Back in 1947, the US War Department released a short film called Don’t Be a Sucker. It’s hokey, dated, and full of men in hats explaining things in ‘Very Serious Voices.’ But the message still cuts through: demagogues succeed by dividing us.
Is it propaganda? Of course. It came out of the War Department — you can practically smell the patriotic varnish. Cue the flag, the stern voiceover, the promise that Americans are too clever to ever fall for dictatorship like those silly Europeans.
Despite how smart we think we might be, the underlying message is not only relevant but a reminder of the need for eternal vigilance. The sucker’s trick hasn’t changed: start by cutting down somebody else’s rights, and hope the rest of us are too busy, too scared, or too smug to notice. By the time it’s your turn in the crosshairs, it’s already too late.
The soapbox bigot in this film could have been posting on X last week. Or hosting a podcast, or writing a Substack, or producing a viral thread that causes you to doom-scroll endlessly. The script hasn’t changed: blame immigrants, blame minorities, blame “those people” who don’t look, pray, or vote like you.
The key message is simple: once you cheer the loss of someone else’s freedom, it’s only a matter of time before the axe swings your way. Tyranny doesn’t stop at the edge of your identity group. It eats and eats until there’s nothing left. We like to pretend this is ancient history, but the truth is we’re drowning in modern-day reruns of this very tactic, only with more sophistication, more AI, and a handful of oligarchs and tech bros hellbent on enslaving us.
The solution is simple: “Don’t be a sucker.”
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