The Duty to Oppose Tyranny: Dissent is Not Disloyalty, no Matter What Trump Says

Edward R. Murrow: the Epitome of Journalistic Integrity

The great American journalist and pioneering radio and television broadcaster Edward R. Murrow said: “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.” His words are profound. He, along with William Shirer covered the rise of the Nazis and then lived through the height of the Red Scare and the McCarthy era inquisition. Of course he was right, the fact is that it does not matter which party controls the reigns of government or who the President is that principled opposition is not disloyal.

This is an important fact to remember even as the former and soon to be President of the United States, his accomplices in the Republican Party, the corporate media machine, and his fanatical Christian nationalist allies attempt to eliminate or silence any opposition to their Fascist agenda and policies; policies that are designed to harm Americans and those who came here as immigrants, legal or not. Truthfully, they would rather have opponents willingly surrender their Constitutional rights than be confronted in public. Dictatorships prefer that type of obedience, which is often given in advance. Historian Timothy Snyder calls this “anticipatory obedience” and notes that at the beginning, people adapt instinctively, without reflecting, to a new situation, and that when enough people voluntarily extend their services to the new regime, it becomes free to quickly fully implement regime change. This happened with the Nazis in 1933, where within six months all political parties were banned, labor unions dissolved, and extralegal concentration camps run by the Nazi SA and SS opened to incarcerate political opponents without the prisoners ever being charged with any crimes. Similar events occurred in the Eastern European countries following the Second World War which were occupied by the Soviet Union. In every case, when a Communist government took power, often with non-Communists voting for them, they quickly outlawed opposition. Many people, trusting what they thought were new democratic institutions had no idea that it would be the last free election in their lifetime.

The fact is that for our government to function as the founders intended it is absolutely necessary for the minority party, as well as other minorities be allowed to dissent. When that Constitutional right is abridged in any way it endangers our society and our way of life. In an age where opinions can be picked up cheap on the internet, television, or radio, and where things like courage, fortitude, and real faith are in short supply, we have to acknowledge as Murrow did “that we are living in an age of confusion – a lot of us have traded in our beliefs for bitterness and cynicism or for a heavy package of despair, or even a quivering portion of hysteria.”

My problem is that I am a historian and that I have studied totalitarian states and the history of how they became such. What I am seeing going on now frightens me. We are moving closer to a totalitarian system of government than I could have ever thought could have happened in this country. I believed that our system of checks and balances coupled with a free press would keep anyone from overthrowing our system of government and establishing a totalitarian state, but we seem to be moving rapidly in that direction.

In an interview with Sean Illing, Snyder said: “We think that because we’re America, everything will work itself out. This is exactly what the founders refused to believe. They thought human nature is such that you have to constrain it by institutions. They preferred rule of law and checks and balances.”

The rule of law, the Constitutional system of checks and balances, and the underlying premise of the Declaration of Independence cannot be sacrificed for political expediency. The Republican Party rapidly became the party of Trump by 2017. All of Trump’s primary opponents who called him unfit or a potential dictator, including the Vice President elect, J.D. Vance who called compared Trump to Hitler, even before I did, fell into line. Hell, the GOP should be rename itself the MAGA Party as to keep the Republican brand does an injustice to the founders of that party. I call that truth in advertising.

Despite their reservations, the GOP did nothing, even during Trump’s second impeachment trial, in order to get their agenda passed. In truth, they are no better than the non-Nazi German conservatives of 1932-1935 who abandoned all principle because Hitler gave them at least some of what they wanted.

The same is true of the ruling class of French conservatives who for decades undermined the Third Republic until the German invasion of 1940 left France defeated. William Shirer wrote:

“And more and more, as the last years of the Third Republic ticked off, the wealthy found it difficult to put the interest of the nation above that of their class. Faced with specific obligations to the country if the state were not to flounder in a financial morass, they shrank from meeting them. The Republic might go under but their valuables would be preserved. In the meantime they would not help keep it afloat by paying a fair share of the taxes. The tax burden was for others to shoulder. If that were understood by the politicians, the Republic could continue. If not… were there not other forms of government possible which promised more security for entrenched wealth? The thoughts of some of the biggest entrepreneurs began to turn to the Fascist “experiment” in Italy and to the growing success of the Nazi Party in Germany.”

William Shirer broadcasting from the Friedrichstraße Bahnhof on 28 September, 1938, the day British Prime Minister Chamberlain, French Premier Daladier, and the Italian Dictator Mussolini negotiated away the freedom of Czechoslovakia. The next day, Hitler and those men signed the agreement to dismember Czechoslovakia, without its consent.

Shirer, who stayed in Germany to report until after the fall of France, and only left because the Nazis were beginning to target him noted this about the Germans:

“No class or group or party in Germany could escape its share of responsibility for the abandonment of the democratic Republic and the advent of Adolf Hitler. The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it.”

That actually sounds a lot like the American oligarchs like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and a host of others today.

Dissent is not disloyalty. Our founders wrestled with this. Thomas Jefferson wrote: “Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

Based on the President elect’s words and actions, I believe once in power that Trump and his henchmen will engineer a Reichstag Fire moment in order to gain absolute power in the United States under the pretense of National security. His promise to be a dictator on day one cannot be ignored, nor can his open threats of violence directed towards his opponents, and minority groups, and he won in an electoral landslide with a majority of the popular vote. Shirer wrote during the Red scare of the 1950’s: “Perhaps America will one day go fascist democratically, by popular vote.” I hope that wasn’t the case a week ago.

Sadly, fewer people will speak up in 2025 than in 2017 or 2021, and fewer still will have the courage to practice public nonviolent resistance. After all, why should they take that risk since Chief Justice John Roberts and the Supreme Court majority has given the president immunity from prosecution for any action, even those which are otherwise illegal or unconstitutional if he does them as an official part of his duties? Who wants to take that risk?

Edward R. Murrow was spot on when he said: “No one can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.”

As for me, I won’t be an accomplice to those crimes, my sacred oath to the Constitution matters more than receiving the approval and benefits that longtime Trump loyalists, and his new supporters will accrue. Honor matters more. As Sophie Scholl and the White Rose began their first pamphlet, “Nothing is so unworthy of a civilized nation as allowing itself to be governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct.”

With that I bid you a good night. So until the next time.