The power of witnessing

It’s easy to get swept into conformity. ‘Everyone else is doing it’. Conformity is easier.

I’ve spoken about it before, but I think people saw my individual struggle. I think the problem is more systemic.

As humans, we normalise what we see around us. Those of us with food and housing security live in relative luxury compared to people generations or centuries ago – but it’s just our normal. (It’s one reason why poverty is a relative measure)

Think about how normal it was to wear a mask against Covid – and then it turned, overnight. (I still think about this a lot, as I’m facing more and more pushback for continuing to mask. People can’t understand why I don’t just “be like everyone else”.)

Think about routine changes, like starting a new job, moving house. Things slip into place soon enough. Or the change in language – political correctness was once a thing you did to try to be polite, and then it was mocked until it was abandoned. “Woke” was once a part of African-American English to describe awareness of social injustice – and it, too, has been weakened and taken over by derision. (This seems to be a deliberate strategy.)

These things happen almost without us noticing.

We are in a period of potentially great change. I am, of course, speaking about the second term of Donald Trump’s presidency.

As was true the first time, there has been an onslaught of pronouncements (less drama, just yet). There is a lot of fear. There’s a sense, already, of exhaustion. “Flooding the zone with shit” as a strategy.

I sit in Manchester, in a country described by Elon Musk and others in the most unflattering terms. We have a relatively boring, relatively unremarkable, centrist government.

I am safe.

The attempts to rewrite history, rewrite normal, are accelerating. Mostly in the United States. However, others in power are attempting to work with Trump. I’ve experienced some emotional whiplash (again), seeing relatively sane public figures talk about Trump as though he were any other politician, and things must continue as normal.

One of the things about barrages of governmental proclamations, the zone being filled, is that it makes it much harder to think clearly. Much harder to put it all together. Add in fear – for yourself or others – and trauma, and memories no longer form properly.

We know that propaganda works partly through repetition. As others have noted, one of the reasons why Trump is so attractive to his base is that he is someone they can follow in a confusing world. He repeats soundbites for them to cling to, an anchor they believe to be strong.

I don’t know to what extent discourse in the United States will be able to deal with this, particularly given tech oligarchs are clearly on Trump’s side. The large corporations that own American media behemoths may also fear litigation, chilling the free speech that America prides itself on.

The symbolism of a camp in Guantanamo Bay – if only for ‘illegal immigrants’ – certainly doesn’t help. At least not for those of us who see fascistic echoes in what’s happening. (Don’t get me started on Australia’s “offshore processing”, it will be long and profanity filled.)

A healthy coping mechanism, in the face of all of this, is to just switch off. Politics will be what politics will be. Worry about you and yours.

This can help the Overton window shift. One where – as before – ‘that’s just Trump’. Or sieg heils become much more common.

The outcries surrounding disappearing protestors, towards the end of Trump’s first term, were more muted than I had expected.

We normalise what we see around us. Or we give up. Or both.

I started this post thinking about what I could do for Americans. I have this tendency, which borders on a saviour complex. I’m aware it’s not healthy.

There’s very little, materially, that I can do.

I wonder what those witnessing the Nazis thought, those who were not its initial targets. (Apart from those who clearly sympathised with the Nazis.) What they could have done.

There is one thing that we can do from outside America. Something that those outside the reach of the Nazi regime could not have done.

We can bear witness.

As history is rewritten, as a violent coup attempt is rewritten as tourism with peace and love – those outside the United States need not be swept up. It was just as horrific as we remember, and it would be just as horrific if it happened in London, Canberra, or anywhere else.

It doesn’t have to be the big things. We can point out that ‘mercy’ is not some aberrant insertion into the Christian scriptures, but a key doctrine. That empathy is not a sin. We can point out that social media companies thanking the President look a bit suspicious.

Speaking of social media companies – we don’t know how algorithms will be altered, both in the United States or elsewhere. People have commented on changes that have happened in recent weeks, such as Americans finding it difficult to unfollow Donald Trump on Instagram, or the tone of TikTok changing. The algorithms were never neutral, and it would be foolish (perhaps dangerous) to rely on them now. (It’s deeply amusing to me, in the wake of Deepseek, that people are now able to tell you that programs might be manipulated for malign ends. Are we naïve enough to believe that only China might do that?)

Outside the United States, we need to remember that this is not normal – and tell our friends within the United States. Remind them of our expectations of democracy, and that American exceptionalism doesn’t mean that they should have a worse experience.

We need to maintain our own sense of normal, and to keep records of what’s happening. Hopefully more than the justifications of the ‘good guys’ in the post-war consensus. Hopefully revealing the challenges we face, the gradual erosion. Showing future generations that it can happen to them, too. That Germans and Americans were not uniquely stupid or evil: that this is forced upon them, forced upon us. There are no good guys or bad guys. There are people who do right, do wrong, do the best they can. (To the extent the simplistic dichotomy makes sense – there are malign actors.)

We’re not just keeping a record, reminding them, but also witnessing (evangelising) to the benefits of democracy.

I don’t know how useful my words might be. Or anyone else’s. I also know that many people outside the United States are cheering on what’s happening within it. But I do know that we need to keep a record, keep conversation going. Reminders that this is not inevitable, this is not the vision of democracy that Americans claim to be so proud of.

I fear what will happen to those bearing witness within the United States. I know they will speak, and I know they will speak boldly. The traditions of the First Amendment embolden many in America. Without that cultural background, many others might pause.

I fear that they will become martyrs for the cause. (Martyr, incidentally, derives from the ancient Greek for witness.)

We should speak, those of us who don’t have to risk sacrificing ourselves. Share some of their burden.

What do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts (but I'm not sure the comment function is working yet - bear with us.)