We currently live in a world that is rapidly changing. And depending on where you stand, many would say it is for the worse. Long before the recent attacks on Iran, the prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney, made the observation at Davos in mid-January that we have moved beyond a transition to a “rupture,” suggesting that the old world order is gone or disintegrating, and it is time to think about a new one, demonstrating the importance of managing rupture. Similarly, the writer Masha Gessen observed that for a long time we have been in decline, and recently have begun to “fall off a cliff.”

For some time, many have wondered how to slow or hamper authoritarian impulses, and the incipient tyranny or established fascism that seems to be sweeping across the United States and the world. There is an emerging consensus, as reflected in these comments, that we have crossed that line, that we are no longer in an emerging, but in fact already within an authoritarian society, further demonstrating the need to manage rupture.

President Trump openly mused about canceling elections; about having the states’ rights to regulate elections “taken over” by the federal government, seemingly suggesting that the president would have his agents and appointees decide how to run or decide elections, even in blue states. By some accounts, Project 2025, with prevailing rhetoric, has been implemented more than 50 percent.

This is an amazing time, and a dangerous time necessitating managing rupture, and not just outside the United States. We see federal troops and ICE agents invading American cities, harassing and killing people on video. What is maybe even more amazing is that this is occurring with impunity, and the administration is defending it, even slandering the victims.

If we are in a time of rupture, if we are on the verge of falling off a cliff, and, in fact, not at the beginning, but within an established authoritarian order, what should our response be? What should we do differently to manage rupture?

One of the things to observe is that institutions and norms that we ordinarily expect to act as a break on impunity and violence and even meanness are not fully operating and sometimes not even operating at all. According to some reports, ICE agents have been secretly instructed to disregard the 4th Amendment. Trump and others within the administration wrongly maintain that non-citizens lack due process rights afforded by the 5th Amendment. And ICE officers seem to be defying the 1st Amendment. In one video, an ICE agent tells an American citizen observing their enforcement action that if they talk back, “I will erase your voice.” The Department of Justice may be covering up, rather than investigating, these crimes, necessitating managing rupture. And the Congress, especially the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, has failed to serve as a check on the executive branch’s overreach and lawlessness.

Read the full article about managing rupture and rapid change by John A. Powell at Othering & Belonging Institute.