Thank you - a hinge moment for everyone, so outrageous, your analysis helps keep me focused and aware and I hope I would speak up if I witnessed that, we have to keep shouting for justice -
Well for what its worth... as a former college instructor... I've used that rhetorical framework before...
In international relations, there is this idea called "the levels of analysis" - structural, institutional, and individual. Depending on your primary dogmatic approach, you typically stay at one of the three levels... Realists are structural, Liberal/Neo-institutionalists are institutional, and Constructionists tend to focus on individuals.
When I would teach the levels, I would use this "but for" storytelling to make clear to them how these levels worked. But for the final bullet in the Civil War, Lincoln would have continued as President, Andrew Johnson would have remained Vice, and we wouldn't get the statement, "This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a government for white men."
But for the wobbly chair, the Mayor of Chicago lives, FDR dies, and John Nance Garner becomes President, thereby ensuring the US is crippled during the Great Depression (Keynes would have never had a platform), and the Nazis run wild at the end of the 1930s.
But for the purge of the generals, Stalin is much better position to fight the Nazis, and possibly reaches Berlin, in FORCE, and without Potsdam, ahead of the Allies, and the Cold War forever is changed.
But for the fact that the Founders were men of nobility, largely Freemasons, and imbued with the spirit of the Enlightenment, we get the greatest two documents since Magna Carta...
The Declaration of Independence
The Constitution of the United States
If they had instead been the British Aristocrats and autocrats largely present in the British elite at that time. America would have negotiated an arrangement by which we were licensing our freedom in the form of exports to Britain... there might have been a bloodless separation... and America would look like France most likely... a parliament that came about after a bloody civil war and resolution to end oligarchy...
... it goes on...
This is why I say we are presently living in the "Man in the High Castle," world... if you've ever read that book by Phillip Dick... if not, I don't recommend reading it now... it will read more like a non-fiction historical text. :P
This is one of the most honest and necessary pieces I’ve ever read about the grief of preparing to leave—not just a country, but a story we once believed with our whole hearts.
I felt this in my bones: “It’s not like you suddenly hate your country. That would be easier, honestly.” Yes. It’s so much harder to walk away from something you still love. Something that raised you. Something that taught you its own mythology and then failed to live up to it.
And the metaphor of grief before the plane ticket? Before the passport paperwork? That’s exactly where I’ve been. Caught between disbelief and preparation. Hoping it’s paranoia. Knowing it’s probably prescience.
There’s a kind of slow horror in this memo that’s more chilling than headlines. Because it’s not dramatized. It’s procedural. Quiet. Incremental. Legal-adjacent, but soul-disqualifying. That’s what makes it so dangerous—and so easy to ignore.
What struck me hardest: “Each one more tolerable than the last. Until the line is gone.” That line isn’t metaphor. It’s muscle memory being erased in real time. It’s the body forgetting what resistance feels like.
This isn’t a memo about immigration. It’s a wake-up call about how anyone who falls outside the line of convenience—racially, politically, or ideologically—can be rendered “them.” And once that line blurs, “us” is just a matter of time.
So mystifying to realize that those in power at this time (or the shadowy figures behind them) are going after the provisions of the New Deal, which was the biggest thing that contributed to the leveling of our society, erasing the specter of poverty for most of the nation, and making our prosperity the envy of the world. Even the reddest red-neck of my father’s southern family recognized those facts over the past 80+ years, and honestly tried to persuade their peers of it. I have the “receipts” to prove it. Zoning law, equal “playing fields” to protect against the unfair advantage of big business, taxpayer supported medical care….
Here in Italy we must study in school at 13 years the rise of fascism. The point of no return was when Mussolini took "responsibility" for the murder of a political opponent, Giacomo Matteotti. If tomorrow AOC were killed, Trump say "by my hand" amid applause, run away. Run away as soon as possible.
Hard to imagine this is the USA and not some 3rd world nation. Trump/musk need long prison terms.
Eye re-opening
Thank you - a hinge moment for everyone, so outrageous, your analysis helps keep me focused and aware and I hope I would speak up if I witnessed that, we have to keep shouting for justice -
Thank you! This needs to be in textbooks.
Well for what its worth... as a former college instructor... I've used that rhetorical framework before...
In international relations, there is this idea called "the levels of analysis" - structural, institutional, and individual. Depending on your primary dogmatic approach, you typically stay at one of the three levels... Realists are structural, Liberal/Neo-institutionalists are institutional, and Constructionists tend to focus on individuals.
When I would teach the levels, I would use this "but for" storytelling to make clear to them how these levels worked. But for the final bullet in the Civil War, Lincoln would have continued as President, Andrew Johnson would have remained Vice, and we wouldn't get the statement, "This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a government for white men."
https://www.thelongmemo.com/p/do-we-really-wanna-go-back-to-dixie
But for the wobbly chair, the Mayor of Chicago lives, FDR dies, and John Nance Garner becomes President, thereby ensuring the US is crippled during the Great Depression (Keynes would have never had a platform), and the Nazis run wild at the end of the 1930s.
But for the purge of the generals, Stalin is much better position to fight the Nazis, and possibly reaches Berlin, in FORCE, and without Potsdam, ahead of the Allies, and the Cold War forever is changed.
But for the fact that the Founders were men of nobility, largely Freemasons, and imbued with the spirit of the Enlightenment, we get the greatest two documents since Magna Carta...
The Declaration of Independence
The Constitution of the United States
If they had instead been the British Aristocrats and autocrats largely present in the British elite at that time. America would have negotiated an arrangement by which we were licensing our freedom in the form of exports to Britain... there might have been a bloodless separation... and America would look like France most likely... a parliament that came about after a bloody civil war and resolution to end oligarchy...
... it goes on...
This is why I say we are presently living in the "Man in the High Castle," world... if you've ever read that book by Phillip Dick... if not, I don't recommend reading it now... it will read more like a non-fiction historical text. :P
Your analyses are the best. Thank you for your amazing work.
LOL! Thanks. Tell your friends. :D
secret police have been doing this to Black people for 200 years.
its nothing new.
This is one of the most honest and necessary pieces I’ve ever read about the grief of preparing to leave—not just a country, but a story we once believed with our whole hearts.
I felt this in my bones: “It’s not like you suddenly hate your country. That would be easier, honestly.” Yes. It’s so much harder to walk away from something you still love. Something that raised you. Something that taught you its own mythology and then failed to live up to it.
And the metaphor of grief before the plane ticket? Before the passport paperwork? That’s exactly where I’ve been. Caught between disbelief and preparation. Hoping it’s paranoia. Knowing it’s probably prescience.
Thank you for writing this.
There’s a kind of slow horror in this memo that’s more chilling than headlines. Because it’s not dramatized. It’s procedural. Quiet. Incremental. Legal-adjacent, but soul-disqualifying. That’s what makes it so dangerous—and so easy to ignore.
What struck me hardest: “Each one more tolerable than the last. Until the line is gone.” That line isn’t metaphor. It’s muscle memory being erased in real time. It’s the body forgetting what resistance feels like.
This isn’t a memo about immigration. It’s a wake-up call about how anyone who falls outside the line of convenience—racially, politically, or ideologically—can be rendered “them.” And once that line blurs, “us” is just a matter of time.
So mystifying to realize that those in power at this time (or the shadowy figures behind them) are going after the provisions of the New Deal, which was the biggest thing that contributed to the leveling of our society, erasing the specter of poverty for most of the nation, and making our prosperity the envy of the world. Even the reddest red-neck of my father’s southern family recognized those facts over the past 80+ years, and honestly tried to persuade their peers of it. I have the “receipts” to prove it. Zoning law, equal “playing fields” to protect against the unfair advantage of big business, taxpayer supported medical care….
Like the actor girl from Canada, whose visa was revoked and she was pulled into some detention cage for 3 days.
Any other time any other administration? All of this would be illegal, and somebody would be in jail.
Powerful line: "Until the line is gone. And no one knows exactly when they crossed it." That line feels very close right now. Thanks for writing this.
Here in Italy we must study in school at 13 years the rise of fascism. The point of no return was when Mussolini took "responsibility" for the murder of a political opponent, Giacomo Matteotti. If tomorrow AOC were killed, Trump say "by my hand" amid applause, run away. Run away as soon as possible.
And if the DNC wasn't so corrupt, we could've had Bernie as our President. It was because of their corruption, we ended up with an even more corrupt President than Clinton: https://tpcugrr.medium.com/where-have-you-gone-bernie-sanders-7d4e173cdf06
Excellent post!!!