The Authoritarians Want Your Hopelessness—Don't Give It to Them

This summer, hundreds of volunteers have taken up positions as immigration court watchers at federal courthouses across the country. They sit quietly with immigrants awaiting hearings, gently explaining that masked ICE agents might detain them regardless of the outcome. They collect vital information, like names, phone numbers, and emergency contacts, becoming sometimes the only link between people who, as Tim Murphy has written for the Marshall Project, are "effectively disappeared" and the outside world. These volunteers witness unspeakable brutality but must practice stoicism, watching as people who showed up dutifully for routine hearings are led away by masked agents. This is radical hope in action, refusing to look away, showing up daily, practicing the discipline of resistance when the world feels hopeless.

This is what hope looks like in 2025: not empty words to soothe aching hearts, but clipboards and "know your rights" flyers tucked under neighbors' arms as they knock on doors, warning about escalating ICE activity and building community defense networks. It's the daily practice of refusing the despair that authoritarians need us to feel.

The Hopelessness Industrial Complex

We're eight months into watching an unabashed authoritarian takeover unfold, eight months of norms and democratic institutions unraveling before our eyes. Trump accepts bribes from foreign leaders while RFK undermines public health science. The opposition's inevitable despair has always been part of the flood-the-zone strategy of the right. And the Big Tech oligarchs who built the platforms where we spend most of our days have long ago resigned themselves to visions of hopeless futures for all of us.

Authoritarian takeover of democracy accelerates when the population feels hopeless, which is exactly why we must refuse that trap.

For themselves, they're building something different entirely. Elon Musk has been explicit about his plan: Mars colonization as a means to survive what he calls an "inevitable" extinction event on Earth. While the rest of us face an increasingly unlivable planet, SpaceX promises cities on Mars "with all the amenities, including iron foundries, pizza joints, you name it." These transhumanist tech oligarchs plan their escape routes over black-tie dinners with Trump in the White House while watching the world burn with wine glasses in hand.

Hopelessness makes money for tech platforms that profit from extreme content and division. Tech platforms have built an outrage-for-profit model that thrives on divisive content—a 2021 study found that posts leaning on political extremism were 67% more likely to be retweeted. These algorithms keep us trapped in apps, generating more money for oligarchs while keeping us perpetually outraged at each other. The hopelessness this creates maintains exactly the political polarization Trump needs to convince us we're each other's enemies instead of our greatest hopes.

We live in a world now where the algorithms can suffocate us with graphic images of public violence while barely acknowledging yet another school shooting (as of September 10^th, this was the 47^th school shooting this year). When we witnessed a deeply divisive act of political violence as right-wing political figure Charlie Kirk was shot on a college campus, rather than unifying us, Trump framed his response to further intensify division—without evidence claiming the extreme left was to blame. This is how authoritarians operate: they flourish when the population feels hopeless, turning even moments that could bring us together into tools for separation.

Trump peddles paranoia and fear because he knows how effective that is in separating us from one another. Despite evidence to the contrary—crime has been trending downward for decades—he tries to convince us that cities are dangerous and we should fear each other. Using these lies, he further erodes democratic norms as he militarizes our city streets responding to manufactured crises rather than meeting the needs of the community. Authoritarian takeover of democracy accelerates when the population feels hopeless, which is exactly why we must refuse that trap.

Critical Hope vs. Hokey Hope

Education scholar Jeff Duncan-Andrade draws a crucial distinction between what he calls "critical hope" and "hokey hope." Hokey hope is what you might have expected from this article's title—the meaningless "thoughts and prayers" that follow school shootings, the cruel lies about bootstraps and persistence that ignore the barriers in the way of survival. As Duncan-Andrade writes, hokey hope is actually the enemy of hope because it sedates us with false comfort.

Critical hope, by contrast, demands commitment to active struggle. It's what author and organizer Mariame Kaba means when she says "hope is a discipline." According to Kaba hope isn't an emotion. Hope is not optimism. The hope that she has written about is a grounded hope that is practiced every day. We actually practice it all the time.

Hope is something we generate, not something that settles on us like a ray of sunshine. It's grounded in the everyday and requires daily practice. When neighbors organize mutual aid networks to ensure community members know their constitutional rights, when communities refuse to let ICE terrorize them in isolation, when organizations mobilize to accompany people in court—this is hope being forged.

Kaba reminds us that hope doesn't preclude feeling sadness, frustration, or anger—emotions that make total sense given our circumstances. As she acknowledges, "in the world which we live in, it's easy to feel a sense of hopelessness, that everything is all bad all the time, that there is nothing going to change ever, that people are evil and bad at the bottom.” But radical hope is about believing in the potential for transformation and change, and practicing, actioning that belief every single day. It's about being of the world and in the world, not escaping to Mars or retreating into algorithmic bubbles designed to make us feel powerless.

Your Practice, Our Future

This is what I’ve been asking myself. How can I generate radical hope in my life? What is my daily practice that is working toward transformation? That’s what I want to ask you. How can you generate radical hope in your life? Can you start a study and struggle book club with neighbors and friends? Can you gather people to walk door-to-door sharing information about constitutional rights? Can you make sure people in your life are registered to vote and engaged in local elections?

The authoritarians and tech oligarchs are counting on our despair. They need us to believe transformation is impossible, that we should accept their visions of hopeless futures while they plan their escapes. Our radical hope—practiced daily, grounded in community, committed to active struggle—is the antidote to their strategy.

Despair is both understandable and not an option. The choice to refuse this hopeless vision of our future can be part of our strategy for the world we're fighting to build. What is your practice of hope? You don't need to feel hopeful to start, you need to start to generate hope. Pick one concrete action: door-to-door canvassing, flyering, voter registration drives, know-your-rights workshops, setting up a table to share resources. Hope is what emerges when you show up. Start now. Get others to join you.