value or that principle. Perhaps a new regime did not at first have the direct means of influencing citizens one way or another. After the German elections of 1932, which brought Nazis into government, or the Czechoslovak elections of 1946, where communists were victorious, the next crucial step was anticipatory obedience. Because enough people in both cases voluntarily extended their services to the new leaders, Nazis and communists alike realized that they could move quickly toward a full regime change. The first heedless acts of conformity could not then be reversed.

https://timothysnyder.org/on-tyranny

When people tell protesters they shouldn't fly the flag of a friendly country that they, and millions of others, have ancestral links to, and disparage it as "peacocking and strutting", while praising fascists as savvy, that's anticipatory obedience.