How to Resist Fascism from Within
An Article of the Modern Survival Guide
It’s been a very long year these past four weeks in the US. In case you’ve been living under a rock, the United States is rapidly sliding into fascist autocracy. We have a power-mad oligarch in charge of “efficiency” in the federal government who is purging every government agency that actually works for the American public, a President who is actively governing by executive order (read: fiat) and who has vocally (and in policy) stated his intent to seize control of the law, and a Congress and court system which are incapable of stopping any of this from happening.
The Trump administration is, in fact, following Project 2025 and the Fascist Playbook almost to a T. This is happening. Much of it has already happened. They are no longer deserving of the title “administration.” They are now a “regime.”
I had been said that Americans under Trump will learn how much of our country is norms and how much is law. Now we’re learning how much of the law the President can simply ignore, seize, flout, or twist. All of this is taking place in the backdrop of a populace that is so thoroughly propagandized that a third support giving the President even more power, and 53% or thereabouts simply do not think that a coup is any reason to stop supporting Trump.
No protests are slowing this down. No arrests have been made (with the recent executive order, the Department of Justice is now simply Trump’s tool anyway). No Congressional action is stopping this from happening. No court order is going to stop the administration from doing whatever they want. The rule of law is over. The rule of legislation is teetering on the edge. Government for the public good is rapidly ending.
Meanwhile, in just two weeks the United States has managed to squander almost a century of international alliances, institutions, and cooperation. We have abdicated the role of hegemon (whatever you think about that, there ARE consequences for creating a power vacuum). We have torpedoed alliances a century in the making. The actions of Trump and his surrogates will cause tens of thousands of deaths and breed resentment against the US worldwide, from which we will not recover for a generation or more.
We are cooked. The United States’ experiment into democracy has driven directly off the road of rational representative government, and now we have to chart a path into new territory.
You’re reading the Modern Survival Guide, so as you can probably guess, yes, I am going to turn this in a “here’s what you can do about it” direction. Let me just, you know, breathe for a minute.
Wooooosaaaaa…
Ok, that’s better. So, listen, this really isn’t anything new on the world stage. Empires rise and fall, and yes, the most common way empires collapse is from within. Dictators rise, and are then taken down years or generations later. All of this has happened before. The Wheel turns.
I understand if that isn’t particularly reassuring, because it means that humanity just keeps making the same old mistakes. But it also means that we already have a playbook for how to resist our current crop of homegrown authoritarian, Russia-backed, oligarch-enabling, billionaire-pandering, racist, sexist, xeno/homo/trans-phobic, anti-intellectual, know-nothing, gaslighting, treasonous shit stains.
These people are not invulnerable. They are not even particularly smart. They had a plan, had backing, were near levels of power, and benefitted from twenty years of directed propaganda that ended up handing them a golden opportunity. And they took it.
Well, listen. We can do things about this, and the way things are going a lot of people are going to be very motivated to do something. No, the rest of us do not have the individual financial resources of Elon Musk, but then again… neither does Elon Musk. Not really. His cash is tied up in his stocks. And none of us have the raw power of the federal government. But the federal government isn’t the only form of government around in the US. Also, after Elon gets done, there won’t really be a federal government as we know it today, which is actually a huge win for a resistance organization.
Oh, didn’t you know? We’re firmly in the “resistance” timeline now. Get used to it.
Which brings us back on topic. There are many things you (yes, YOU) can do to resist fascism from within, so do not lose hope. The rest of this article will cover those things, which break down into the following four buckets:
- Active Resistance
- Ideological Opposition
- Systemic Opposition
- Monetary Opposition
Let’s dive in.
Active Resistance
This is what most people think about when you start talking about “the Resistance,” because we’ve all seen movies and we’ve all learned stories about plucky bands that defy empires.
It is worth noting that this usually doesn’t work. Not on its own. But that’s actually ok, from a certain point of view. The point of a resistance in this case isn’t necessarily that it succeeds at everything and overthrows the fascists, but that it provides a credible alternative to the fascist regime.
Look, I’m going to level with you. Most authoritarian governments don’t fall until the authoritarian leader dies. That’s just the lesson of history. But there are exceptions, and there is always a moment after the leader dies when there is a brief window into which a country that wants to be a democracy again can insert a lever and twist. That lever is the opposition.
I’m going to spend a few paragraphs going over various types of opposition tactics, but here’s what I want you to take away from all of it: this is all long game strategy. Here are some options:
- Form/join resistance organizations
- Practice common-sense security
- Engage in protests and civil disobedience
- Be prepared to sabotage, distract, and fight
View nothing as a silver bullet. There are no fast exits. There’s only work.
Form and/or Join Resistance Organizations
This is the first lesson of the resistance: NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE YOU.
Let me say that again.
No one. Is coming. To save you. No one is coming to save us. No agency. No court. No secret cabal of do-gooders. Hell, even the already slim odds of a military uprising are getting slimmer by the day.
The cavalry is not coming over the hill. The government is not going to magically throw off Trump’s shackles. You’d better hope no foreign power has to come in and “save” us. We’re going to have to work together to save ourselves.
To that end, organization is the name of the game. One person by themself isn’t worth a damn. We need teams. Groups. Movements. Coalitions. Organizations. That’s why the fascists won in the first place: they were organizing while the rest of the country was asleep.
Organization is a superpower, but the good news is that almost every human on planet Earth is capable of either leading, assisting, or joining an organization. That’s the whole reason our species is the top of the heap: we can work together, and generally enjoy doing so.
This, then, is the very first thing you can and should do: get organized. There are MANY groups out there that are currently working to oppose the Trump regime or will shortly come into existence to oppose the Trump regime. You are encouraged to start one (remember: NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE YOU — if you don’t have an organization where you are, congratulations, you are now in charge of founding one).
Google is, in the short term, your friend here. In the long term we should expect Google to become increasingly censored and/or monitored. But right now, you can and should be searching for anti-Trump groups in your area. If Google isn’t working for you, Reddit is a good alternative right now. The r/50501 subreddit is a hotspot for organizers, go there and get involved.
Now, some warnings. If you can find the resistance organization, so can the fascists. Expect any group you join to be infiltrated — if not now, then soon. Especially online, trust no one. I would personally avoid giving your real name, main email address, or other personally identifiable information until you have a good sense of whether a group is trustworthy, and a sense of who in the group is trustworthy. The walls have ears. Your online presence is not a secure as you might think. Be told. This brings us to the next point.
Common-Sense Security
Getting involved in a resistance group is a potentially risky step. You should know that going in. You should do it anyway, with appropriate precautions. In addition to compartmentalizing your personal information, keep the following points in mind:
- Know your neighbors. Know who stands for what. Be aware that not everyone you talk to is a friend.
- Avoid providing your last name.
- Avoid revealing where you work.
- Avoid revealing where you live.
- Your phone is tracking and/or recording you at all times. Turn it off, or put it on airplane mode, if you’re about do to something interesting. Faraday bags are commonly available online, and you should invest in one.
- Disable biometrics on your phone whenever you have any reasonable fear that it might be confiscated.
- Understand that your computer has an IP address and is traceable. Get a VPN.
- Put nothing in writing under your name that you wouldn’t be comfortable sharing with the Gestapo.
- Move to a secure messaging application for any conversation you don’t want to show up in the phone company records.
- If you’re going to do something that you suspect the regime might not approve of, wear a mask and a hat.
- Follow safe protest guidelines.
Secrecy and compartmentalized conversations are about to become a way of life in America (more so than usual, anyway). Get used to it, and start practicing now.
Protests and Civil Disobedience
As long as protests are allowed, you should be in the streets whenever you can. Protests are a critical barometer for national politics and conversations. Politicians understand that protests mean people are pissed off. Pissed off people tend to shift their votes come election time.
Now, that being said, there’s mixed evidence that protests alone actually accomplish anything. They’re a barometer about how people are feeling, not necessarily a barometer for what people are prepared to do. The smartest thing any authoritarian can do is let protests burn themselves out and just quietly keep on with the program.
Protests are still important, and never let anyone tell you otherwise. They’re excellent psychological props, for one thing — there’s something electric about not just knowing that other people are as upset as you are, but seeing them. Protests are also excellent meeting places for people and groups that need to make connections or need practice working together.
Finally, protests are important because they are a clear message that the opposition is organized and determined. If you can mobilize 100,000 people to march on Washington, the critical takeaway is that you can mobilize 100,000 people. That’s often enough to make politicians sit down and have a good think.
This brings us to civil disobedience. Protests by themselves sometimes don’t accomplish much, because no one in power feels a pinch. Sometimes civil disobedience can help tip the scales. Civil disobedience, in all its many and varied forms, boils down to drawing attention simply by not following the rules. You don’t have to be aggressive or violent, you don’t have to burn down buildings. You simply do not follow the rules. Note that this can, and often does, mean breaking the law.
A classic example of civil disobedience would be the sit-ins during the Civil Rights movement. These were nonviolent actions that drew media attention and created some of the most iconic photographs of the period.
The point of civil disobedience is twofold:
- To materially, practically, or ideologically inconvenience those in power, and
- To draw attention to an issue through press coverage
Every instance of civil disobedience should directly target some directive imposed by the regime. Every instance of civil disobedience should be flashy, public, and if at all possible well-attended. Everyone participating in civil disobedience should be comfortable going to jail. Everyone participating in civil disobedience should be aware that they might suffer physical harm. These are the risks.
The advantage of civil disobedience is that it is inconveniencing someone. It is going to be visible. It is something that the press can latch onto. Sometimes the point of civil disobedience is to get arrested, or even to get hurt, to draw sympathetic attention.
The obvious disadvantage of civil disobedience is that if it isn’t loud enough, flashy enough, or getting media attention, all you’re really doing is putting people at risk with no good payoff. This doesn’t mean civil disobedience is a bad strategy, it just means that there is a tipping point before it’s viable. Again: organize. Make sure you have enough people before you push forward with this. A few hundred is usually a good start.
Sabotage, Distract, and Fight
Finally, once you start down the path of opposing fascism, you need to realize something. The fascist regime does. not. value. your. life. They are not a loyal opposition. They are the enemy. Not just an enemy to your country, but an enemy to you, personally. Fascists see you as nothing more than grist for the mill, at best, and vermin at worst.
Once you start this fight, you’re in a fight. Fights sometimes go to the death. Fights are by nature violent. “Punch a Nazi” is a call to action, not a metaphorical slogan.
So — sabotage, distract, and fight. If you want to use an analogy of warfare, the objective is to degrade your enemy’s strength, force their attention away from strategic areas, and hit them where they are weak.
Sabotage is simple. If you’re in a position to stop a fascist from doing something, even if only a little tiny bit, do it. Anything you can do to gum up the works is valuable. For reference, the CIA put out a guide on this kind of thing eighty years ago, and it’s still relevant. TLDR: even if the only thing you can do is stretch out a meeting by thirty extra minutes to waste some fascist enabler’s time, do that. If you can sabotage a phone line, or a server, even if it only takes it down for a few minutes, do that. If you can poison a data source, or slash tires, or cause water damage in a building, do that.
Do whatever you can.
Sabotage is all about making things harder. That’s it. Sabotage by itself doesn’t stop anything, and does draw danger down onto the saboteur. But it’s still important because slowing things down is INCREDIBLY useful.
Think about this. At Auschwitz between 1941 and 1945, approximately 1.1 million people were killed. If you were in a position to slow down the operation of the gas chambers at Auschwitz, preventing them from operating for one hour a day (assuming 10 hours of standard operation), you would have saved something like 110,00 people.
Sabotage makes it harder for a fascist to do what they want. Almost no matter what that is, that’s a win.
Moving on to distraction. Distraction is all about keeping a regime occupied with one thing so they can’t do another. There are only so many hours in a day. People can only work for a certain number of those hours, and really only work well for a smaller number. If we think of that time as oxygen, the job of distraction is to suck the oxygen out of the room.
Fascists do this as a matter of course. Half of the fascist playbook is about keeping people distracted. It’s important for opposition groups to do it too.
Distraction is typically about emotion, not facts or figures. Find something that triggers a group, a person, or an institution. That’s how you suck the oxygen out of the room and prevent people from doing meaningful things.
For example: right now the Trump regime and Elon Musk are joined at the hip. These are two narcissists who each desperately desires the media spotlight. Making fun of them, especially where they can see and respond, is useful. Encouraging non-productive behavior is useful. Every second that Elon Musk tweets is a second he’s not doing something to disintegrate a federal agency. Every minute Trump is on a golf course is a minute he isn’t trying to make himself king through executive orders. These things should be prodded and encouraged.
Much like sabotage, the objective of distraction is to slow things down. To keep the fascists from thinking about or accomplishing their goals for a day, a month, a season. To grab the initiative.
Distraction works best for most of us, though, if we keep it local. Just because you don’t have the resources to bother Trump at Mar-a-Largo doesn’t mean you can’t do this. All politics is local. Flooding local officials or representatives’ inboxes, phone lines, websites, and social media spaces works just as well, if not better, as organizing a psyop against the Department of Justice.
Of course, if the Proud Boys or the Ministry of Unity are at your door, it’s probably too late to do these things. Then it’s time (or past time) to fight.
Buy a gun. Do it right now, while you still can. Guns are shockingly cheap. Learn how to use it. Encourage your friends to buy guns. Teach them how to use them, if needed. Form a network of people who are armed, especially in your local neighborhood (this may require meeting your neighbors, which you should also be doing). Make sure your weapons are where you can get at them. Make sure you have a way to contact these people on a moment’s notice. Extend this network as far and fast as you can.
Buy a drone, if you can. Learn to use it. Drones are fantastically useful tools if, say, you need to know exactly where a crowd of Proud Boys are as they are wandering through your city.
Buy a backpack. Get yourself some rough-wear outdoor clothing. Get some capability to rough it. For the moment, we live in a society that defines itself by the sword, and we have a lot of materiel available to us. Use those resources while they last.
We are going to see roundups in the coming days (these have already started and more are already being talked about). We are likely to see all kinds of thuggery from Trump supporters and government or pseudo-government organizations in the coming days. When this comes to your neighborhood, and it very well could, fight.
The first objective of such fights is to force the other side to back down. We’ve seen in numerous cases that armed protesters for some reason do not get hassled much by police. Extend this logic to illegitimate exercises of authoritarian power. A line of armed (and, it should go without saying, masked) people is a powerful deterrent to a snatch squad, or can force a vanful of Neo-Nazis away from a neighborhood.
The secondary objective of such fights is to inflict casualties. Please note that I do not lightly advocate violence. If we arrive at the point where this becomes necessary, the US will have descended into economic despair, insurgency, or possibly civil war. This is not a situation to be sought, but it is one we should all prepare for and be ready to deal with. This is increasingly likely to happen as Trump and Musk strip away democratic norms and protections. Be told.
The worse this gets, perversely, the more likely it is that the fascist will break. Fascist governments are weak by nature, which is why they do everything in their power to appear strong. They rely on people proactively obeying, living in fear, and kowtowing to state-sponsored violence. The moment people stop doing so, and get away with it, the fascist’s days are numbered. Maintain your community. Maintain your network. Fight for your neighbor.
Fascists have absolutely no problem exercising violence against their citizenry. It is often necessary for them to do so in order to remain in power. Be prepared to return the favor. Do it before there is no one left to stand up for you.
Ideological Opposition
Moving on to slightly less fraught topics, I think it’s safe to say that the sane people in the United States lost the ideological fight over the last four years. Just straight up lost, y’all. That doesn’t mean sanity has left the room, but it does mean that we are going to have to get all the way out of our comfort zones and start trying to directly oppose fascist sympathizers.
Please note: the paradox of a tolerant society is that it cannot tolerate intolerance. We lost the thread on that one. It’s time to reclaim it.
Ideological opposition means a long list of things, but the core point is this: do not let fascist ideology win. This is a battle of hearts and minds. We all have MAGA relatives. Some of them can yet be saved. Those who can’t shouldn’t be allowed to have it all their own way at the dinner table. I’ll list a few things that each of us can do on this front:
- Relate personal narratives to counter whitewashed hate
- Allow no safe spaces for fascist ideas
- Target individuals
- Promote better politics
Provide Personal Narratives
People are not convinced by facts. I think we all just need to go ahead and accept that. But everyone likes stories. Stories bring home the reality of a situation by forcing the listener to put names, faces, and humanity back into what can be very sterile discussions.
It’s all well and good to say, for example, that illegal aliens are here illegally and therefore we should deport them (and they’re criminals, so they deserve what they get). That’s a sterile concept. It’s a hand wave at a faceless, nameless group, based on a core concept of being a good citizen and obeying the law. It is very easy to twist these types of core concepts into some fairly horrific shit, if you keep the conversation impersonal.
It’s much harder to make the same knee-jerk judgement if you tell the story of Soledad Castillo, who was desperate to escape a life of sexual abuse and child labor, who fled from Honduras to the US. Every system failed her every step of the way. She was repeatedly sexually abused, suffered domestic violence, and was exploited for labor and to cheat the US social services system. This woman was a victim. It is inhumane the way she was treated by everyone, and she still wants to stay in the US and help others.
That’s a story that has teeth. It makes you stop and consider what life must have been like for a woman who walked across a desert in search of a better life at 14 years old. It forces the reader (or listener) to sympathize, to ask why her situation was so terrible, and what could have been done to help.
Most people are not heartless villains. Most people want to help others, want to be forces of justice in their communities. Fascists win by hijacking those desires and twisting them to self-righteous jingoism. We win by turning people back towards genuine compassion.
Always tell personal stories. Never allow fascist targets to remain faceless, nameless, and defenseless. This means you need to do your research beforehand, to have a stock of stories ready to go, and to be prepared to shake it up. If you tell the same story over and over, you sound like you have rehearsed lines.
Allow no “Safe Space” for Fascist Ideas
We have all had that relative. Usually it’s an uncle in these stories. The one who sits and the Thanksgiving dinner table and holds forth on how Obama is a secret pedophile, or trots out the classics of how immigrants are destroying the country, or how only Republicans are good Christians. The one who is happy to tell you how the Jews control the world banking system, who know 101 reasons why electric cars are actually bad for the environment, and who will happily tell you all the reasons why vaccines cause autism.
I could go on, but come on, each person reading this knows exactly who I’m talking about in their lives.
These people, whether they know it or not, are the foot soldiers of the current fascist movement. They are the carriers of infectious ideology. They spread fascism just by being allowed to talk — not by outright saying “I think America needs to be run by a cabal of oligarchs who promote hyper-nationalistic rhetoric while centralizing economic power and demonizing a new minority group each week to keep the sheep in line, actually.” But rather by spreading a constant tarnish of lies, misinformation, disinformation, and half-truths designed to degrade democratic values of plurality, empathy, intellectual integrity, and respect.
These folks suck. This is the not-so-silent minority who comprise Trump’s hardcore 30-ish percent of the population. Some of them are smart, intelligent people, but all of them have drunk the Kool-Aid and are gone baby gone as far as critical thought goes.
Guess what your job is? It’s not to convince them of anything. That ship has likely sailed, foundered on the rocks, and burnt at this point. Remember, 30% of America is just absolutely ecstatic about everything Trump is doing.
Nope, your job is simply to deny them a safe space to talk. Call them out on bullshit, hypocrisy, and nastiness. Challenge them. Call them bad Christians. Thanksgiving isn’t going to be a sedate affair this year, y’all, get in there and get lit.
Because your job isn’t to convince them of anything, it’s just to keep them from dominating the mental space at the table. Extend the metaphor to every area where you can feel safe making your voice heard.
Target Individuals
This has two levels. On the one hand, it’s probably not your job to get on YouTube with your audience of 2 million subs and push out the anti-fascist message. Most of us don’t have that kind of reach. Most of us need to focus small, and target people who may be on the fence about supporting the modern American fascist movement. Pigeonhole those people and try to talk them around.
On the other hand, when you’re trying to shut down fascists around you, you’re not going to get far if you try to take on whole groups at once. Fascist groups are echo chambers and provide mutual reinforcement. Instead, try to identify people around you who hold fascist views, and talk to them away from their support network.
It’s worth noting in both cases that you’re unlikely to have a moment where someone says “You know what, Jill, you’re absolutely right. Everything I believed up until this moment was a lie. I apologize profusely.” That generally doesn’t happen; people aren’t wired like that.
All you’re doing is planting seeds. Planting doubt. Re-potting ideas of humanity, humility, and concern. Do this long enough, wide enough, and some of those seeds will bear fruit.
Promote Better Politics
Lastly on our list for ideological opposition, it’s not enough to tear down fascist ideas. We have to promote something BETTER. We have to focus down on the politics that actually matter to people.
It’s not enough to say “The illegals aren’t taking your jobs, they’re picking your food.” We have to say “The billionaires took your job and gave it away oversees. Why aren’t you mad at them?”
It’s not enough to say “It’s inhumane to deny trans people hormone therapy.” We have to say “Everyone has the right to bodily autonomy. How would you like it if I told you that you couldn’t have glasses, or braces, or reconstructive surgery?”
It’s not enough to say “Trump broke the law and should be impeached.” We have to say “Don’t you want a system where all politicians obey the law? Why wouldn’t you support that?”
It’s not enough to say “Trump is trying to be a king.” We have to say “Kings don’t have to listen to you. Kings don’t have to care about you. Kings just take what they want from you.”
I strongly encourage everyone to start thinking in these terms during personal discussions, online interactions, letters to the editor, etc. I strongly encourage everyone to start framing every interaction with elected officials in this light. We are not going to win back American democracy by being anti-Trump. We have to show that the alternative is better.
Systemic Opposition
Moving on to systemic opposition, all this means is that we should be working to put in place systems, processes, policies, and standards that make opposition easier or better. I have several ideas on this front, and doubtless more will occur to you as you read:
- Promote opposition unity
- Focus on local power
- Engage religious leaders
- Protect elections
- Safeguard resistance leaders
Promote Opposition Unity
Everyone can be against fascism. Christian, Muslim, gay, straight, white, black, pink and purple polka dotted, conservative, liberal, progressive, communist, socialist, or anarchist. Everyone can be part of the opposition, part of the resistance.
The central point that we should all immediately accept is that the fascists must go. Democracy must prevail. Once we have that as our core point of commonality, every other discussion can and should wait until after the fascists have been removed from power.
Why? Because anything else is better than this. I don’t agree with communists. But I will happily call anyone “comrade” who will help tear down Trump’s emerging authoritarian regime. I don’t agree with anarchists. But I will shout “Fight the power!” at a protest alongside whoever wants to join. I don’t like interpretive dance; I think it’s silly. But I will happily conga line along with folks at the Kennedy Center.
We have the potential here to build a gigantic coalition of the willing. We cannot squander it by getting bogged down in theoretical disputes when a real fascist regime is taking shape over our heads.
Please remember: Trump won by dividing America. He and his movement are very, very good at this. They will absolutely try to drive wedges between potential allies in the days to come. Do not fall for this. It is a trap. We stand together or we hang separately.
Focus on Local Power
All of us can make a systemic difference at the local level. Trump is taking over at the national level. His minions will try to grab local power by running in local elections and taking county and city positions.
If you’ve ever even thought about running for local office or getting seat on a county board, now is absolutely the time. We have a window to occupy these positions — many of which are very important to local systems — before all of them go to fascist sympathizers.
We have a chance to vote people in and vote people out very easily at the local level, where several dozen votes is all it takes in many cases. We cannot pass this up.
Engage Religious Leaders
Whatever you think about religion — and I have a lot of opinions — the simple fact is that faith communities come with a structured network by default. We would be remiss to not engage with faith leaders.
The good news is that religions as a whole tend to hold principles like treating your neighbor with decency and kindness. There are already many, many instances where the Trump regime has made decisions or taken actions anathema to every major religion on Earth, at least in principle. Focus on these.
If you are religious, now is the time to talk to your faith leader and fellow believers. The Trump regime has a huge well of support in right-wing Christianity, but even some of those folks are baulking at the idea of concentration camps. Finding any chink in the regime’s armor of support from faith communities is absolutely worth the time and effort.
Put it this way — even if people from your church only wants to come to one protest to wave signs and shout about one thing the regime is doing, those are voices and bodies on the line for that day. Even if your religious leader is only comfortable calling out one awful thing the regime did during their sermon, that’s one thing that gets called out. Every drop of water wears away the stone.
Protect Elections
Every election for the next few years is precious. If the Trump regime continues down the fascist playbook path, we should expect to see a suspension or outright rigging national elections in the not-too-distant future. But again, this may not happen before midterms, and it may not make it down to the state or local level.
I keep saying this: all politics are local. Protect your local and state elections like your life depends on it, because it very well might. If you hear that Nazis or Proud Boys or just a MAGA mob plans to “monitor” an election event, shake the tree of your network and show up to counter them.
And VOTE. America lost democracy in 2025 because Biden voters stayed home in 2024. For fuck’s sake, learn the lesson. The lesser evil is always better if the greater evil is that a fascist dictatorship takes over your country.
Find and Safeguard Leaders
Lastly for systemic opposition, we are going to see a surge of emerging leaders in the coming days across the front of the opposition to the Trump regime. Some of these people — like AOC — are well known already. Some are emerging from groups like 50501. Some are gaining prominence, or gaining a renewed following, who already lead progressive groups.
Each of these people is precious. Anyone willing to put their name and face out there in defense of democracy is a hero in times like this. For anyone who doesn’t feel quite so heroic, guess what? You still have a part to play.
These leaders are going to need protection. They’re going to need money. They’re going to need safe spaces. They may even need safehouses, the way things are going. They may very well wind up on the run from the law. Get involved with your local organizations now, and start having the conversation about how to safeguard the people who are prepared to stick their face out in public for you.
If all you can do is give $20, do that. If you have a spare bedroom, make sure someone knows. If you can arrange car pools to protests, or provide an escort home, do that. Start building the systems that will keep the resistance leaders safe now, before they actually start being in real danger, and the odds of them being in tangible danger drop dramatically.
Monetary Opposition
Last but not least, let’s talk money. If you really want to change someone’s mind, hit them in the wallet. This has been true for ages, and it’s true now. We vote with our ballot and our dollars. Make sure that your money is going to the right cause, and being channeled away from the people who support the Trump regime. Here are some things you can do:
- Oppose big business
- Stop using fascist media
- Divest from fascist-supporting investments
- Support resistance organizations
Oppose Big Business
Fascism works hand-in-hand with big business interests. Everyone in the media and in online spaces has been wondering for weeks, why are the tech bros all lining up behind Trump? Why are all the corporations suddenly ditching DEI? Why, in a nutshell, are these powerful entities that exist in and have greatly profited from a democracy sudden throwing in the towel?
The answer is that very, very few big businesses are ever even slightly concerned with the political system under which they operate — except to the extent that it benefits them. Businesses exist to make money. That’s it. That’s all. Expect nothing else from them, and you will never be disappointed.
Fascism likes big business because big business hands them the keys to economic power. Remember that fascism prefers a command economy, and fascist leaders can’t get there without the support of large business sectors. Big business likes fascism because fascists want to run a command economy, which means that a fascist government can direct enormous resources into a very small set of pockets.
With that being said, punishing any big business — making a political system unpalatable to them — is composed of three parts.
Part one is boycotting that business. Hit them in the pocketbook.
Part two is making sure they know why.
Path three is supporting small businesses.
Sometimes people forget the second part, but it’s incredibly important because otherwise a boycott just looks like a weird blip in the data. Giving the business feedback looks like sending letters, leaving comments, calling service desks, and generally screaming into the void to make sure that the information bubbles up through the business’s bureaucracy.
On the flip side, supporting small businesses is all about creating alternative spaces and services to ensure that the resources that big businesses provide can be recreated in a space that isn’t helping the fascist. This is at least as important as keeping money away from Zuckerberg and Bezos.
Stop Using Fascist Media
Speaking of techbros, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and FOX News, to name a few, have all had an enabling hand in the rise of Trump 2.0. Especially FOX News, TikTok, and Facebook. Stop supporting these companies — cut the feed. Cancel your accounts, or in the case of YouTube, at least start blocking channels. The tech bros are not — emphatically not — on the side of the angels here. Some of them are fascist supporters themselves, some are simply big business money-focused scumbags. None of them are to be trusted.
Similarly, the time has come to hold news and print media accountable for fascist enablement. The Washington Post, for example, is Bezos’s arm. Don’t even get me started on the New York Post. Cancel subscriptions, and make sure you tell the editor why.
Divest Fascist-Supporting Investments
A lot of us are in the stock market. Guess what, your stock picks have political opinions. Some of them are very much on Team Trump. Sucking money away from them in the stock markets is just as viable as boycotting products. Here’s a short list of major companies that donated to Trump this time around, and a Google search will turn up local businesses in your area that are MAGA-supporting. Keep your dollars elsewhere.
Support Resistance Organizations
Not everyone has to be directly involved. Some of us simply can’t. Most of us, though, can afford to give $20 to an organization. Find an organization you like and give them money. Seriously, no amount is too small, especially if that small amount is delivered regularly. A network of people giving $20 each is often worth more to a group than a single donor who might or might not give $500,000, precisely because those $20 donations are reliable. Every little bit helps.
As time goes on, it may become necessary to provide material support for resistance groups as well. The value of safe houses, for example, is astronomical. That’s support you usually can’t buy. It has to be given. Guerilla fighters don’t survive because they win battles, they survive because they melt into the local population.
Above all, start providing support right now. There is no better time. And while you’re doing it, learn who is who in the organizations you support. Learn who is trustworthy, who has history with the group or the cause. Start figuring out who you can trust, and make sure those people know they can trust you.
Summing Up: Everyone Can Support the Resistance
This was a really long article, so if you made it this far down, bully for you. I’ll TLDR: Everyone — every single one of us — can do something to oppose the Trump regime. We are at a crossroads of history. If you ever wanted to know “What would I do in Nazi Germany?” well, you’re about to find out.
The United States is turning against the world and against its own citizens. Our President is at best a stooge and at worst a would-be dictator. His inner circle are full-throated, seig-heiling fascists. His party is at best spineless and at worst actively enabling the transition away from democracy. The roundups of “undesirables” have begun. The assault on intellectuals has begun. The purge of government has begun. We are all in serious trouble, here, and nothing is going to get better in the short term.
Look to the long term. Evaluate your options to fight this rise of darkness. Do whatever you can.
Godspeed, and good luck.
Rise.
