When authoritarianism rises, it can feel like watching a slow-motion car crash. Through Justice and The Tower, tarot offers us tools to understand our place in these cycles of power, and more importantly, how to maintain our humanity while resisting them. Discover practical ways to build resilience and maintain hope while navigating social upheaval.
"The past is not dead. It's not even past." - William Faulkner
We've been here before. The Tower materialises not just in our readings but in our headlines, our social media feeds, our dinner table conversations. The same patterns that haunted the 1930s are replaying with updated graphics and better special effects, but the underlying script remains eerily familiar.
The Tower: Reading the Signs
The Tower reveals the inevitable consequence of corrupted foundations. The Emperor Reversed shows an authority figure sitting comfortably in his gilded tower, convincing followers that strength means cruelty. Meanwhile, anxiety keeps us awake at night as rights we took for granted begin to crumble, while manufactured crises cloud our vision until we lose sight of the real threat.
Fascism doesn't arrive wearing a convenient name tag. It creeps in through normalised hatred, through the erosion of truth, through the slow dimming of empathy until darkness feels normal. Each small acceptance of cruelty, each moment of looking away "just this once," creates space for greater transgressions.
The Authoritarian's Playbook
"The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie." - Joseph Schumpeter
Exhaustion becomes normalised, carrying an impossible weight feels like the default state of existence. The overworked teacher still buys supplies for their students while their curriculum is gutted, the journalist fact-checks stories that half their audience has been conditioned to disbelieve, the activist attends yet another protest while their rights erode. This burnout isn't accidental - it's a feature of the system, not a bug. A tired population is less likely to resist.
The mechanics of divide-and-conquer politics aren't just about creating division - they're about making that division feel natural, inevitable. Communities are methodically fractured: local newspapers close, community centres lose funding, spaces where people of different backgrounds might meet and recognise their common humanity disappear one by one. Meanwhile, algorithms feed us increasingly extreme versions of our own views, until the person across the street feels like an alien species.
First, identify the institutions that protect the vulnerable - free press, independent judiciary, public education, worker protections. Then systematically weaken them while convincing your base that these very institutions are their enemies. The goal is the deliberate creation of confusion and spectacle. Every outrage becomes yesterday's news, buried under fresh scandals. Reality itself becomes negotiable.
The normalisation of cruelty starts small: mocking the vulnerable becomes acceptable political discourse. Empathy is reframed as weakness. This degradation of public life is presented as inevitable rather than orchestrated. "This is just how things are now," we tell ourselves, while we doom-scroll through fresh horrors.
These patterns aren't new. They've been documented by historians, survivors, and witnesses throughout the past century. Hannah Arendt wrote of the "banality of evil" - how extraordinary cruelty becomes ordinary through small, daily acceptances. We study these patterns not to paralyse ourselves with fear, but to shake ourselves awake while there's still time to respond.
Justice: Truth Against Power
The Justice card carries a particular weight in readings about authoritarian movements. It reminds us that truth, while it can be temporarily obscured, has a way of asserting itself. History shows us this pattern repeatedly - McCarthy's tactics eventually led to his downfall, the Nazi obsession with documentation provided evidence at Nuremberg, Nixon's paranoid recordings became his undoing.
Yet we're witnessing new attempts to control narrative and reality. When an attempted coup is reframed as "a peaceful tour group full of love," when a Nazi salute is dismissed as "a Roman salute" or "an awkward hand gesture," we see the deliberate theft of truth itself. The systematic seizure of both traditional and social media platforms by authoritarian figures isn't just about controlling current narratives - it's about controlling how future generations will understand this moment.
This is why documentation matters. Every tweet, every video, every seemingly small piece of evidence might matter later. But more importantly, it matters now. We must name things accurately, call fascism what it is, refuse the comfortable euphemisms that make atrocity palatable. Because those not yet educated about these patterns, those perhaps not paying close attention, can easily be swept along by narratives that make cruelty seem normal or even necessary.
Justice reminds us that silence serves power. When systems of accountability are dismantled, truth becomes even more crucial. It waits, it endures, and eventually, it emerges. Our role is to preserve it, speak it, and create spaces where it can be heard.
Building Resilient Networks
Building and maintaining connections that can withstand attempts to isolate and divide us becomes crucial. Authoritarian regimes often begin by silencing opposition voices - through platform bans, algorithmic suppression, or more direct means.
Create backup channels of communication now:
- Exchange email addresses and phone numbers with online contacts you value
- Join or create local community groups that meet in person
- Maintain offline records of important contacts and resources
- Learn about secure communication tools before you need them
- Build relationships with local organisations doing important work
Community isn't just about communication - it's about mutual support and skill-sharing. What can you teach? What do you need to learn? How can your skills support others in your network?
The Values Inventory Spread
There's a famous experiment about a frog in slowly heating water. While the experiment itself is a myth, it offers a useful metaphor for how values erode under authoritarian pressure - so gradually we might not notice until it's too late. This spread helps us check our ethical temperature regularly:
- Core Value Currently Being Challenged (Present)
- How This Value Has Served Me (Past)
- Potential Compromises I Might Face (Future Warning)
- How to Maintain This Value Under Pressure (Guidance)
- Signs That I'm Starting to Compromise (Alert)
- Resources/Support for Maintaining This Value (Aid)
Make this spread part of your regular practice. Values don't usually shatter - they erode, one small compromise at a time.
Maintaining Mental Health Through Crisis
Rest doesn't mean disconnecting from reality - it means sustaining ourselves for the long work ahead. Some practical approaches:
- Set specific times for news and social media
- Create daily rituals that ground you in the present moment
- Maintain regular contact with supportive people
- Keep a balance between awareness and action
- Know your triggers and respect your limits
- Find ways to process emotions through art, movement, or ritual
Beyond The Tower: Seeds of Change
Sustainable resistance requires specific practices:
Support Vulnerable Communities
This isn't just about charity - it's about redistributing resources where they're needed most. This might mean donating to LGBTQ+ youth shelters, funding legal aid for immigrants, or supporting independent bookstores and newspapers. But it's also about sharing skills: offering translation services, teaching digital security workshops, or providing childcare during community meetings. The key is consistency over grandeur - regular small actions matter more than occasional grand gestures.
Build Networks of Mutual Aid
Survival depends on community. This means creating support systems before crisis hits: establishing neighbourhood networks, organising skill-shares, setting up community gardens, creating phone trees for elderly neighbours. It's about building relationships that can withstand propaganda's attempts to divide us. When the state fails to protect people, these networks become lifelines.
Document and Share Truth
Truth-telling becomes a radical act when lies become policy. This isn't just about sharing news articles - it's about documenting local changes, archiving disappearing information, supporting independent journalists, learning to fact-check effectively, and helping others navigate disinformation. It means developing skills to communicate across ideological bubbles and maintaining records that future generations might need.
Maintain Hope Through Action
Hope isn't naive optimism - it's a discipline, a practice of imagining and working toward better possibilities even when they seem impossible. This means celebrating small victories, sharing stories of successful resistance from history and around the world, creating art that imagines better futures, and maintaining spaces for joy and connection even in dark times. As Rebecca Solnit reminds us, "Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky... hope is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency."
Create Spaces for Healing
Emotional sustainability matters. Creating healing spaces might mean organising community meals, running support groups, maintaining meditation circles, or hosting art workshops. It's about building pockets of peace where people can process trauma, restore their energy, and remember their humanity. These spaces serve as both sanctuary and incubator for resistance.
Know Your Boundaries
Burnout serves no one. This means learning to pace ourselves: setting clear limits on social media exposure, rotating responsibilities within groups, scheduling regular breaks, and respecting when others need to step back. It means understanding that rest is not a luxury but a necessity for sustained resistance. Sometimes the most revolutionary act is knowing when to recharge.
Working With These Cards
Remember that tarot isn't just about predicting the future - it's about understanding our place in shaping it. In times of social upheaval, it serves as both compass and companion, helping us navigate darkness while maintaining our humanity.
The Star reminds us that hope isn't about waiting for rescue. It's about being the light we want to see in the world, no matter how small that light might seem. Even the darkest Tower can't stand forever - especially when we remember we're not facing it alone.
