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Temptations of Tyranny
Rod Dreher’s conflicted support for President Trump illustrates a broader crisis among intellectual conservatives who fear the "soft totalitarianism" of liberal institutions yet embrace the hard authoritarianism of executive overreach. Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s political thought, the essay contends that true freedom is preserved not through charismatic leaders but through the multiplication and decentralization of citizen power. Revitalizing democracy, it argues, requires stubborn, local acts of collective governance rather than the dangerous temptation to concentrate authority in a single figure.04-27-2025
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Can Moral Life Survive Dictatorship?
Roger BerkowitzPeter Baehr asks: “Can moral life survive dictatorship?” It is a question that many in politics think secondary. The rise of dictatorship—not to mention fascism—is said to justify resistance at all costs. The message of groups like Antifa is that in the fight against dictatorship and fascism, all means are acceptable and even necessary.
02-04-2021
We All Should Have Something to Hide
Roger BerkowitzOne repeated argument against apps that allow for encryption and privacy is that those who have nothing to hide should not worry about the loss of privacy. But who is it that has nothing to hide? The human heart and mind is a factory of fantasies that remind each of us of the darkness that lurks within us.
01-29-2021
Hannah Arendt and C.L.R. James
Roger BerkowitzIn 1958 in the second edition of The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt published an Epilogue on the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Two years later, the Caribbean intellectual and activist C.L.R. James delivered a series of public lectures in Trinidad that would be published as Modern Politics.
01-29-2021
National Solidarity
Adam Rothman and Barbara J. Fields tell the story of Hannah Fizer, a young woman shot by the police after she was pulled over for running a red light. This is a familiar story today, but for the fact that Fizer was white. This fact does not take away from the fact that there is a problem with racism in law enforcement that needs to be addressed.01-28-2021
The Re-Beginning of American Democracy
Roger BerkowitzThere has been a lot of worry recently about the health of American democracy. What the events of the last two weeks have confirmed, however, is that American democracy is quite robust and healthy. In spite of a President who sought to undermine an election, the system worked. The voters rejected a dangerous and narcissistic and corrupt President by over seven million votes and a large electoral college mandate.
01-21-2021
The Political Uses of Shame
Manu Samnotra argues that shame—an intensely private emotion—can play an important role in political engagement. Building on Hannah Arendt’s writings, Samnotra argues that shame can motivate people to create political spaces and engage in political action.01-14-2021
The Fabric of Reality
Roger BerkowitzTimothy Snyder argues that the abyss of American democracy is fed by a crisis in truth that has left us in a pre-fascist moment. But Snyder recognizes that President Trump never could bring himself to embrace fascism. He alienated the military, on which a fascist government would need to depend. He emboldened militias, but never organized them into a unit. His social media attacks were constant but scattered.
01-14-2021
Our Political Crisis
Michael Lind writes that “Many Democrats claim that Republicans are destroying the republic. Many Republicans claim the reverse. They are both correct.” This is not at all to equate the two sides of our political dystopia, but it is to recognize that there is a feeling of disempowerment and Armageddon on across the political divide. Lind argues that this premonition of imminent destruction maps onto five crises facing the American Republic.01-14-2021
Hope is Necessary
Ann Heberlein has written a new biography of Hannah Arendt, translated from the Swedish as, “On Love and Tyranny: The Life and Politics of Hannah Arendt.” Anand Giridharadas says that he knew he had to interview Heberlein “when I read these words about what she believes we today can learn from Arendt: “to love the world so much that we think change is possible.”01-14-2021