Summary
It’s time to reengage with politics as Trump prepares to take office again.
Unlike 2017, Trump now has a more compliant establishment, streamlined strategies, and influential allies like Musk, Zuckerberg, and Bezos.
Concerns include his administration’s potential for sweeping authoritarian measures, such as Project 2025, and media normalization of his actions.
Vigilance is necessary to counter efforts to dismantle democratic institutions.
The best way to “resist” is to build parallel systems through Mutual Aid. If we cannot rely on the systems and institutions we traditionally relied on, then it’s up to us to build new, parallel systems from the ground up.
That works far better than political resistance. We need to give up on direct resistance and start building the alternatives of the future
Why waste energy “fighting” when we could be spending our energy “building?”
And what do you do if the Trump government starts attacking people?
Up in Canada, some of us are now being forced to have serious discussions about the nonzero chance that America becomes hostile to us. When the world is already more or less entering a global conflict stage thanks to Russia, Making jokes about “acquiring” countries like us, Denmark’s Greenland, Panama Canal, etc. is all about as funny as a heart attack.
Keep in mind that Trump has no sense of humor.
That’s one way, yes, but there’s also going to need to be obstacles put up in front of the brownshirts and jackboots.
I am not referring to political resistance.
There are many forms of political resistance.
Of course, the Black Panthers started out as exactly that. The open carry copwatchers, there to protect the rest of the group practicing Mutual Aid from unfair interference by law enforcement. Which became white people’s first time they gave a shit about gun control.
So yeah, absolutely, but like the Black Panthers, the plan should be protection and to be “those who watch the watchmen” more than violent resistance. It can turn to violent resistance if the cops won’t leave the group alone, but the overarching goal shouldn’t be violent resistance. That kind of resistance will be needed occasionally to prevent any Fred Hampton-esque violent law enforcement assassinations.
Mostly because we have plenty of historical evidence that building the parallel alternatives works better than directly fighting the system. The system is failing, and you build a better system, then people will flock to it. In that way, you don’t need to fight, you can just show others a better way and have the old way slowly dissolve in importance. You are correct that on that path to irrelevance, the old system will try to stop a new system from forming.
They’ll do those anyway. Don’t pretend that you can avoid being targeted if you resist in any way.
We’re not in opposition to each other, but you’re definitely more optomistic than I am.
“There are four boxes to be used in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and cartridge (or ammo). Please use in that order.”
Three of those have already failed.
America can’t exist as a single country anymore. Its too divisive. Sooner or later, yall are gonna have to sort this out.
either a bloodless split like Czechoslovakia, or the other way, like Yugoslavia.
… Or there wont be a fight. and you’ll become a one party state that ratfucks the election system so that it can never lose again, and the country gets carved up by oligarchs, and mobsters until they become the government itself. (you become, basically Russia
I don’t disagree, but building a new parallel system falls squarely outside of the norms leveled in that quote. Soap, ballot, and jury all are actively within the context of the system as it currently exists, it’s not building something else outside of it.
Building another system starts with the soap box. Making it official requires the ballot box. Defending it in place needs the jury box. Doing away with it if it becomes corrupted demands the ammo box.
You’re putting the cart before the horse, my friend.
Those things take time to build in a parallel system.
Convincing other people to align with the foundations of a new system is using the soap box. Unless that new system is wholly undemocratic, the ballot box comes next. The jury box must follow unless the new system is an authoritarian one.
You’ve got to build something at all first to bother to even convince other people to align with it.
We’re really on the same page, just looking at it differently. I think there’s room for both opinions on this.