Dictator! A Revolutionary Update Told to John Perkins
Thomas Paine wrote “The American Crisis (1776)” as a call for Americans to take action against the authoritarianism of monarchy – and to act for democracy. It impacted General George Washington so strongly that he had it read aloud to his troops. Beginning with “These are the times that try men’s souls” the words inspired thousands of Patriots to take up arms. More than any other document, it was a driving force behind winning the Revolution and establishing the United States of America. Its message is highly relevant today.
I asked ChatGPT to write it the way Paine would if he were alive now. This is what came up:
The American Crisis, Part II (2025)
By Thomas Paine
These are the times that try the soul of a nation.
The tyrant in a republic, like the monarch of old, would make the people his subjects, and the law his servant. He would clothe himself in the raiment of power, declare himself the voice of the nation, and strike down those institutions that dare oppose his will.
Summer patriots and sunshine citizens may shrink from the burden of resistance, but those who stand firm in this winter of democracy will earn the love and gratitude of posterity. Freedom, like virtue, is never so dear as when it is endangered.
A man who would crown himself above the Constitution, who would silence the voices of his opponents, who would replace the guardians of law with flatterers and loyalists, who would use his office to benefit his family businesses and drastically increase his personal fortune —such a man would rule not as a president, but as a king. And the people who bend the knee to such a one, whether out of fear, or folly, or the false promise of safety, barter liberty for a master’s nod.
Did we not cast off monarchy in the 1700s to gain freedom from oppression? Shall we then, by indifference or by weariness, permit monarchy to creep back in the guise of democracy’s destroyer? The same spirit that resisted crowns and scepters must resist the autocrat who claims that only he may interpret the law, only he may speak for the nation, only he may stand above reproach.
The weapons of tyranny are not only armies, but lies, lawsuits, and the erosion of trust. He who sends troops against his own people, who wages war upon the free press, who sues and silences critics, does so not to preserve order but to preserve himself. He who undermines elections and calls for the end of the Constitution is no guardian of the republic—he is its betrayer. And he is a traitor to all the hundreds of thousands of brave people who have died in wars to defend democracy.
Yet despair not. Tyranny thrives when the people are silent, but it falters when the people rise. Let no citizen think his voice too small, his vote too feeble, his stand too lonely. For liberty requires not the comfort of ease but the courage of conviction. The crisis before us is no less grave than that faced by our forefathers. The form of the threat may differ—the crown exchanged for the executive order, the redcoat for the loyalist appointee—but the essence remains: the contest between freedom and servitude.
Therefore, let us declare once more: no man is above the law, no office above the Constitution, no leader above the people. Let us pledge not to a party nor to a person, but to the enduring promise of liberty. And should tyranny arise in the land we love, let us meet it with the steadfast courage of those who came before—knowing that though the struggle be long, the cause is just, and the victory certain if we but hold fast.
History will not ask whether the threat was veiled in monarchy or in modern executive power; it will ask whether we, the people, rose to meet it.