Hold the Line
Brian Sankarsingh fears the fall of democracy South of the Canadian border
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We talk about raising the bar as striving for excellence. In democracies, that bar should mean better ideas, better governance, better character. Here’s the paradox: the current Republican administration has also “raised the bar,” but in the wrong direction and with the wrong intention. It has elevated brazenness by overtly pushed democracy toward authoritarianism and dared you to stop it. Authoritarianism doesn’t usually arrive with marching boots and banners. It shows up as a stress test. It tests what you will accept, what institutions will tolerate, and how far norms can bend without breaking. The tactic is simple: do the thing out in the open. Deny it. Mock outrage as weakness. Repeat, but this time degrading something of even greater democratic value.
You see it in the contempt for electoral outcomes when they’re inconvenient. In the shrug at political violence if it helps. In the open promise of retribution against rivals. In turning law into a weapon for friends and a cudgel for enemies. The point is not just to win. It’s to redefine the boundaries of what power is allowed to do. Impunity becomes the currency. Each unpunished breach becomes precedent. What once required secrecy now happens on camera. The lesson taught to you is that accountability is optional, rules are flexible, and truth is negotiable.
Another move is exhaustion. Flood the zone with scandals, lies, and conspiracies until you can’t tell which matters. When everything is outrageous, nothing is. Outrage fatigue lowers your guard. It nudges you toward cynicism and toward the belief that all politics is corrupt, so why care if the corruption is louder now? It takes indifference and refines it to apathy.
Language shifts too. Dehumanizing labels for opponents. Casual talk about “enemies,” “traitors” and “hateful people.” If you can make political disagreement sound like war, then emergency powers feel reasonable, and everyday repression feels like common sense. You start to accept extreme measures as the price of “security” or “order.”
There’s also legalism which is the authoritarian’s favorite fig leaf. Hollow out checks and balances while insisting everything is “technically” legal. Stack bodies that should be independent. Stretch executive power to the edge, then pretend the edge never existed. If a court says yes, it’s framed as vindication. If a court says no, the court is the problem. This all rests on moral inversion. Loyalty outranks law. Strength outranks integrity. The loyalist who breaks rules is “tough.” The dissenter who follows them is “weak.” You’re asked to trade principle for team, and once you do, almost any abuse becomes defensible. This is raising the bar for brazenness: making each next step feel only slightly worse than the last, until the cumulative shift is enormous. The danger isn’t just a single act. It’s the normalization of a method.
What do you do with that?
You name it plainly. You resist the slide into euphemism. You judge leaders by their respect for process, not just their promises on outcomes. You support independent institutions before you need them. You value the boring work of governance over the spectacle of dominance. And you remember that a democracy’s real strength is not a leader’s will, but the public’s refusal to bend the rules for anyone. Excellence in a republic isn’t measured by how hard you can hit. It’s measured by how faithfully you hold the line…and hold the line we must if we are to preserve what was once the single most influential democratic country in the world from becoming a full-blown fascist country. The signs are all there and the people of the Unites States of America must now stem the tide before this careening car wreck consumes their entire nation in flames.
Hold the Line
Raise the bar twas said
toward excellence and towards the light
But someone lifted it the other way
set it like a hurdle over the cliff
dared us to leap into the dark
Authoritarianism doesn’t march at first
It taps the glass
It checks the hinges
It learns the angle of your silence
how far a norm will bend before it twinges
Do it in daylight
Deny it
Laugh at outrage
Repeat
Each laugh erodes a little justice
Each repetition sands the grain
of what once held fast
You can see it
elections shrugged off like weather
violence treated as a rumor with jagged teeth
law bent into a friend’s warm blanket
a cold cudgel for the rest
Power redrafts its own borders
and calls the map inevitable
Impunity becomes a currency
It spends well on camera
Accountability turns optional
Rules become elastic
Truth negotiable for a fee
What needed secrecy now loves a spotlight
because the point is to watch you flinch
and flinch a little less tomorrow
Then comes the flood
Scandals
Lies
Conspiracies
Noise so thick your moral
Compass chokes
When everything is outrageous
Nothing is!
Indifference refines into apathy
A dull stone you hold in the mouth
until you forget it is there
Language curdles
Enemies
Traitors
Hateful people
War-words for neighbors
Call it security or call it order
destroy the seal on common sense
Swallow extreme like medicine
Legalism arrives in its clean shirt
Technically, it purrs,
Technically
Courts praised when they bow
Damned when they don’t
Checks hollowed
Balances re-weighed
Edges stretched
…then erased
And in the moral inversion
Loyalty over law,
Strength over integrity,
The oath-breaker is “tough”
the oath-keeper is “weak”
This is the new bar for brazenness
Ratcheting one click at a time
So each next wrong feels adjacent
But the sum of small surrenders
Builds a scaffold
You didn’t mean to climb
What do we do?
We the People must
Name it!
Refuse the dopamine of euphemism!
Judge by the due process
Not the pejorative performance
Back the boring work that keeps us free
Remember:
A republic’s strength
is not a single will
but millions choosing the rule of rules
over the rule of one
Hold the line!
Say it again: hold the line!
Raise the bar
Back to where it belongs:
Better ideas
Better governance
Better character
Lift it with both hands
before authoritarianism’s flames
Consumes us all! Bio: Brian Sankarsingh is a poetic firebrand, a sharp, thoughtful storyteller who walks the crossroads where Caribbean folklore, social justice, and the human condition collide. He is a truth-seeker who questions political tribes, challenges lazy platitudes, and writes with a deep pulse of empathy, always pushing for nuance whether you're exploring grief, cultural identity, or the monsters that haunt cane fields and hearts alike. He blends advocacy and art seamlessly. He is part historian, part philosopher, part bard, driven by a hunger to illuminate overlooked stories and empower marginalized voices.
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