The US Sucks at Autocracy … So Why Are We Trying to Compete?

Over the last 2 -½ centuries of its existence, the United States has proven itself exceptional in countless ways - but there are some things that we suck at.   Autocracy is prime amongst them.  This raises the question - why are we trying to emulate and/or compete with countries long skilled in the practice, the likes of China, Russia and Saudi Arabia?  This foolhardy pivot is manifesting itself as embedded vulnerabilities throughout our society with lasting implications. Few may be more consequential than our leadership standing in AI.

As suggested in “The Grand AI Bargain, What America Needs to Win the Innovation Race” article in Foreign Affairs magazine by Ben Buchanan (John Hopkins) and Tantum Collins (National Security Council), our autocratic policies on immigration, trade, energy and environment are rapidly:

• depleting creative talent

• diminishing ability to collaborate

• undermining leadership in standard making

• curtailing access to clean, affordable, abundant energy resources

These are precisely the factors vital for the US to win the AI race according to the authors.  Shouldn’t we continue our relentless drive to get better at something we have been better at than most - but are still far from perfect?  That of course is democracy. 

The muscles that have given us our advantage here include: 

• equitable consensus building

• universal critical thinking

• constructive free speech and criticism

Like any muscular system, failure to routinely exercise and deliver nutrients to them in a balanced manner results in an increasingly frail body.   Ironically, we are careening towards the AI crossroads that lead society either towards vibrancy and engagement or lethargy and subjugation.  This comes at a point where we could use AI to redevelop and greatly strengthen the core muscles of democracy.  Instead, we have taken on a new regimen to focus on the autocratic biceps of discrimination, tariffs, fossil fuels and military adventurism.

In their article, Buchanan and Collins devote significant attention to the critical, yet vastly understated role of access to stable electrical energy resources in dominance of AI’s development.  They cite China’s brilliant and disciplined strategy to develop their towering solar and wind industry.  They are effectively insulating themselves from price spikes, market manipulations and weaponization of fossil fuels - a huge advantage to any "hyperscaler".

Coincidentally (or maybe intentionally), in the same issue of Foreign Affairs, Jason Bordoff (Center on Global Energy/Columbia University) and Meghan O’Sullivan (Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs/Harvard) have an article called “The Return of the Energy Weapon.”  They bemoan the return to the period between 1920 and 1980 where blockades and embargos of energy resources (oil) and destruction and disablement of energy facilities (e.g., refineries, power plants) were tools in the toolbox of domination and war.  They berate the US energy strategy (or lack thereof) that make us complicit in this unfortunate historical replay, while acknowledging China’s clever moves on the energy chessboard.

Even though the ingredients to disentangle ourselves from this vortex are rapidly depleting, the United States still has the formula to turn things around - if, as a society, we so choose to apply it.  While it’s incredibly valuable to have the federal government consistently on board, it’s not essential.  That’s because, over the course of its history, this country has developed a constitutionally protected and unparalleled sense of paradoxical individual and community agency, from people all over the world and all walks of life with the ability to rally community and cooperation when it really counts.  In other words, with this formula, we can leverage more brainpower and determination than any other country on the planet.  Despite their countless shortfalls and misdeeds, we can still thank our founding fathers for setting the stage for this mindset and capability.

We also have a still largely untapped and rock-solid energy resource at our disposal that can play a pivotal bridging role as we re-establish our renewable/clean energy manufacturing and transmission capacity. That is the energy/power that we waste and the missed opportunities to deploy distributed energy resources.

Self-organizing in creative ways to address threats and opportunities is in our social DNA. This goes back to revolutionary days when virtually all levels of society organized to create a lattice network of resistance.  No example is more poignant than the ways that women organized to boycott British goods, replace them with local products and gather intelligence for the patriots. 

American ingenuity and agency at the local level have been the envy of people across the globe. Thought leaders, observers, and authors like Bill McKibbens (Here Comes the Sun), Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein (Abundance, How We Build a Better Future) put forth convincing arguments for boundless opportunities ahead if we can conjure this self-organizing superpower now - acting with a sense of urgency to gain agency over our collective energy resources.  Most universally compelling is that the path to clean energy is also the path to lower and more stable energy costs.  This notion is depicted in the graph of extensive modelling results of the State of Connecticut by the People’s Action for Clean Energy (PACE). 

Note that the blue line represents Clean Energy efforts financed over time, to create near term parity with conventional energy sources, while modestly increasing longer term costs over the unfinanced clean energy scenario to repay the financing arrangements.

The planet’s human population is well on its way to 10 billion+.  Its resources are clearly getting stretched to their limits under our current maximal consumptive and productive conduct.   To succeed, a community self-organization effort must embrace a new tenet promoting optimization over maximization.  But optimization demands intelligence, data, analysis, hard work and cooperation. By most accounts, Mahatma Gandhi’s sentiment - that there is more than enough to satisfy our collective needs but not enough to fulfill individual greed - still holds true today.  Large bodies of scientists warn that we are fast approaching the tipping point where even that prospect becomes out of reach.  Failure to act decisively turns those boundless opportunities of today into endless regrets over yesterday’s divisiveness, inability to find common ground, and lack of compassion.

Paradoxically, thoughtfully developed and harnessed, AI resources can come to the rescue.  AI can be an incredibly helpful tool to take on the complex rigors of optimization and streamline the process - supporting thorough data collection, participatory modelling, and democratic decision making.  Conversely, the winner-take-all AI route we are currently on risks leaving vast tracks of the population in a permanent state of “future shock”, intellectually, socially and financially destitute in the face of a "Frankenstein" creation.

The recent reversal of federal support for decarbonization, electrification and climate technologies constitutes a temporary setback to the movement. The industry has consistently weathered such uncertainty since its inception and has continued to grow.  It's now to the point where sustainable measures and renewable resources often come up as the lowest cost option - even with little or no federal support.  More worrying is the threatened rollback of legislatively established climate and electrification goals at the state and local levels.  This stems from a sense of expediency, accountability avoidance, and limited situational insight.  It is driven more by the political environment and the threats to democracy than science and data.  It is overshadowing the long-term economic opportunities and climate imperative before us.

The forces driving to dismantle our democracy and shift our way of life towards autocracy and oligarchy undermines our collective sense of agency.  It accelerates depletion of dwindling resources like fossil fuels and clean air and water, while hindering access to our most abundant resources - innovation, ingenuity, and independence.  Cutting back our commitments to decarbonize and electrify at the state and local levels serves only to feed those forces.  As Buchanan and Collins suggest, these trends make us less competitive and more vulnerable.  We cannot allow the wings of our democracy to get clipped at this pivotal moment in human history. Rather than cower to inflammatory rhetoric and unconstitutional aggressions as we did at the start of 2025, let’s strive to preserve our most vulnerable natural resources, tap our most abundant resource and simply soar in 2026.  The planet and its future generations will thank us.