What happens when the truly insane cast of department heads is confirmed and start to dismantle their respective fiefdoms? the United States fails to raise the debt ceiling and uses the budget as a hostage? What happens when new co-president Elon Musk takes his ax to our system, already inadequate, of social supports in the name of "government efficiency"? Or when the deportations start - not just to remove immigrants with criminal records but to reset the demographic? Or when 50,000+ federal bureaucrats, experts in their fields, are replaced by Trumparatchiks interested only in following directions?
Like a scene from the YA novel Unwind, we are wide awake as every living organ of our democracy is systematically being severed from the body by vultures who seek to "sell it off for parts," as Sarah Kendzior has written.
Even the lowliest garden club usually includes a section in its constitution that will keep a rival group from taking over and wrecking everything. We are supposed to have that. Where are the people who make a lot of money to protect against this very thing? Where are our elected officials? They are like a junk healthcare policy. We have been paying in our whole lives and now that there's an emergency, they won't cover it. YOYO, suckers.
Liberal pundits assure us these draconian measures are illegal and can't be accomplished because of laws and timelines and contracts. We'll see. With a compliant Supreme Court, clearly willing to make shit up to come to their preferred conclusion, and control of both the House and Senate, who is going to stop it? Not to mention the J6 army standing back and standing by and the constitutional sheriffs, proud boys, TheoBros and worse. It's like the last Narnia book but there is nothing awaiting us further up and further in.
Are we ready to not just deal with the financial and social upheaval this will cause in our own lives but in our wider community? Already, people can't afford housing, food, and healthcare. Already, LGBTQ+ friends are threatened. Already we can't be sure who is telling the truth. What happens when the truth is banned? And when the keys to the surveillance state are handed over to the Christian nationalist regime change planners.
If you want to catch up on what's likely coming, here are some suggested author and links (more to come - email your suggestions to couleeprogressive (singular) at hotmail). Maybe we should have an End of Democracy book club.
At the very least, keep yourself healthy and together, connect and work with as many as possible, and be prepared to help others. Maybe download and study The Simple Sabotage Field Manual, developed by the OSS during World War II for "everyday citizens" working with the Resistance (like Managers and Supervisors: To lower morale and production, think of the worst boss you’ve had and act like that. Be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work. When possible, refer all matters to committees for "further study and consideration." Attempt to make the committees as large and bureaucratic as possible.)
Beware of normalizing who we're not, believing the gaslighting, sanity-izing the crazy.

Dust off that old printer - flyers and pamphlets may be making a comeback soon. Read Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother and many other books about big tech, government, data mining and much more. Or Ronan Farrow's latest on the new surveillance tools the Trump admin will have.
“It’s just so evident—the impending disaster,” Emily Tucker, the executive director at the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law, told me. “You may believe yourself not to be in one of the vulnerable categories, but you won’t know if you’ve ended up on a list for some reason or your loved ones have. Every single person should be worried.”
Sarah Kendzior, author of Hiding in Plain Sight and They Knew, has been ringing the alarm bell for more than a decade, documenting the rise of an "international crime syndicate masquerading as a government." And it's bi-partisan. She had Merrick Garland's number years ago.
Andrea Chalupa, host of Gaslit Nation, researches and writes about authoritarianism. The GLN Action Guide has useful suggestions.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, authoritarian expert and author of Strongmen, has been documenting the step by step strongman path Donald Trump is walking. She's started a resistance to authoritarianism series.
The Freedom Over Fascism Toolkit from Anat Shenker-Osorio and recommended by Ben-Ghiat.
From 2017, A 15 Point Guide to Surviving Authoritarianism by Martin Mycoelski.
How to survive the second Trimp era by Professor of Global Politics Brian Llamas.
This The Political Scene podcast episode features David Cole, former ACLU Legal Director, on How to prepare for Trump 2.0.
Fear Itself by Tom Watson. "There’s no point in trying to find common ground with the MAGA movement simply because the overall goal of that movement is your demise. So shrug off any temptation to start a sentence with the phrase 'to be fair to Trump' or 'normally I disagree, but' - or any of that malarkey. This is a political battle to turn back 1.47% of the American voting public in four years. Contrary to what a handful of quisling Congressional Democrats think, helping MAGA won’t help the country. I agree with Bulwark editor Jonathan Last’s first rule of opposition: 'First: Do not help Republicans. Not in any way. On any issue. Republicans can’t pass a budget, or raise the debt ceiling? Tough luck. Do not provide them any bailout votes on any issue. Period, the end.'"
Historian, journalist, and Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Applebaum lays it all out in her books Autocracy, Inc. and Twilight of Democracy.
George Lakoff who has been warning Dems (and us) about messaging and values for decades. Read his post on tech authoritarianism.
Naomi Klein, an activist, investigator, and author, whose latest book, Doppelganger, could be more timely. "I decided to follow my Doppelganger to a place I've come to think of as the mirror world. It's a strange mirror image of the world where I live. It's a place where many ideas that I care about are being twisted and warped into dangerous Doppelganger versions of themselves."
Disaster Nationalism: The Downfall of Liberal Civilization by Richard Seymour. Recommended by Naomi Klein
Timothy Snyder, historian and researcher on fascism. His books, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, and On the Road to Unfreedom offer warnings and lessons.
Dave Troy, researcher in disinformation, geopolitics, and threats to democracy.
Beth Howard, SURJ, on organizing rural people to counter Trump.
Carolyn Cadwallader's Guardian article includes great advice.
Preparing for the Storm - a brief guide by Jared Yates Sexton from his blog Dispatches from a Collapsing State.
Andrea Pitzer on Next Comes What?: How to Survive this Mess, an expanded video version of her blog post Swept Into the Flood.
Emily Galvin-Almaza on what refusing to comply could look like.
A 1980s Russian defector describes the plan for "the great brainwashing."
Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen. "Trump had beaten the government, the media, and the very concept of politics into a state beyond recognition. In part by habit and in part out of a sense of necessity, we continued to report the news and consume the news-this presidency produced more headlines per unit of time than any other-but at the end of each of his thousand days of presidency we seemed hardly closer to understanding what was happening to us."
Resisting authoritarianism from The Kettering Foundation.
Marc Elias (Democracy Docket) on How to Oppose the Second Trump Presidency
Olga Lautman, Russia intelligence ops expert with the Center for European Policy Analysis, on What Can We Expect.
Toni Morrison warns about fascism and the censorship of dissent.
The number one thing is we have to get and stay together, find ways to verify information and share it, resist the plan to further divide us. This great 20 year old clip of Bernie Sanders explaining the politics of division should be our daily reminder.
20 Lessons from the 20th Century
1. Do not obey in advance.
2. Defend institutions.
3. Recall professional ethics.
4. When listening to politicians, distinguish certain words.
5. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.
6. Be kind to our language.
7. Stand out.
8. Believe in truth.
9. Investigate.
10. Practice corporeal politics.
11. Make eye contact and small talk.
12. Take responsibility for the face of the world.
13. Hinder the one-party state.
14. Give regularly to good causes if you can.
15. Establish a private life.
16. Learn from others in other countries.
17. Watch out for the paramilitaries.
18. Be reflective if you must be armed.
19. Be as courageous as you can.
20. Be patriotic.
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