anticipatory

A moment of anticipatory transition is frozen, made perpetual.

The mainstream news media as an institution appears to have chosen a strategy of anticipatory obedience and compliance, if not collaboration, in normalizing Trumpism and his attempts to become the country’s first elected dictator.

“TUPELO!” the crowd bellows back in anticipatory response.

As has been seen in other countries whose democracies have collapsed to authoritarianism and fascism, such anticipatory obedience and other acts of surrender and supplication will, at best, offer only temporary and illusory safety.

History’s lessons are clear: anticipatory obedience is not a long-term defense for the news media, the country’s other institutions, or its citizens.