Desensitized to the Unthinkable: When Shock Stops Working

Written by: Amel Mohdali

There is something more dangerous than overt authoritarianism.

It is the normalization of it.

We are living in a moment where state violence, constitutional violations, and democratic

backsliding no longer produce sustained outrage. Instead, they produce headlines, then scrolls,

then silence. The machinery keeps moving. And we are expected to move on.

Desensitization is not accidental. It is strategic.

When immigration raids expand, when police kill without accountability, when protest is

criminalized, when books are banned, when citizenship itself becomes conditional, each incident

is framed as isolated. A mistake. A rogue officer. A misunderstanding. A bureaucratic error. But

patterns tell the truth.

Historically, Black Americans have always understood that state power expands outward from

the margins. Surveillance, over-policing, voter suppression, redlining, mass incarceration, these

are not glitches in the American system. They are mechanisms and these mechanisms were

tested on Black communities long before they reached others. Black life has functioned as the

testing ground where the state learns what it can get away with, how little outrage is required,

and how quickly the public can be trained to accept what used to be unthinkable.

Now we are witnessing something different, and yet familiar. When enforcement regimes begin

targeting people who once assumed immunity, naturalized citizens, U.S.-born citizens,

individuals previously insulated by class or proximity to whiteness, the shock is louder. The

outrage is sharper. The disbelief is public. Why? Because desensitization works differently

depending on who is harmed. For generations, violence against Black bodies was normalized. It

was rationalized. It was explained away. The expectation was that Black Americans would

endure it quietly or respond “appropriately.” Grieve without disrupting. Protest without

demanding structural change. Be outraged, but not too outraged.

Now that state power appears willing to consume even those historically considered secure

within it, the narrative shifts from indifference to alarm. But this is not a new system. It is an

expanding one. Authoritarianism does not begin by targeting the powerful. It begins by targeting

the vulnerable. It tests boundaries. It observes public reaction. It adjusts accordingly. And when

the reaction is muted, or divided, it widens. The desensitization is the point. When every week

brings a new constitutional crisis, a new deportation story, a new instance of lethal force, a new

attack on civil liberties, the public becomes overwhelmed. Outrage fatigue sets in. People retreating to private life. Survival becomes individualized. And that fragmentation is what allows power

to consolidate.

Black Americans are often told that responding strongly is “divisive.” That speaking clearly

about patterns is “extreme.” That connecting dots is “overreacting.” But historical memory is not

extremism. It is survival. We recognize what escalation looks like because we have lived through

its earlier versions. We know that once the state normalizes entering homes without warrants,

suspending rights under emergency language, or redefining citizenship through administrative

maneuvers, those powers do not remain contained. The expectation that we should not react, that

we should not analyze, organize, or speak, is itself a political demand. It asks for compliance

masked as calm.

Desensitization is not peace. It is exhaustion. And exhaustion benefits the powerful.

After the election, that exhaustion turned into something raw in many Black political spaces. Exit

polls reflected a familiar pattern: overwhelming Black voter support for Vice President Kamala

Harris, and lower support amongst other racial groups that many Black voters expected or

believed was promised through coalition rhetoric. For some, it felt like a replay of a cycle Black

people know too well: show up, organize, mobilize, vote cohesively, then watch the broader

coalition fracture when it matters most.

The response online was immediate and emotional. If we are always expected to show up for

everyone else’s issues, immigration, reproductive rights, democracy, labor rights, LGBTQ

protections, but the solidarity is not reciprocal, why should we continue carrying that weight?

It is not indifference. It is exhaustion.

For generations, Black Americans have functioned as the moral and organizational backbone of

multiracial democratic coalitions. From Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement to modern

voter mobilization, Black communities have repeatedly defended democratic norms, even when

democracy did not fully defend them. So when broader support wavers in moments of high

stakes, the instinct to withdraw feels rational. But here is the paradox: withdrawal may feel

protective. History suggests it is not.

This is where the warning from Martin Niemöller becomes more than a quote, it becomes a map

of how repression spreads:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a trade

unionist.Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.

Niemöller was reflecting on Nazi Germany and the danger of selective outrage. The pattern was

simple: repression expanded incrementally. Many believed they were safe because they did not

belong to the first targeted group. But authoritarian power does not stop once it tastes silence.

The moral of the poem is not simply about compassion. It is about self-preservation. When one

group is isolated, it becomes easier to dismantle their rights. When coalitions fracture, power

consolidates. And once institutions are weakened enough, protection evaporates for everyone.

Political theorist Hannah Arendt warned that totalitarianism does not arrive fully formed. It

develops through normalization. In The Origins of Totalitarianism, she observed that “the ideal

subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for

whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.” The erosion of

shared reality, she argued, precedes the erosion of rights. When truth becomes unstable, rights

become negotiable.

Similarly, historian Timothy Snyder, writing in On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth

Century, cautions that modern democracies rarely collapse overnight. They decline when citizens

adapt to small changes. “Do not obey in advance,” he writes, emphasizing that authoritarian

systems depend on voluntary compliance before coercion becomes necessary. The most powerful

accelerant of repression is not always force. It is anticipation. It is when people silence

themselves before being silenced.

The United States today is not yet Nazi Germany, but history does not require identical repetition

to issue a warning.

In early Nazi Germany, repression did not begin with mass extermination. It began with selective

enforcement. With public humiliation. With journalists dismissed or arrested for dissent. With

professors removed from universities. With arrests justified under emergency powers after the

Reichstag Fire. With laws framed as necessary for national security and public order. With

people removed from public life because of who they were, Jewish, political dissidents, trade

unionists, not because of crimes they committed.

The most chilling feature was not how dramatic it looked at first.

It was how bureaucratic it felt.

Civil liberties were suspended through decrees. Professional bans were implemented through

legislation. Newspapers were closed through regulatory mechanisms. Universities were purgedthrough administrative orders. Everything was stamped, filed, legalized, processed. Repression

did not initially look chaotic. It looked procedural.

That is why parallels must be examined carefully but honestly.

So when we see people detained based on appearance, accent, perceived immigration status,

religion, or political activity, it is not hysteria to ask questions. When law enforcement expands

the practice of stopping individuals in public spaces based on suspicion tied to identity rather

than individualized evidence, it is historically responsible to examine patterns. When emergency

language is used to justify the erosion of due process, when executive power expands under

crisis framing, when journalists are publicly delegitimized, when educators face pressure for

teaching certain histories, when people are arrested off the streets without transparency, when

categories of belonging become politicized, those are not neutral developments.

They are warning signs.

Authoritarianism does not require camps on day one. It requires normalization on day one. It

requires enough citizens to believe that the people being detained probably deserve it. It requires

enough people to assume the erosion will remain selective. It requires fragmentation.

And once fragmentation takes hold, the machinery no longer asks whether it is fair.

It asks only whether it can continue.

That is why Niemöller’s reflection remains urgent. Not because history repeats identically, but

because the mechanics of repression, incremental expansion, bureaucratic justification, selective

targeting, public fatigue, have appeared before. The question is not whether we are reliving 1933.

The question is whether we recognize how democratic erosion begins, and whether we refuse to

normalize it before it deepens.

Authoritarianism does not require camps on day one. It requires incremental acceptance. It

requires a public willing to believe that the people being taken were probably guilty. It requires

enough citizens to think, “This does not concern me.”

That is why Niemöller’s reflection remains haunting. Not because America is a replica of 1930s

Germany, but because the mechanism of repression he described is universal.

Authoritarian systems begin by identifying “others.” They test whether the public will defend

them. If the defense is weak, the circle of vulnerability expands.When repression begins with immigrants, protestors, queer communities, racial minorities, or

political dissidents, many assume it will remain contained. But once institutions are weakened,

the machinery does not ask who you voted for. It does not ask your income bracket. It does not

ask your race.

It asks only whether it can proceed.

And when coalitions fracture, the answer becomes yes.

The question is not whether we are Nazi Germany.

The question is whether we are paying attention to the early mechanics that history has already

taught us to recognize.

Because history rarely repeats itself identically.

But it often rhymes.

Authoritarian drift does not only reveal itself in policing or immigration enforcement. It also

shows up in how a society responds to elite corruption.

The case of Jeffrey Epstein exposed a network of wealth, power, and sexual exploitation that

reached into political, financial, and academic institutions. Epstein was convicted of sex crimes

involving minors. Court documents, flight logs, and testimony revealed that powerful individuals

associated with him socially and professionally. His 2008 plea deal raised serious questions

about prosecutorial discretion and institutional protection. His death in federal custody in 2019

intensified public distrust and left unresolved questions about accountability.

For a brief moment, outrage was widespread. People across the political spectrum demanded

transparency. There was a collective recognition that something deeply corrupt had been

operating within elite circles.

And then something else happened.

We moved on.

Not because every victim received justice. Not because every powerful figure connected to him

was fully investigated. Not because systemic reforms were completed. We moved on because

scandal fatigue set in. Because the news cycle accelerated. Because public attention shifted.That normalization is part of the same pattern.

In a healthy democracy, documented sexual exploitation involving powerful figures produces

sustained institutional reckoning. It triggers reform. It forces transparency. It reshapes systems of

accountability. In a fragile democracy, scandal becomes a spectacle. It becomes a partisan debate.

It becomes content. It becomes absorbed into background noise.

When society begins to treat elite corruption and trafficking of minors as just another headline,

something deeper is shifting. The moral baseline moves. Outrage becomes episodic instead of

sustained. The unacceptable becomes survivable.

Hannah Arendt warned that the erosion of shared reality precedes the erosion of rights. When

facts become politicized, when corruption is filtered through partisan allegiance instead of

ethical clarity, accountability weakens. Timothy Snyder cautions that authoritarian systems

depend on voluntary adaptation. When citizens adjust to each new breach of norms, power

expands without resistance.

The danger is not only the crime itself.

The danger is the adaptation to it.

If the public can absorb credible evidence of systemic sexual exploitation at elite levels and

return to business as usual, then desensitization is no longer theoretical. It is operational. It

means institutions can endure scandal without structural change. It means moral shock has a

short lifespan. It means corruption can coexist with stability.

And that is precisely how democratic erosion deepens, not always through dramatic collapse, but

through normalization.

It is understandable that some Black Americans, watching electoral data and political trends, feel

tempted to say: We will mind our own issues. Let others defend their own rights. After all,

history is full of moments where broader America was slow, or unwilling to defend Black life.

But authoritarian systems do not categorize oppression neatly. Immigration enforcement

expansion affects due process for citizens. Attacks on voting rights in one state set precedent for

others. Book bans aimed at one curriculum expand into broader censorship. Protest crackdowns

used against one movement become normalized against all dissent. Everything connects. The

infrastructure of repression does not remain contained to its original target.

There is a belief that struggles can be siloed. Immigration is “their” issue. Reproductive rights

are “their” issue. Labor protections are “their” issue. LGBTQ rights are “their” issue. Butstructurally, they share the same pressure points: control over bodies, control over movement,

control over labor, control over speech, control over political participation. When one set of

rights weakens, legal precedent weakens for all. And Black Americans, historically positioned at

the intersection of state power and vulnerability, are often among the first to feel institutional

shifts, even when those shifts originate elsewhere.

The lesson of Niemöller’s reflection is not abstract. When courts erode voting protections, Black

voters feel it. When law enforcement expands stop-and-search powers, Black communities feel

it. When citizenship is questioned administratively, Black immigrants and Afro-Latinos feel it.

When protest is criminalized, movements rooted in racial justice feel it. Even when repression

appears to begin elsewhere, the tools built to suppress can always be redirected. Authoritarian

governance depends on fragmentation, convincing groups that they are separate enough to

survive alone. But democracy survives through friction and coalition.

Supporting other communities’ rights should not require martyrdom. It should not require

ignoring harm directed at Black communities. It should not mean unequal labor or silence about

betrayal. But abandoning solidarity entirely misunderstands how power operates. Coalition is not

charity. It is defense architecture.

Black political thought has long understood this tension. From Frederick Douglass to Fannie Lou

Hamer to Ella Baker, the struggle was never framed as isolated grievance. It was framed as

systemic transformation, because systems do not discriminate in their eventual reach. The

frustration after the election is real. The hurt is real. The data is real. But the lesson of history is

also real: when people stop speaking for others because they feel unsupported, power does not

pause. It accelerates.

The deeper danger of desensitization is not simply that people stop reacting to injustice

happening to others. It is that they begin to believe injustice can remain selective. It rarely does.

The tools built to silence one community can always be recalibrated. And in the end, as

Niemöller warned, isolation leaves everyone vulnerable.

The question is not whether shock remains. The question is whether solidarity will.

Because once a system demonstrates that it can harm anyone, the illusion of hierarchy as

protection collapses. Power that is unconstrained by law or accountability does not protect

loyalty. It protects itself. The moment we are in is not about isolated incidents. It is about

whether we will allow normalization to replace resistance. Black Americans have always understood that democracy in this country has required pressure to

function. Every expansion of rights, voting rights, civil rights, labor protections, came not from

quiet endurance, but from organized insistence.

Desensitization is a political strategy. Refusal is a political act.

And history shows that when people recognize patterns early, they change outcomes.

The question is whether we will allow the scroll to replace the stand.