Senior White House Policy Adviser Stephen Miller had this to say about rational resistance to the policies being imposed by Donald Trump:

“The end result of this, though, is that our opponents, the media, and the whole world will soon see, as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.”

This is clearly an authoritarian statement. It holds, at its heart, the ugly sentiments of fascism.

It is unclear why so many people who supposedly value freedom in America still seem to support the likes of Donald Trump, who cheered his advisor’s performance on the Sunday morning talk shows.

“The powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.”

Is that so? Since when does the President have the right to tell millions of Americans who did not vote for him how to think? He clearly cannot stand that notion either. As we all know, Donald Trump lost the popular vote by millions. And what is his response? He refuses to accept that fact, and went to some lengths in manufacturing his own version of reality as a result. “5 million people voted illegally,” he contended.

The real fact of the past election is that far less than 1/4 of the American people actually voted for Donald Trump. This scares the living hell out of Donald Trump. But more than that, it insults his frail yet outsized ego. That is the far more dangerous component of his authoritarian response to resistance to his policies.

Despite the harsh reality of the popular vote and its proof that Trump is not granted a mandate, he further considers Constitutional a playground for his whims. He has refused to release his tax returns to dispel potential conflicts of interest. He has stated publicly that the election results excused any such notions. He has thus claimed that his conflicts of interest are of no consequence to his presidency.

This is authoritarianism at work. And at its worst. Add in the conflation of Russian involvement in the election and pre-inaugural contact with that nation by one of Trump’s representatives, and we have a president that is operating well outside the boundaries of his authority and quite possibly, the law.

Yet Trump supporters tell his detractors to “get over it.” And that is an impossible request. One cannot “get over” the dangerous thumb of an authoritarian. We’ve seen that time and again in history. If you acquiesce to the methods of authoritarian actions and terror, the nation itself is lost.

That is where we stand. That is why we resist. This is the authoritarian thumb we must fight with all our might.