Beginning Again
Free of Tyranny, in Montana and Beyond
Freedom House warns of the worldwide decline toward authoritarian rule. This trend coincides with unprecedented levels of wealth concentration and ecological devastation globally. In this essay (4,200 words), I evaluate the 2023 Montana Legislative Session currently underway as a microcosm of the broader authoritarian drift. And I pose constructive pathways toward freedom and Democracy throughout.
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Beginning Again: Free of Tyranny in Montana and Beyond
I. Free as Responsibility
II. Free as Praxis
III. Free as True
IV. Free in Union
V. Interdependent and Free
“Not everything is lost. Responsibility cannot be lost, it can only be abdicated. When one refuses abdication, one begins again.” — James Baldwin
“At root human existence involves surprise, questioning and risk. And because of all this, it involves actions and change.” — Paolo Friere
I. Free as Responsibility
Nearing two-thirds of the way through Montana’s 2023 Legislative session, contrasting visions emerge. One focuses on local challenges and proposes durable, evidence-based solutions: $500 million to an affordable housing trust; new funding models for mental health and addiction treatment; enriching cultural education to deepen social Union. Supermajorities of people in Montana share this vision of Democracy.
Elements of the legislative supermajority now in power, however, drift authoritarian: pushing for absolute, unquestionable control of society. We’re seeing proposals to restrict free expression in public life, along with others diverting public funds to private or religious schools. There are proposals diminishing individual privacy and bodily autonomy, forgoing medical evidence for cruel, scapegoat politics. Along with these, are proposals to weaken the people-power of popular initiatives and Unions. Constitutional amendments to corrupt the judiciary with partisan meddling.
Nearly identical bills appear in statehouses throughout the U.S. Most of them originating from an opaque network of national political organizations like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), The Alliance Defending Freedom, Americans for Prosperity, the Heritage Foundation, or the Judicial Crisis Network.
Though seemingly benign and trustworthy, these entities engage in sophisticated media campaigns, lobbying efforts, and bill drafting on behalf of their corporate funders. Difficult to trace and not made public until after elections (if disclosed at all), their funding sources are typically a blend of ultra-wealthy individuals and multinational entities like Chevron, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Altria, BNSF Railroad, Norfolk Southern, Koch Industries, and Charter Communications, among gangs of others. Consequently, the bills veer toward their own financial returns, regardless of the health and wellbeing, dignity and will, of people living in Montana.
Or, anywhere else for that matter. So, how do they win?
Authoritarians incite distrust and intolerance to advance their agenda of social exclusion and control. They trap life in zero-sum dualities, placing moral emphasis on enclosures: borders, gender binaries, social hierarchies, and mythical pasts. Seeing beyond this entrapped world, new, free worlds come into focus.
In Rehearsals for Living, Robyn Maynard distills the central tension between authoritarian and Democratic worlds:
There are two different visions of freedom at play here. One is the freedom to evade, to deny one’s responsibility to a collective social body; the other forwards a freedom that is relational, holds up freedom as collective safety.
Ultimately, our human connection and responsibility to one another, the Earth, and the future cannot be wished away or avoided, only abdicated. As we see, the consequences of abdication are grave: knowledge of truth and interdependence fades, health and social care systems deteriorate; warfare perpetuates, while life-sustaining, biodiverse ecologies collapse.
To refuse abdication, as James Baldwin insists, is to begin again. And to embrace the interdependent responsibilities of living, is to be free, in Democracy.
II. Free as Praxis
In Democracy, we decide freely and openly how to govern ourselves. Such a tradition is not possible without common truth and mutual trust. Critical education bridges these aspirations of universal freedom into genuine practice by openly pursuing truth wherever it leads. To take and keep power, then, authoritarians must constantly undermine the trust upon which life and Democracy depend.
They flatten life’s fluid beauty into hollow entrapments of “us” and “them,” displacing truth and context with paranoia and outrage. Beware, Timothy Synder counsels:
To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.1
The fervor against Critical Race Theory (CRT), antiracist education, and so-called “wokeism” exemplifies their efforts to displace truth and conserve corporate dominion of society. 203 government agencies across the U.S. have introduced 619 measures banning “Critical Race Theory” (CRT) since September of 2020. Behind this campaign is a network of ultrawealthy individuals and conservative legal groups like the Judicial Crisis Network. It does not matter what CRT is or what being “woke” means, their goal is to incite racial resentment and retain power.
An Orwellian insight echoes here: “If one is to rule, and to continue ruling, one must be able to dislocate the sense of reality.”
These efforts to dislocate reality sometimes materialize through censorship, thinly veiled as parental rights. In Montana, House Bill 234 would broaden obscenity laws to potentially criminalize circulation of stories including LGBTQI+ youth, or those recounting the experience and legacy of slavery and colonialism. Another proposal to outlaw diversity, equity, and inclusion seminars in schools and public workplaces moves forward. Testifying against this bill, Bozeman equity consultant Meshayla Cox wove together past, present, and future:
If we’re unwilling to be brave enough to look at the past for ways to improve our future, I worry for a lot more than just this bill’s passage. It is the responsibility of this body to ensure Montana’s future. That future must be inclusive, it must be brave, and it must be based on an accurate telling of Montana’s history.
In support of restrictions on information and learning, political actors decry antiracism as the real racism. Last year, Montana Attorney General wrote to the state’s Superintendent of Public Instruction characterizing antiracist and critical race studies as discriminatory because they exclude “individuals who merely advocate for the neutral legal principles of the Constitution.” Setting aside the AG’s lawless defiance of Montana Supreme Court Orders, an honest assessment of the historical record shows those principles he invokes have never applied neutrally.
American law segregated and excluded based on skin color until the Civil and Voting Rights Acts in the mid-1960s. At which point, a new reactionary politics of backlash took root. Critical race studies simply consider and deconstruct the embedded practices, both individual and institutional, of this authoritarian legacy. They do not conclude, as some suggest, that White people are inherently evil or irredeemably racist, nor is their purpose to instill shame. Instead, they critically explore questions like: why do American schools remain so highly segregated? Why does the average White household have ten times as much wealth as the average Black household? Why are Black and Indigenous people so much more criminalized than White people?
What is Black and what is White anyway?
We’ve inherited socioeconomic relationships attached to different skin hues. But the underlying notion “there was a certain innate, objective, biological feature sorting humanity into groups,” something such as skin color, is demonstrably false. The Human Genome Project confirmed in 2003 that “humans are 99.9 percent identical at the DNA level and there is no genetic basis for race.”
Race as we understand it today gained material force through law. “Race theory,” Tamim Ansary writes, “provided the basis for reducing those others to lesser status and justifying the privileges of the people wielding power.”
That is to say: “race” is a social construction for power and nothing more. Cultural norms sustained this racial hierarchy, law and geography reinforced it, and authoritarians routinely generate backlash against struggles to repair it. Today they do so by condemning “wokeism” without ever defining the term.
Of course, there is no danger in open, honest, relational practices of learning. The danger is in lawmakers suppressing knowledge and its free, open pursuit. As their efforts intensify, recall this from historians Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer:
A history that seeks to exalt a nation’s strengths without examining its shortcomings, that values feeling good over thinking hard, that embraces simplistic celebration over complex understanding, isn’t history; it’s propaganda.
By disfiguring truth and history into myth and propaganda, authoritarians produce obedient, docile citizens—distrustful of one another and therefore “structurally obliged to enter the workforce without bargaining power.”2 We empower ourselves by fearlessly asking questions of everything. Thinking critically is thinking freely because it is animated only by the desire to know and understand how life works.3
Paolo Friere saw this open pursuit of knowledge as the praxis of liberation:
Knowledges emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.
Some Montana lawmakers are making proposals in this democratic spirit. One bill would provide for comprehensive personal health, sexual health, and safety education. Another would establish accountability measures for schools to fulfill Montana’s unique Constitutional mandate of Indian Education for All. And Senate Bill 141 would have recognized Indigenous People’s Day in Montana, perhaps encouraging deeper reflection into myth, history, and inheritance. This bill was quickly tabled, though thirty-nine people testified in favor and none in opposition.
Another good bill would localize protections of the federal Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 in Montana. The federal law, which is currently facing a corporate challenge before the U.S. Supreme Court, ended the U.S. government policies of child removal and Indian Boarding Schools that endured for decades, and were intended to eliminate Native people from the continent. But they are still here.
Thinking and learning beyond the authoritarian’s black and white world, we find a more thorough, nuanced perspective of our past and present. This vision brings futures of unity, not uniformity, into focus. We bring these futures to life through creative, relational pursuits of knowledge. Perhaps it feels insecure to question everything we thought we knew about ourselves. But freedom lives in truth.
III. Free as True
If Democracy is harmony with self and whole, then a Democratic future is one where all are safe to determine and actualize. Free to be curious and creative, to experiment and grow. This power of self-determination begins with the ability to control one’s physical body, free of police-state intrusion or interference.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, and Intersex people (LGBTQI+) live in bodies transcending rigid sex and gender binaries. Their being poses existential threats to authoritarian rule, which is why we’re seeing them scorned and scapegoated. Tyrants vilify them as groomers, deviants, and demons, aggravating violence toward people already four times more likely to be victims of violent crime than cisgender folks.
In recent years, state lawmakers throughout the U.S. have proposed at least 150 bills targeting trans and queer people. Among these, are various bans on drag performances in public places. Proponents argue these bans protect children, ignoring the fact that firearms are the leading cause of death for children in the U.S. In Montana, a young Republican lawmaker proposed such a ban just days after a shooter at a drag performance in Colorado killed five and injured 17 people.
Authoritarian politics is not about safety, but about power and control. While trans people are the latest scapegoat, they will not be the last. There will always be an “other” to deflect outrage. chiara francesca distilled this point:
dehumanizing queer people has become a tool for the right to gain political power by making queerness a scapegoat and queer people an enemy to rally against, just like immigrants are used as scapegoats, or poor people, or others who the system can point the finger to as a way to deflect the real anger and suffering felt by so many who are struggling to survive and afraid for the future.
Sex, gender, and life are far more complex and ambiguous than current cultural norms appreciate and enforce. Of course, authoritarians are not interested in truth. Under their rule, there is no room for ambiguity. Senate Bill 458 creates a reductive, binary definition of “sex,” writing those who don’t fit, outside the protection of Montana law. Such legislative action is violent, unconstitutionally discriminatory, and biologically inaccurate. Modern research shows, “people can have XXY, XYY, X, XXX, or other combinations of chromosomes—all of which can result in a variety of sex characteristics.”
Compounding this harm, Senate Bill 99 will penalize providers of youth gender and life-affirming care. Though violating widely accepted standards of care and medical evidence, this proposal is justified by fears of those transitioning later regretting their decision. However, as Erin Reed reports, “the actual detransition rate among trans youth is only 2.5% — and many of these who do detransition do so because of lack of acceptance rather than because they are ‘not trans.’” In fact, over 50 percent of trans and non-binary youth in the U.S. considered suicide in 2022. Experts believe House Bill 361, which would allow students to deadname or misgender their classmates, will only worsen the acute crises trans and non-binary youth experience.
In committee hearings, far more people spoke in opposition to these bills than in favor. Opponents are people from Montana, believing all should live safe and free; with agency and dignity. Proponents, more often, are representatives of national organizations like the Heritage Foundation and the Alliance Defending Freedom, who consider these attacks on transgender people “a political winner.”
These anti-trans bills, like bills stripping people of reproductive freedoms, violate the privacy and dignity of the people targeted. Of the several openly trans state legislators in the U.S., Montana’s first openly trans women now serves in its 68th post-colonial legislative session. Representative Zooey Zepher stands, living in defiance of those colleagues who seek to deny her existence in law.
Her determination shines toward a world where all are safe and free. I stand proudly in solidarity with her and commit to listening and learning with curiosity and humility. Only when all are safe and free, can anyone truly be.
IV. Free in Union
Most sessions in Montana, proposals for “right-to-work” (RTW) laws reappear. Far from conferring the right to a job, the bill makes it illegal to negotiate a labor contract that includes “fair share fees.” Under RTW laws, workers enjoying the Union contract’s benefits would not have to pay their fair share of the costs to negotiate it. Though promoted with language of freedom and prosperity, the policy’s effect for working people is the opposite.
According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), union and non-union workers alike are paid an average of 3.1 percent less in states with RTW laws. Applying this pay penalty to a typical full-time worker in Montana, EPI calculates RTW would result in “a $1,143 loss in annual earnings.” That’s why, working people, unions, and labor advocates in Montana and beyond refer to these laws as “right to work for less.”
Here again, most all proponents of RTW have some affiliation with national political organizations like Americans for Prosperity, the National Right to Work Committee, and Montana Citizens for Right to Work (a front group for the national organization). The bills do not even seem to be drafted by the legislators proposing them. As Montana Free Press reports, the RTW proposals in Montana “derive their language largely from model legislation circulated by well-funded conservative advocacy groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council, more commonly known as ALEC.”
Indeed, it is no coincidence that laws scapegoating trans and queer people, laws defunding public education, and those weakening union power originate from the same powerful networks. As we push toward genuine Democracy, we need to recognize these laws and media campaigns as interrelated ploys to divide and disempower people. Transgender, Two-Spirit, and Intersex people pose no inherent threat to our lives. Not like expensive medicine does; nor like oil spills, chemical dumps, or carbon pollution do. And they do not threaten our material well-being like private equity landlords, food monopolies, or deregulated banks do either. Realizing this, we begin again: forging new solidarities and leading freer, more fulfilling lives.
Unions are essential to this struggle for Democracy because they “bring together workers from different ethnic and religious backgrounds and across gender identity and sexual orientation in common goals—cooperating to bargain for a better deal,” as Jason Stanley writes. Precisely for this reason, authoritarians work to crush them.
Even so, working Montanans rallied recently at the State Capitol to overwhelmingly oppose and successfully defeat RTW legislation—just as they did in the previous session. This direct-action echoes Montana’s deep history of people-powered Union. By organizing strikes and drafting popular initiatives, Montanans have long worked to ensure government transparency, accountability, and responsiveness to real life needs.
The relationships formed in these struggles for dignity are the seeds of genuine Democracy. They embody a common pledge of solidarity, balancing personal freedoms and collective responsibilities to form harmonious and lasting Union.
V. Interdependent and Free
In many ways, Montana’s Constitution of 1972 apexes this people-powered struggle for free, dignified lives. Memorializing a pact among people and place, it prescribes a forward-thinking, transparent system of interdependent checks and balances. These checks, however, are not self-effectuating. Institutions do not preserve themselves. For Democracy to live and endure, all people must act with good faith and integrity.
Conflicts are bound to arise. But Democracy decays without common commitment to truth. We lose power when we lose trust. Cynical spectacle displaces constructive dialogue. Wealth and power concentrate and dominate. In Democracy May Not Exist, but We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone, Astra Taylor describes how this plays out in Congress:
Political gridlock, corruption, unaccountable representatives, and the lack of meaningful alternatives incense people across the ideological spectrum; their anger simmers at dehumanizing bureaucracy, blatant hypocrisy, and lack of voice. Leaders are not accountable, and voters rightly feel their choices are limited all while the rich keep getting richer and regular people scramble to survive.
Even amidst this corrupt circus, there exists overwhelming consensus among people. A survey performed by the Carr Center for Human Rights found 93 percent of Americans consider the right to clean air and water “an essential right important to being an American today.” Likewise, 92 percent consider a quality education; 93 percent consider protection of personal data; 89 percent consider affordable health care; and 85 percent consider a job to be among these essential rights as well.
Yet, as a multivariate analysis Testing Theories of American Politics concludes:
economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.
This financial dominance of politics coincides with unprecedented levels of wealth concentration. At a global scale, eight men own as much wealth as half of the world. And Oxfam reported recently: the richest one percent grabbed nearly two-thirds of all new wealth created since 2020—nearly twice as much as the bottom 99 percent of the world’s population. Nationally, Astra Taylor distills, “American democracy cannot survive, it cannot even credibly exist, when the top 1 percent of households owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined, as it does today.”
Through it all, Montanans seem to agree: society and the economy should be run Democratically to meet human needs in a changing world. Fifty-seven percent agree our surplus federal monies should be used for affordable housing, targeted relief of homeowners and renters, and fully funding childcare, mental health services, and public education. Moreover, six-of-ten Montanans believe abortions should be legal in all or many circumstances. And seven-of-ten do not believe public monies should fund private or religious schools. Yet prevailing budget proposals forgo these priorities, favoring one-time property tax rebates, private prison contracts, and only partial funding for Medicaid health programs.
A whole two-thirds of Montanans oppose amending the state’s Constitution.4 Nevertheless, various proposed changes to it move through the Legislature now. Of particular concern are those amendments that would corrupt independent, nonpartisan institutions with partisan control. Among them, Universities, Independent Redistricting Commissions, and the Judiciary. One such amendment would end Montana Supreme Court elections, giving the governor the power to appoint Supreme Court justices instead. Another change would exclude abortion from Montana’s expansive right of privacy. More proposed changes are likely. If any receives a two-thirds legislative vote, it will appear on the ballot in November of 2024.
Other proposals from the legislative supermajority would have either permitted or required judges to run for election with partisan affiliations. House Bill 326 would grant political control over the body that reviews complaints of judicial misconduct. And Senate Bill 490 would broaden the Legislature’s investigative and subpoena powers. Each of these is bolstered by dishonest, unsupported accusations. As Jason Stanley explains, such conduct is common of fascist politics:
It is standard fascist politics for harsh criticisms of an independent judiciary to occur in the form of accusations of bias, a kind of corruption, critiques that are then used to replace independent judges with ones who will cynically employ the law as a means to protect the interests of the ruling party. […]
In the name of rooting out corruption and supposed bias, fascist politicians attack and diminish the institutions that might otherwise check their power.
To be clear, the purpose of these efforts is to weaken the power people have in their government. Perhaps Montana voters saw through this power-grab when re-electing incumbent Justices Gustafson and Rice to the Montana Supreme Court last cycle.
Still, the race between Gustafson and her openly partisan challenger attracted more money than any other in Montana history, with outside groups spending well over $3 million in the race. In general, special interests are spending more than ever in State Supreme Court races like Montana’s. A report published by The Brennan Center for Justice found spending in state court races for the 2019-20 election cycle totaled $97 million across 21 states. Offering stricter disclosure requirements and public financing of elections as potential solutions, the report concludes:
Our democracy faces existential threats, and state courts will be a crucial line of defense. Elected judges have been and will likely continue to be called on to stand up to legislators, governors, and even presidents seeking to consolidate their power. When those moments come, courts must be equipped to be independent from political and financial interests, and the public must be able to trust that they are.
At root, we deserve judges of integrity. Judges who make decisions faithful to the text and purpose of the Montana Constitution, free and independent of partisan meddling. But the work of Democracy does not rest solely in their hands. Democracy is a relationship that transcends the institutions framed in any Constitution. It is corporal and interpersonal. We practice it by relating with curiosity and kindness, patience and grace. Democracy is a collective endeavor by nature.
So too is freedom, as Astra Taylor reminds:
Freedom is not a state of independence but a state of interdependence, one in which our unique needs are met by the society in which we live, in order that we might all have a fair chance of flourishing.5
In Democracy, we embrace the interdependent responsibilities of living together. We know each individual matters as much as any other and should have a voice, which is more than just a periodic vote. Voice is power and purpose in destiny.
We can use our voice to speak with friends, family, and neighbors; or to join new groups and make new friends. We can use it to support public-powered, investigative journalism like the Montana Free Press (without which I could not have written this letter to you). Or we can use it contact our state representative, and even to testify during this session (in person or remotely—register to do so at this link).
We can also use our voice without saying anything at all: simply by making eye contact, smiling, and reciprocating the light of another. Or by reflecting on, before reacting to new information. Never obeying in advance. But trusting in one another most of all. Supermajorities of us already do.
Thank you for reading. Please comment your thoughts and reflections, and share with friends. This will always be free. If you wish to sustain the work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber or gifting a subscription to someone you love for $30 a year.
Thank you to Madeleine Brink for her crucial help with this essay.
Timothy Synder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (2017)
Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (2018), pg. 49.
bell hooks, Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom (2010), pg. 7.
See Middle Fork Strategies, Key Findings from a Statewide Survey of 2024 Likely Voters, (Feb. 27, 2023).
Astra Taylor, Democracy May Not Exist, But We’ll Miss It When it’s Gone (2019), ch. 1.
Thanks for your thoughtfulness and thorough research.