Politicians Come and Go. The Machinery of Oppression Remains.

“There is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there?” —  V for Vendetta

A revolution can topple a tyrant without dismantling tyranny.

An election can replace a president without curbing the powers of the presidency.

A new political majority can inherit the instruments of repression and adapt them to their own purposes.

In other words, what good is a political change if the weapons of oppression merely change hands?

After a midterm election that saw billions of dollars spent on political advertising and a Democratic wave sweep Republicans out of power in Congress, Americans have once again been promised a new direction.

But the question that must rightfully be asked is: what comes next?

Twenty years ago, V for Vendetta offered moviegoers a terrifying glimpse of a future in which government surveillance was everywhere, dissent was dangerous, the media served as an instrument of state propaganda, and the promise of safety had become an excuse for stripping people of their freedoms.

Released in 2006, V for Vendetta depicts a future Britain ruled by Norsefire, a fascist regime promising safety and security above all. Behind those promises lies a machinery of surveillance, detention, censorship and intimidation.

The parallels to the modern-day American police state’s methods for entrenching its powers are hard to ignore: exploiting fear, demonizing dissent, turning security into a blank check and treating constitutional restraints as inconveniences.

As director James McTeigue observed in a recent interview marking V for Vendetta’s twentieth anniversary, the political circumstances may change, but the methods used by authoritarian governments remain remarkably consistent, and the same struggles over executive authority, government control and the suppression of dissent continue to resurface.

“It’s always the same playbook,” McTeigue warned.

Other dystopian films drive the point home that we cannot vote our way out of tyranny if we keep voting to hand someone else the keys to the police state.

In Land of the Blind, released the same year as V for Vendetta, a soldier helps overthrow a brutal ruler, only to watch the revolutionary leader establish another repressive regime.

In The Hunger Games, President Snow’s defeat does not automatically bring justice. President Coin, who leads the rebellion against him, proposes another Hunger Games — this time using the children of the defeated Capitol. Although the names and uniforms change, the logic of cruelty remains.

The politicians come and go. The machinery of government remains.

By “government,” I’m referring to government with a capital “G”: the entrenched Deep State, the sprawling network of agencies, contractors, surveillance systems, security bureaucracies and accumulated powers that is largely unaffected by elections and increasingly insulated from accountability.

What one president puts in place, the next inherits. What one political party condemns when it is out of power, it may find remarkably useful once it controls the machinery of government.

Consider what has remained largely unchanged despite decades of elections, campaign promises and assurances that this time things will be different.

The surveillance state no longer needs a camera on every street corner. Americans carry much of the technology needed to monitor their movements in their own pockets.

Meanwhile, the militarization of America’s police forces continues. Through federal equipment-transfer programs, local law enforcement agencies have gained access to military equipment and capabilities.

We are still contending with an enormous system of prisons, jails and detention facilities; laws that criminalize an ever-expanding range of conduct; and government agencies that too often treat due process as an obstacle to enforcement rather than a constitutional obligation.

Nor have successive administrations managed to dismantle the military-industrial complex, end the government’s dependence on endless military commitments abroad, curb its appetite for taxpayer dollars or sever the cozy relationship between government power and corporate profit.

The war machine keeps running.

The surveillance apparatus keeps expanding.

The government contractors keep collecting their checks.

And the taxpayers keep footing the bill.

All the while, we are encouraged to believe that everything will change if only we elect the right people.

This is the illusion of freedom: that we are free so long as the government permits us to be free, that our constitutional protections can be suspended whenever government officials utter the magic words “national security.”

The Founders understood something that Americans seem to have forgotten: the greatest danger to freedom is not simply who holds power, but how much power government is permitted to wield.

That is why they established a system of checks and balances, dividing authority among three coequal branches of government — the executive, legislative and judicial branches — and placing constitutional limits on each.

Unadulterated power in any branch of government is a menace to freedom.

The newly elected Congress has an opportunity to provide a meaningful constitutional check on executive power. It can investigate government abuses, demand accountability, exercise its legislative authority and refuse to rubber-stamp an imperial presidency. But if the new majority merely substitutes partisan retribution for constitutional accountability, or defends the same abuses when they serve its own political interests, the machinery of tyranny will remain intact.

There is no ten-step plan for recovering a free society.

If there were, however, the first step would be simple: stop treating politics as a spectator sport and do your part to defend freedom principles in your own community.

Stand up for your own rights, of course. But more importantly, stand up for the rights of those with whom you disagree. Defend freedom when the speaker is offensive, the accused is unpopular or the person being targeted has a different race, religion, nationality, immigration status, politics or point of view. The Bill of Rights is not a reward for good behavior or a privilege reserved for people who think like us.

Don’t play semantics. Don’t justify. Don’t politicize it. Don’t excuse a constitutional abuse because your preferred party happens to be in power. When officials sidestep the Constitution, demand that they obey it.

That’s their job. Make them do it.

As I have made clear in Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, freedom requires more than a vote.

It requires a government that is forced to play by the rules of the Constitution — and a citizenry willing to hold those in public office accountable when they don’t, no matter which party is in power.

About John & Nisha Whitehead:

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His latest books The Erik Blair Diaries and Battlefield America: The War on the American People are available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected]. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.