I didn’t grow up in a dictatorship in theory.
I lived it.
I remember what it felt like when elections meant nothing.
When the news was a lie.
When questioning authority could land you in prison, or worse.
When people didn’t “disagree with the government.”
They shut their mouths and survived.
I’m telling you this because what I’m seeing in the United States now feels… familiar.
Too familiar.
You think it can’t happen here.
You think this country is too “free,” too “developed,” too “exceptional” to slide into authoritarianism.
That’s exactly what we thought.
Dictatorship doesn’t show up overnight.
It doesn’t march in with tanks and military parades.
It creeps in, through language, through laws, through fear.
It starts with excuses:
To censor.
To surveil.
To punish.
In the country I came from, it started with “security.”
There was always some enemy to fear.
First it was terrorists.
Then it was activists.
Then it was journalists.
Then it was ordinary people.
One by one, our freedoms vanished, always justified, always wrapped in patriotism.
Eventually, no one talked politics out loud.
You learned to look over your shoulder before speaking.
You smiled when you were scared.
You learned that silence was safer than honesty.
You stopped asking questions.
So when I scroll through American news, when I hear people call the press “the enemy,” or see protesters labeled “domestic threats”, I don’t feel surprised.
I feel sick.
Because I’ve seen how this plays out.
Back home, people worked endless hours and paid their taxes like everyone else, but the money didn’t go to schools or hospitals.
It went to armored trucks.
Spy networks.
Tear gas.
And palaces, presidential, royal, military, take your pick.
The rich got richer.
The rest of us got quiet.
And now, here in America, what do I see?
Cities patrolled like war zones.
Surveillance disguised as “safety.”
Education gutted while defense budgets balloon.
People going bankrupt just to stay alive.
And still, somehow, being told they should feel lucky.
That’s not freedom.
That’s what control looks like, right before it becomes total.
In a dictatorship, the government doesn’t need to kill you to win.
It just needs you to stop believing that anything can change.
Eventually, that’s what happened to us.
People didn’t stop fighting back because they agreed.
They stopped because they were exhausted.
Because nothing worked.
Because every protest led to arrests.
Every vote was rigged.
Every voice was a risk.
And because we were tired.
Tired from working jobs that barely paid enough to eat.
Tired from getting sick and not being able to afford care.
Tired from watching our parents, our neighbours, ourselves, fall apart, physically, mentally, financially.
You don’t think about politics when you’re drowning in debt.
You don’t plan for the future when you can’t afford medicine.
You stop organising. You stop hoping.
You think about survival… and nothing else.
That’s how they win.
And I see that same exhaustion here now.
People crushed by medical bills, rent hikes, job losses, and burnout.
People too overwhelmed to fight back, not because they don’t care, but because they’re running on empty.
And that’s the plan.
That’s always the plan.
You don’t wake up one day in a dictatorship.
You wake up in a country that looks just like yesterday
Except a little colder.
A little quieter.
A little more afraid.
And one day, you realize:
The fear is permanent.
The silence is normal.
And the freedom you thought was guaranteed is gone, not with a bang, but with a shrug.
So what’s next?
If it goes further, and I believe it can, there will be a moment when everything just… stops.
Martial law will be declared.
You won’t be allowed to vote.
The courts will no longer function the way you know them.
There will be no process left to appeal to.
And we’ll be stuck.
Trapped in a system that no longer needs your permission, your participation, or your voice.
And the irony?
America once claimed to be “bringing freedom” to places like mine.
But it wasn’t exporting democracy.
It was learning how authoritarianism works.
And now?
It’s using the playbook, line by line.
You think this is alarmist.
You think this is overblown.
That’s what we thought, too.
Until it was too late……….
….. You didn’t liberate us.
But you may have imported the very oppression you claimed to fight.
So if you’re not scared yet, you should be.
Because what’s coming won’t feel new.
It will feel familiar.
To people like me.
And by then, it won’t be a warning anymore.
It’ll be a memory —
Yours.
