Something fundamental has changed in America.

The protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd were not just about racial injustice. They exposed the truth that the US system relies on coercion, not consent.

The murders by ICE of people in Minneapolis is the latest evidence of this move towards a more authoritarian, fascistic phase, where the state must prioritise brutal coercive control over welfare.

For decades, the US maintained stability through a mix of economic promise and ideological persuasion — hegemony.

The “American Dream”, consumer culture, and the rhetoric of democratic ideals of a rules-based order worked to secure public consent. But as economic prosperity has dwindled for all but the ultra-rich, that consent has gone. The state then resorts to violence.

The colonial playbook comes home

Colonial powers like the UK, France and the USA developed their policing systems in their colonies and then imported them home.

The original US state police forces, for example, adopted tactics and systems used by the military to suppress resistance in the US colony of the Philippines. The UK police borrowed tactics from their colonial rule in India and Ireland.

The surveillance state adopted counter-terror technology developed during the War on Terror — with the active support of the tech giants. Now that surveillance is not only sold as consumer products (24-7 surveillance “fitness trackers” and AI-powered spy cameras for baby monitoring) but the technology used to spy on terror cells and drug cartels is being used to track immigrants and protestors.

Police departments across the US are deploying street-level counter-terror and counterinsurgency methods honed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Flashbangs, armoured vehicles, and militarised riot gear. These were tools for foreign battlefields and today they are used against citizens protesting in Minneapolis, LA or Portland.

The aggressive tactics used by ICE, initially against migrants, are now used more broadly. What they “got away with” in marginal communities, they now deploy against the general population, blurring the line between citizen and “enemy”.

This mirrors how colonial states treated their subjects — populations to be controlled and managed through violence.

The state as a private security firm

The shift is driven by economic realities. We live in a plutonomy — an economy structured to benefit the wealthiest 3000 global oligarchs. When the state serves this tiny elite, its primary function becomes protecting their assets and maintaining the status quo, even if it means suppressing dissent from the majority.

Every time a protest is suppressed, Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel profit. When immigrants are locked up in prison camps, private contractors and the hedge funds that finance them benefit.

Under neoliberalism, the state has slowly shed the rhetoric it used to maintain legitimacy — that governments’ responsibility was for the social welfare of the general populate. This has been openly replaced with cuts to public services, and the dismantling of even the pretence of democracy and accountability. States under capitalism have always been the managing committee of the affairs of the capitalist class.

Neoliberalism created a US population struggling to meet basic needs. When the state stops providing, it must start punishing.

The street-level violence committed by ICE against people in Minneapolis and elsewhere is evidence of this loss of legitimacy. The state can no longer lead by providing prosperity; it functions now as a domestic occupying force to maintain the authority of the Trump regime.

The mask of democracy

We should not be surprised. Capitalist societies maintain control through a “culture industry” that distracts and pacifies. Billionaires and corporate executives have tried to limit and constrain democracy since before the 1800s.

When that fails, the underlying authoritarianism becomes visible. The repressive tolerance of liberal democracy gives way to overt repression when the oligarchic system feels threatened.

The mechanisms meant to channel dissent (e.g., peaceful protest) are then met with overwhelming force, revealing the true limits of “free speech”.

This authoritarianism isn’t just about boots on the ground. There is a vast and growing privatised security state that profits from the violence. The neoliberal state naturally extends outsourcing from private prisons to tech firms like Palantir.

What’s next?

Recently I had a long conversation with a friend about the vicious cycle of violence in the US. The Trump regime responds to protests with even more violence, which further prompts greater resistance and protest. Some centrists and liberals in the US are calling for the protestors to stop, under the guise to trying to stop this cycle.

What we are seeing is not a series of isolated incidents. The violence and murder committed by ICE represents a systemic shift.

The Arab Spring showed the dictator’s dilemma — when states violently and brutally suppress protests, it radicalises people in the “middle” who see the blatant injustice of the state’s actions. The next protest is bigger, prompting greater violence and suppression by the state. Eventually, the state cannot survive.

The protests and strikes in the US aren’t going to go away. People will resist. Mutual aid will flourish in response to repression.

The US state treats its own people like colonial subjects. Military force is used against its citizens. Economic desperation is met with state violence. The violence long directed by the US at people of colour, immigrants and people in the Global South is now deployed against everyone.

It’s a journey into a coercive, fascistic phase where the state’s main role is to maintain power through any means necessary, rather than serving the common good.

The same AI that counts your steps today will be used by the state to predict your “propensity for dissent” tomorrow. Most US police forces use unregulated facial recognition technology, such as Clearview. This is also now extending to Australia!

There is an utter crisis of legitimacy and representation in the US. Even the USA’s sub-imperial powers like Canada and Europe are looking for alternatives. However, in those imperial core countries, what we are seeing in the USA is a taste of what is to come.

Europe and other industrialised countries will deploy (is already) these militarised tactics perfected in the battlegrounds of Ukraine and the streets of America against climate refugees, climate protestors and opponents of neoliberalism.

Unfortunately, it will get worse in America for a long time before it gets better.