There were many people, apparently, who voted for Trump who justified it with plain vanilla doubt. As in: they see the threats to imprison political opponents, to encourage police to run wild on “one really violent day,” and to imprison investigative journalists who oppose him as just so much campaign talk, overhyped by the media.
Now, I’m not talking about the MAGA base. The people who cheer and stomp their feet when Trump proclaims that his mass deportation plans are likely to be a “bloody story.” I’m talking about the Trump voters who thought that he’d be “good for business” or somehow bring down the price of consumer goods. People who might say they’re very concerned about immigration but at the same time can’t really imagine men in tactical gear kicking down doors in the burbs to round up families and grandmothers and throw them in the back of a truck.
All such rose-colored denialism will run up against the limits of actuality, sooner or later—and the deluge of truly execrable cabinet nominations Trump is trying to drown us in suggests it’ll be sooner. It’s a moment when we would all do well to remember the words of Maya Angelou: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
Will Trump and his gang of sycophants and opportunists be able to accomplish all that he’s promised to? Will they, for example, be able to deport millions in the kind of magical timeline understood by his true believers? No. But what he can do is mobilize the resources of the executive branch—including the military, Homeland Security, and the Justice Department—to manufacture an objectively brutal spectacle of deportation. Further, in ordering such mobilization, the regime can identify conscientious objectors, foot-draggers, pragmatic mitigators, and other “internal enemies” for blame and retribution. It’s a win-win for Trump.
As we think about resistance, sanity, and survival under Trump 2.0, we need to understand that from Trump’s perspective—indeed, from the perspective of anyone who aspires to autocratic rule—the first priority is to break our will to resist. And the “our” here is the big We—essentially everyone who isn’t actively involved in carrying out the regime’s orders.
He needs our complicity in our own degradation, starting with Congress, and particularly members of his own party—though at base, even the Democrats have failed to come to terms with the new reality. To understand this, you need look no further than the 52 House Democrats who voted for H.R. 9495—a bill that would give the Secretary of the Treasury the summary power to revoke the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit group they deem a “terrorist supporting organization” without explanation or clear criteria, even after Trump’s election.
Those 52 Democrats are guilty of a failure of imagination so vast it’s mind-numbing. The so-called “Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act” is a horrible anti-democracy, anti-free speech instrument under any administration. Under a Trump administration, it’s a license to persecute political enemies. And while some of those who voted for 9495 might have been focusing on the provision that would let honest-to-god hostages avoid paying income taxes—a fine idea currently impacting about 40 people—the gist of the law would allow a regime loyalist to make a list of organizations that oppose Trump’s policies and declare them, nearly without recourse, “terrorist supporting.”
Keep in mind that providing “material support”—a vague term but one that at least points toward fundraising—to foreign terrorist organizations, as listed by the U.S. State Department, is already illegal. If this bill passes, there is nothing to stop an incoming Secretary of the Treasury from dropping a list of dozens or hundreds of organizations disliked by the President and his cronies, revoking their non-profit status—without any explanation.
For those unfamiliar with the intricacies of the U.S. Tax Code and non-profit designations, this might not sound like a big deal. So, a few freeloaders have to start paying taxes, so what? But that’s not what it would mean at all; what it would mean is that the vast majority of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, public education, environmental advocacy, legal reform, women’s rights, and related work would effectively be dissolved or under threat of dissolution, unable to pay their staff, draw on their bank accounts, or receive funding from foundations.
It could impact thousands of people, or more, depending on the extent of the list, and have an even broader self-censorship effect that has nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism. And this is precisely what MAGA-aligned influencers are pushing the Trump regime to do.
So, if the most crucial goal of the Trump regime is to manufacture mass complicity, how should we react? Here are 10 practical suggestions for people—whether from inside or outside movement organizations—looking to resist.
1. Don’t Rush to Kiss the Ring
If the terrible power of the security state is actually pointed at you, you will know it. There’s no need for, and no advantage in, hastening to submit. Every person, especially every person of power and privilege who proactively accedes to the validity of Trump 2.0, makes it seem more like his regime is impossible to resist. Shame on Joe Biden. Shame on Jeff Bezos.
2. Don’t Succumb to Conspiracy Theories
Authoritarianism thrives in a fact-free, post-truth environment. Donald Trump is the legally elected President of the United States and cannot be delegitimized in the narrow range of formal electoral politics. There is a small, counterproductive effort to make stolen election claims. Trump, like most contemporary autocrats, was elected. The government of the United States is not yet autocratic—but to the extent that the Trump regime successfully breaks the mechanisms that support actual democracy—the rule of law, separation of powers, freedom of speech, and opposition—this may not last.
3. Stand with the Most Vulnerable
Those on the front lines of Trump’s campaign of exclusion and repression are well known. They include Muslims, immigrants (but particularly the undocumented), trans folk, Black liberation and policing accountability activists, opposition (and reality-based) journalists, and Palestine solidarity/peace activists. The tech billionaires, deeply endowed universities, and political elites on the President’s enemies list may also come under fire, but they are all too good at compromising with power.
No, our responsibility is to those with only their lives on the line. Each of us has to decide what we can and will do to support them publicly, in our own networks of family, friends, and colleagues, and directly with material aid. This is not the moment for denial or callousness, lest we end up with nothing but Niemöller’s lament.
4. Get with Your People
Besides a toxic information ecosystem, authoritarianism thrives on isolation and the despair it breeds. For those who are paying attention, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and to feel like there’s nothing to be done. But there are many, many practical things everyone can do. Not least is to not stop talking, questioning, supporting each other, and making space for you and your people to not be okay with what’s happening. There are many other possibilities—check out these resources.
5. Take a Breath
When you hear something outrageous, dangerous, or demoralizing, don’t respond without taking time to evaluate the source of the information and the potential consequences. Hot takes on whatever provocations hit your social media feed may feel empowering, but fact-checking and analysis take time. So does strategy. You are under no obligation to respond—and there is a significant benefit to taking some time to evaluate your response’s importance, reliability, and usefulness.
6. Social Media is not (all of) Reality
Increasingly, our window on the world is constructed by the algorithms of profit-driven social media platforms. This isn’t all bad; but if we don’t have alternatives—people we can trust to hear us, see us, challenge us, and help us find our way to the truth, we risk vulnerability to whatever the algorithms feed us. We need each other, not least of all, to make meaning. However, communicating exclusively through social media posts or understanding such posts as political action trivializes our connections to other human beings (and it exposes us to surveillance).
7. Compassion is a Form of Resistance
The primary position of fascism is that none of us matters. The Trump circle includes both individualistic authoritarians (or fascist leaners) and full-on fascists—the former tend toward the “you don’t matter” approach, but for the fascists, only the “nation” (the true people) as a group matter. Not only is every individual expendable, but the nation only really knows itself through the sacrifice of its members—voluntary or otherwise.
When we treat ourselves and those with whom we share a community as important, when we treat suffering not as a test but as something to be minimized short and long-term, we deny the pull of fascism. Avoid masculinist hardening, denying the pain of others or your own.
8. Survival Itself is a Form of Resistance
This is not hyperbole. The ideologically driven callousness of the first Trump regime likely led to tens of thousands of avoidable deaths during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. Mass deportation on the scale the Trumpists are planning will create innumerable risky confrontations that lead to deprivation, preventable disease, injury, and death.
Women seeking emergency medical treatment that should be provided without hesitation will suffer and die as hospitals and clinics are made to fear prosecution. Providing shelter, resources, transportation, and facilitating medical care for the vulnerable may be the difference between life and death. This is not charity—it’s recognition that we are in the fight together and need each other.
9. Stay Informed
While the mainstream news is rightfully critiqued for its bias toward status quo institutions, the wholesale preemptive surrender of billionaire owners even before any demands are issued by the Trump regime will be a game-changer. Instead of social media, think of networks of thoughtful people reporting on what they know from their own experience, and share those resources that are still in circulation and managing to avoid the worst of the regime-leaning distortions.
10. Speaking of Resources
Melissa Ryan at Control Alt Right Delete has compiled a useful list of alternative, progressive, and fight-the-right news sources. Read and support them—along with RD. With your help they will continue to be there when we need them most.
