Do You Live in a Free State or a Fear State?

How you know the game you’re in ... rather than the one you have always known.

By Trygve Olson

Over years of work abroad, I learned there are two types of systems: free states and fear states. This distinction wasn’t theoretical. I learned it over years of work in countries where democracy was under siege — from Belarus to Ukraine, from Serbia to Georgia, from Cambodia to Venezuela. I sat with dissidents who had been jailed, trained activists who feared for their lives, and advised coalitions trying to win elections without a level playing field.

Here’s what you learn in a fear state:

• Truth is dangerous.

• Loyalty is enforced.

• Trust is weaponized.

• Power isn’t earned — it’s taken, held, and never given back.

I didn’t expect to be writing about those same dynamics in the United States. But here we are.

We are now governed by someone who doesn’t believe in the constraints of democracy. Someone whose words echo the strongmen I’ve watched rise and rule across the globe.

You don’t get to choose the game. You only get to recognize it — and decide how you’ll play.

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Free States vs. Fear States

In a free state, power is constrained. Leaders lose. Citizens criticize. Institutions function. Truth matters.

In a fear state, the opposite is true. Power is protected at all costs. Losing becomes existential. Criticism is betrayal. Institutions are hollowed out. Truth is buried — or criminalized.

When a leader threatens journalists, pardons insurrectionists, jokes about terminating the Constitution, or talks about “retribution” — those aren’t rhetorical flourishes. They’re signals.

If you’ve seen fear states, you recognize the playbook:

• Discredit the press

• Dismantle checks and balances

• Co-opt law enforcement

• Politicize the military

• Elevate loyalty above all else

This is not conservative governance. It’s autocratic strategy.

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The Illusion of Normalcy

One of the most dangerous phases of a fear state is the transition — when the signs are there, but the public refuses to believe it. When people still argue policy points while the system itself is under attack.

I saw it in Belarus. I see it now.

Right now, too many Americans are pretending this administration is just another presidency. That this is just about inflation, immigration, or regulation.

It’s not.

This is about whether we still live in a free state.

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So How Do You Know the Game You’re In?

Ask yourself:

• Are the rules being followed — or rewritten?

• Are elections respected — or undermined?

• Are opponents debated — or dehumanized?

• Are facts clarified — or criminalized?

• Are leaders serving the people — or demanding the people serve them?

If you answer those questions honestly, you know the game you’re in.

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What You Do Next

You stop waiting for fairness. You stop assuming the system will correct itself. You stop playing defense.

You defend truth. You fight side-by-side today so you can disagree tomorrow.

Trygve Olson is a strategist, pro-democracy fighter and a founding Lincoln Project advisor. He writes the Searching for Hope Substack. Read the original article here.