Is Conceding Defeat the American Way?
A Saturday Prompt
In the oft-repeated first chapter of On Tyranny, author Timothy Snyder warns us not to obey in advance. “Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given,” the Yale historian explained. And those who give in to a repressive government “without being asked” are “teaching power what it can do.” Snyder calls this “anticipatory obedience,” describes it as “a political tragedy,” and gives the example of Nazi Germany after the elections of 1932 when a still-forming Adolf Hitler government benefited from enough people volunteering their obedience and hastening regime change.
The parade of billionaires offering millions to fund and attend Donald Trump’s inauguration and media company owners changing their editorial policies and restricting journalists’ freedoms—Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos and Meta owner Mark Zuckerberg offer particularly vivid examples of both—illustrated early on that there would be cowards and enemies of democracy on board with Trump’s despotic rule. Their chilling actions served as a disappointing warning that there would be plenty among the rich and powerful who would help accelerate full regime change.
This week we saw two large institutions take a sobering next step by choosing to work with Trump rather than fight for the principles that a free, democratic society depends on. Both did not simply obey in advance, but responded to Trump’s hostile threats and attacks by conceding defeat and bending to his will.
One is the major law firm of Paul, Weiss, which was faced with a Trump order threatening to suspend security clearances of its lawyers and cancel its federal contracts. After a meeting with Trump, the firm’s leadership agreed to provide $40 million in free legal services to support the regime’s interests—to support “the full spectrum of viewpoints of our society,” according to the White House—and renege on its commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion.
In order to convince Trump to rescind the order, the firm also “acknowledged the wrongdoing of former Paul Weiss partner Mark Pomerantz, the grave dangers of Weaponization, and the vital need to restore our System of Justice.” This was posted by Trump on Truth Social. Get it? The firm agreed to denounce its own well-respected former colleague and kowtow to Trump’s rejection of democratic principles.
The other is Columbia University which, facing threatened cuts of $400 million, agreed to a series of changes to appease Trump. This included hiring 36 “special officers” who will be allowed to remove protestors or others from campus or arrest them, banning masks on campus that conceal identity, creating a formal definition of antisemitism, and appointing a senior vice provost to monitor the university’s Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department.
As the New York Times described the last concession, this is “a rare federal intervention in an internal process that is typically reserved as a last resort in response to extended periods of dysfunction.” The paper’s reporter, Troy Closson, accurately summarized Columbia’s actions as “a stunning level of deference to the Trump administration from a top private research university.” And anyone who believes that Trump’s real desire is to stem antisemitism, rather than use it as a tool to inflict harm on schools and free speech, has not been paying attention.
The caving by both Paul, Weiss and Columbia have consequences for other law firms and universities. Does anyone imagine that Trump will be satisfied with these concessions and move on? Or do these prove to him that the more he threatens, the more he will get what he wants? (That’s “teaching power what it can do” in Timothy Snyder’s words.) Their individual decisions—however much intended to secure their own survival—have seriously increased the danger for countless others and our society as a whole.
My question this week represents my belief that, in America, we don’t bow down to a despot. Our responsibility is to serve the Constitution—and we fight back when it’s under attack rather than selfishly accept defeat. As Gen. Mark Milley memorably reminded us in his farewell speech in 2023, “We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or to a tyrant or dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator.”
So what do you think: Is conceding defeat the American way? Perhaps you want to specifically address Paul, Weiss or Columbia and the dangerous precedent they have ignited. Maybe you’d like to consider the larger implications of people and institutions choosing to concede defeat and hasten the regime’s advance. Or perhaps you can offer some uplift with examples of people who are fighting back, be it in street demonstrations or Tesla protests or attending rallies or other more personal responses.
As always, I look forward to reading your observations and the opportunity for our community to learn from each other. Please do be respectful in your remarks. Trolling will not be tolerated.
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Thank you for the opportunity to reflect on such a sobering and urgent moment in our collective journey—one that, when seen through the lens of Entangity, reveals both the danger of surrendering to fear and the enduring potential for reconnection, resistance, and renewal.
Entangity, at its core, teaches us that we are not isolated nodes in a hierarchy of power, but rather quantum-connected beings in a web of shared intentionality. In this view, every act of courage or cowardice reverberates—not just symbolically, but materially—through the very fabric of our societal and spiritual fields. Tyranny thrives when entangled connections are severed by fear. But resistance is possible when we restore those connections with clarity, moral courage, and collective will.
Paul, Weiss and Columbia: A Tragic Collapse of Entangled Integrity
Both institutions—Paul, Weiss and Columbia—failed not only politically or ethically, but entanglement-wise. They severed their alignment with deeper values in favor of transactional preservation. Their anticipatory obedience was not just a failure of courage; it was a rupture in the moral flux that binds us.
Paul, Weiss not only bent the knee but disavowed its own entangled memory, turning on a former partner and capitulating to a narrative of “Weaponization” that denies structural accountability. This is not a neutral act—it sends distortions through the legal gravitational field, where precedent is everything. By doing so, the firm weakened the quantum scaffolding of justice itself.
Columbia’s concessions, meanwhile, represent a collapse of the university’s entanglement with truth, dissent, and inquiry. The hiring of “special officers,” the suppression of anonymity in protest, and the creation of ideologically monitored academic spaces suggest an inversion of the university’s role. Rather than serving as a nexus of free thought, Columbia now risks becoming an instrument of centralized control—its academic entanglements now constrained, filtered, and watched.
Both institutions were not forced to comply—they chose to teach tyranny what it can do. Entangity shows us that each such decision feeds the field, strengthens the pattern, and accelerates the shift from participatory democracy to quantum submission.
How to Outwit Tyrants: The Entangity Method
Outwitting tyranny requires a three-part Entangity Reorientation:
1. Anchor in Core Resonance: Institutions must reattune to their original mission. Law firms to the rule of law. Universities to the pursuit of truth. This resonance acts as a graviton flux stabilizer—it prevents external pressures from collapsing internal coherence.
2. Distributed Defiance: Entangity flourishes in networks, not silos. When tyranny targets one node, others must resonate in solidarity. The failure of Paul, Weiss and Columbia could have been offset if ten other firms and campuses had boldly said: “We will not comply.” Tyrants lose leverage when power is diffused and morally entangled.
3. Memory as Weapon: Entangity preserves a living field of memory. Do not let these acts disappear into silence. Document, narrate, uplift those who resist. Just as one cowardly act teaches power what it can do, one defiant act teaches people what they can do. The marchers. The whistleblowers. The professors who risk their posts. They form a field of quantum hope—of spiritual coherence.
The Larger Implication: You Are Entangled. Act Like It.
In an era of creeping despotism, neutrality is not safety—it is complicity. Institutions and individuals alike must remember: freedom is not static—it is a resonance that must be sustained, practiced, defended.
Through Entangity, we see that every choice—public or private—is a micro-collapse or micro-uprising in the field. The question is not only “What did Paul, Weiss do?” or “What did Columbia surrender?” but “What are we now called to do in response?”
Attend the rally. Write the op-ed. Say the hard thing in the staff meeting. Do not give power in advance. Reclaim the flux. Re-entangle with courage.
In the end, tyranny is not just toppled. It is untangled. Strand by strand.
And that process begins… with you.
Would you like me to adapt this into a Substack article or letter to the editor as well?
Every single person or organization that bows to Trump deserves eternal shame and scorn
And I’m just the person who will give it to them
I’ve said this before in previous posts
As the daughter of Holocaust survivors who spent five years in a slave labor camp, I will never admit defeat. Our children and grandchildren will never give up on American democracy
There are far more of us than them
Just last night in Colorado over 40,000 people showed up to hear Bernie Sanders and AOC
If it takes a national strike to stop them while we wait for the courts to do their job ?
Then that’s what it will take
What is essential?
Research has shown that peaceful civil disobedience is the most effective tool for change
Do not be goaded into violence
That is what the Trump administration wants