Hope and imagination aren't just a nice things. Authoritarianism is rooted in doom. Authoritarianism is naturally unstable. It's naturally weak. It's extremely complex and fragile. Authoritarian regimes often collapse rapidly and catastrophically. They keep people pinned in place by removing hope. They heap trauma on their victims because trauma destroys hope and reduces creativity. So hope and imagination are the most powerful weapons against authoritarianism.

The regime tells you that things can only get worse. The regime needs you to believe it. They want you to fight on their terms, so they can pick you off, or to run or freeze, so they don't have to fight you at all. Authoritarianism must kill the creativity of it's victims, because authoritarianism has already killed it's own creativity. When you respond with hope and creativity, the system cannot adapt.

It is not simply that we should imagine what could be because we may have the opportunity to create it. It is that hope manifests the opportunity to create what we've imagined.