what to do in the face of an impending fascist regime

I hope I’m wrong. But it looks like, once again, a mentally disturbed aspiring dictator will be the President of the USA as of January 2025. This time, he is surrounded by people ready to start immediately to implement a very dark and dire plan that will roll back our freedom and set the USA further upon a path imagined by Margaret Atwood in The Handmaid’s Tale (please read Project 2025, the Republican Party’s plan for what to do immediately after the inauguration, if you haven’t already).

I hope you will all keep working to turn out the vote in November against this – but it’s important to also make preparations NOW, and in the coming months, in case the worst happens, because the dire changes are going to happen rapidly.

What are the options for those that are abhorred by these circumstances – or even terrified of the consequences – and in facing such a dire change in in our safety and freedom? And for those who will be endangered, not merely inconvenienced, by the consequences? I’m listing options here I’ve been researching for years – because I’ve been afraid of this for so long. If I’m right, then by posting this, I could be increasing my own risks if the worst comes true. But so be it.

And if I’m wrong this time around, if he loses, then maybe this can help in another time – and there will be another time:

1. You may have to be more than just silent in order to stay safe and survive: you may have to put on a public face you hate in order to not be targeted by authorities. In private, do what you can to remember who you are at your core and what you are, in your own way, fighting for.
2. Get a VPN and learn how to use it. But note that VPN companies themselves could become compromised and start sharing customer data. Stay informed.
3. Remember that everything you purchase via a credit card, even offline, can be tracked.
4. If you are a US citizen, get a passport NOW if you don’t have one, and if you do, look at the expiration date and put in for a new one at least six months in advance. It is going to get harder to get passports eventually, if the election goes the way we all fear.
5. If you have health care coverage, make every over-due appointment NOW. Get every checkup you can possibly get. Stay on top of doctor’s appointments and regular checkups – your health care coverage may end after January 2025, sooner than you might think possible.
6. Do you work for a government agency? Even if your agency is a state agency, your job may change radically – and you may lose that job, per loss of federal funding. Have a hard look at your finances and have a plan for if you lose your job.
7. Do you work for a nonprofit that receives federal funding? That funding will be phased out as soon as possible. Have a hard look at your finances and have a plan for if you lose your job.
8. If you aren’t taking social security now, do not count on having it when you had wanted to start receiving it.
9. Think about your living situation and those of your loved ones. A lot of people will be losing much needed federal benefits. Will you need to combine households with someone to save on expenses? Could you take in a family member who may be losing their social security, veteran benefits, SNAP benefits, etc.? Think about that now and make preparations, like downsizing so that someone could live in your guest room.
10. Think about the women in your life – and, if you are a woman, yourself – and the chances of pregnancy. You will need to keep track of which states will keep abortion services legal as long as possible, and need to know if your state passes a law making it illegal for you to cross state boundaries to access abortion services for yourself or someone else. You also should find out right now if your doctor supports rights to access or abortion or not – and get a new doctor if that person does not.
11. Do you have school-aged children? Think about how you will teach them what schools will no longer be allowed to teach. If your child is gay, they will be at greater risk of harassment and harm, and will need to know you love them and support them.
12. Consider donating whatever you can to your local public radio and public TV stations, at least once a year, starting NOW. If you can give $5 a month, or more, that would be best. Local financial support keeps these stations more beholden to people rather than corporate entities, and more likely to give us the honesty in media that is going to be in further decline after January 2025.
13. Consider serving on a local community government board, and start looking for opportunities NOW. The public library board, the planning commission, the police public safety board, the local cultural board, the school board, the local elections board – any local city or county government board. This may be the last bastion for fighting against authoritarian control and fascist ideas.
14. Work elections, starting with the one coming up in November 2024 – sign up NOW to do that. Follow the rules precisely and report any violation of the rules immediately to authorities.
15. Help neighbors vote. If in your state you can vote by mail, offer to drive them to the drop box. Otherwise, offer to drive them to a polling station.
16. Register voters. You can do this through the Democratic Party, the League of Women Voters, or local political action groups.
17. Be careful with alcohol and drug use. You will be tempted to rely on those much more. Frequent or increased use can lead to health problems – and you may not have health insurance much longer – or lead to a lapse in judgement that could bring you to the attention of those you want to avoid.
18. If you are a person of faith, consider joining a church, synagogue, mosque or other community that, at least in the past, has reflected your values. This helps protect these communities from more extremist elements. Progressive Christian and Jewish congregations may also become centers for resistance that the government is reluctant to target.
19. If you can volunteer, focus on things that empower people rather than charity, or in addition to charity. Food banks are nice – but they don’t change a person’s circumstances long-term, and can even contribute to the idea of superiority. Help people learn English, help people with their résumé, help people learn to use computers and even their phones, help people apply for jobs, help people apply for housing. Some nonprofits may, quietly, become center for resistance that may avoid government scrutiny (however always remember what happened to ACORN).
20. Go to live theater shows. Go to live music. Go to dance recitals. These are all already under threat due to poor attendance and funding, and that’s by design: this is where the resistance will get their inspiration and where they will organize and communicate, just as it has for generations under fascist regimes.
21. Have movie watch nights with an anti-fascist or anti-corporate greed theme. You don’t have to say what the theme is if you are worried about any consequences. Here’s enough movie suggestions to have something at least every other week (or more!).
22. Buy books, especially books for children and young adults, that may not be as easy to access eventually. If you have school aged children, you now have these books for them to read, even if they aren’t in any library. Have these ready to loan to children and young adults that should read them (but take care regarding what their parents might think).
23. If you read anything online that gets you immediately energized about an issue, do NOT share it – instead, work to confirm that it’s true. Whether it makes you immediately happy or immediately angry, do not share it until you find and evaluate the source. Become a trusted sharer of information and don’t be manipulated into sharing misinformation because of a great sound bite or meme.
24. Keep what happened to ACORN in mind: an effective, national nonprofit that registered poor people as voters and created a variety of programs to get people out of poverty, brought down by just a handful of people dressing outrageously and saying outrageous things to Project Acorn staff, and recording these meetings, then editing them to make it look like staff supported things like prostitution. “Gotcha” video is going to become a preferred tool after January, and will be further augmented by AI. Be prepared, if you work for a nonprofit or company that in any way is seen as not supportive of the White House, for anyone coming through your door as a potential saboteur.
25. Right-wing extremists like to set up situations where they can play the victim. That’s why counter protests are often NOT effective – a small group being screamed at by a much larger group often doesn’t play well visually, even when the small group are Nazis. If you are going to respond, then be strategic in the response: consider a silent “We are watching you” protest. Consider hiring a mariachi band and dancing. In Knoxville, Tennessee, a “clown brigade” was so effective that the neo-Nazi group called off their demonstration several hours early.
26. If family, friends or co-workers use dehumanizing language about women or any ethnic group or any group at-risk under the regime, tell them you don’t like such language and find such offensive. If they say, “oh, so you’re all woke now?” say, “I try to be polite and respectful and ask you to as well.” It can let others who are silent in the room know you are their ally.
27. If you can use Biblical justifications for your opinions, do so if you end up daring to argue with anyone. Know that book better than them (most Atheists do already, BTW).
28. Make sure your immigrants neighbors and co-workers know you are an ally. Deliberately say “hello” and that you are glad they are here.
29. If you are living in the USA and want to continue to live in the USA but don’t have citizenship, you need to do all you can to get such. If you have a green card, and have had it for seven years, gaining citizenship is easy – you apply online. Make sure you use the official US government web site. If you don’t have a green card, contact an immigration-advocacy group NOW and work to get it ASAP. If you have a green card, but haven’t had the card for seven years, find an immigration lawyer NOW who can help you keep that card until you are eligible for citizenship. Watch the news closely – there will be an effort to change the status of green card holders and you need to be ready for it. And be very careful about reading the news before you leave the US for a vacation, family visit or business trip.
30. If you don’t have permission to be in the USA legally, but want to stay, you have to do all you can to not encounter authorities in any way: don’t ride the bus if you can’t pay the fare, keep your yard mowed and tidy, stay away from any place that would ask for your ID, avoid going into government buildings if at all possible, etc. Check in with your family frequently so you all know where each other is.
31. If you can leave the USA and live somewhere else legally, you may need to do that. If that’s a possibility, start thinking NOW about what it would take for you to do it (downsizing, for instance, or updating your LinkedIn profile and CV).
32. If you are desperate to keep your job and fear for your safety in any way, go through your social media and delete posts that someone in authority could use against you for getting a job or to get you fired from your current job… or worse. Not just anti-government posts: also look at posts about your lifestyle, values and political views. Don’t delete your account though – someone could come along and create an account using your name and online ID.
33. If you fear for your job, your safety, or anything regarding your family, be careful what you post online going forward. If you are engaged in activities to support candidates that are fighting against fascists, you might want to avoid organizing via online tools whenever possible, and that includes email. You may need to organize verbally, face-to-face, to avoid surveillance.
34. Make sure your money is in a nonprofit credit union, NOT a bank. This provides as much protection as a bank (though those protections will be eliminated under Project 2025). It also takes money away from massive banks that contribute to Republicans.
35. If you can’t speak out, support those who do, because they are paying a price, even if they don’t talk about it: they may have been passed up for a work promotion, their family may no longer speak to them, they may feel alone in speaking out per the silence of others who are fearful for their jobs and safety. Reach out to them, tell them you appreciate their voice, consider offering financial support if you think it’s needed.
36. Regarding anything you are required to do that would support the regime, or regarding anything that might muck up things for the regime, you can quietly hurt things by not doing your best and not going the extra mile. As one person put it, “that forces the regime to commit more resources to doing something that shouldn’t take so many to begin with… Small issues frustrate governments far more than larger issues. Government, and its assorted bureaucracy, is a blunt instrument by nature. It can’t deal with smaller issues for the same reason a doctor can’t perform brain surgery with a baseball bat. It just doesn’t have the tools. That won’t stop it from trying. It’ll just made a mess of things and that works to your advantage.” You’ll not see much in the short-term, but you’ll see the benefits in the long run.

If you have more ideas you can comment here, but note that your comment can be seen – I don’t intend on deleting this blog, If you are at ALL worried about consequences, DM me.

May none of this be necessary, but if it is – I wish for strength, rational thought and inspiration to get us through it.

November 19, 2024 update: well, looks like it is absolutely going to be necessary. How to survive the broligarchy: 20 lessons for the post-truth world offers even more advice. My favorite from it: “Do not kiss the ring. Do not bend to power. Power will come to you, anyway. Don’t make it easy. Not everyone can stand and fight. But nobody needs to bend the knee until there’s an actual memo to that effect. WAIT FOR THE MEMO.” Or as Yale historian Timothy Snyder said in On Tyranny, “Do not obey in advance.”

And I’ll add another suggestion to my list, with its own set of bullet points: DO NOT ASSIST THE POLICE unless you absolutely have to. The majority of police in the USA support the incoming administration. They voted for mass deportations, they voted for women to be arrested for seeking abortions or getting such, they voted for journalists to be arrested.

• Do NOT assume the police are on your side nor that they won’t target you at some point nor that they are not up to something nefarious. Even if you have to call them because of a crime that’s been committed, do not think of them as allies that couldn’t turn on you in a flash.
• Do not go to police community events. Do not stop at the police table at the downtown farmer’s market. Tell the school you do NOT want your child to attend events that invite police officers into their classroom.
• If you do not present as a white person, as someone descended from people from Western European country, or if you present as someone who might be viewed as LBGTQ, do not assume the police will help you, even if you are a crime victim and are calling for help. Again, even if you have to call them because of a crime that’s been committed, do not think of them as allies that couldn’t turn on you in a flash.
• If you feel that you must talk to the police, know, for certain, the exact circumstances you are being talked to by the police, such as you have just been a car wreck and they are asking you for your name and address and what happened, or that they are speaking to you about a burglery on your own property. Be on alert for fishing questions that don’t really relate to what they are investigating.
• Don’t assume that a person the police ask you about is a law breaker – it could be that they are trying to target someone they suspect is in the country illegally, someone who has had an abortion in a state where it’s illegal or is attempting to do so, etc.
• No police officer can legally force you to talk to them, even if they detain you. You must follow police orders, but you do NOT have to speak. If you are told to get out of your vehicle after being lawfully stopped, you must get out of your vehicle, but exiting a vehicle does not require you to speak. You can move or act as commanded without talking to the police. In order to exercise your right not to speak, the most you should have to say is, “I am not speaking to you without a lawyer.”
• Do not allow them to search your vehicle nor your property without a warrent. No matter what they say, do not allow them to search your car or property without a warrent unless it’s clearly for YOUR safety, as in “We think there’s a bomb in your car” or “The guy that robbed the bank downtown may be in your barn.”
• If asked to empty your pockets or your bag—even if the officer says you will not get in trouble—do not do it. Say “I do not consent to this search.”
• If your or your car is searched without a warrant, do not resist physically. Say out loud, clearly, “I do not consent to this search.” You may have to do it several times.
• If police say they have a search warrant, ask to see it.
• Do not argue with police or badmouth officers. Keep your hands where police can see them. Do not run. Do not touch a police officer. Do not resist physically if the police try to move you or cuff you. Do not interfere with or obstruct police.
• Ask whether you are free to leave or say, “Are you detaining me?” If they are silent, keep asking until they clearly answer. If they say you are free to leave, repeat it: “You just said I am free to leave, correct?”
• You do not have to leave the vicinity with police unless you have been arrested. If they police say, “Let’s go down to the station,” say, “I do not want to leave with you. Am I under arrest?”
• If someone else can film you during your interaction with police, have them do so.
• Do all you can to get the names of officers questioning you. Write these down for later, along with the date and time and place it happened, and a description of what happened.

Let’s hope this is just for four years. But I fear it’s much longer.