Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny was a formative book for me early in the first days of Trump, Round #1. Now that we are halfway through Trump, Round #2, this is a book with a similar punch, gravitas, and some practical advice mixed in.
In interviews with dozens of dissident from around the globe who have spent good chunks of their lives fighting authoritarian regimes, a few themes emerge:
- We should worry when a politician, especially one currently in power, begins to reject the rules of the game (As of just this last week, Trump instructed the DOJ to intervene in the Alaska Senatorial race IF Republicans don’t win).
- We should worry when a politician denies the legitimacy of opponents.
- We should worry when a politician tolerates or encourages violence.
- We should worry when a politician indicates a willingness to curtail the civil liberties of opponents, including (especially?) the media.
For those keeping score at home, we’re 4/4 here in current day America.
How best to confront these forces? Don’t start from scratch. We all have various overlapping circles in our lives, so use those as a starting point. Get your neighbors into a group chat, ideally on an end-to-end encrypted platform like Signal.
In terms of building a community of resistance, here’s the takeaway: there is some research showing that if 3.5%*of a population shows up in protest, that’s the tipping point for change. But 3.5% isn’t the first move, that’s the end result of multiple small, discreet actions. So how to build up to a critical mass, especially when people are reluctant to be the first to stick their necks out? Ask for something small. If there is a protest planned, say a sit-in or a blockade, put out a call asking folks (maybe on Signal?) to bring blankets. Those that show up for that non-confrontational, supportive task are then much more likely to get more involved and take on more direct resistance roles.
* There’s some debate surrounding that 3.5% number, but the primary argument is if a movement can build up to that number, rather than have just a singular “big bang” moment, those tend to be the movements that prevail.
When opposing authoritarian regimes, there’s no one strategy that can provide a impenetrable shield against state-sponsored aggression. The suggestion here is to take a “Swiss Cheese” approach to defense. Autocrats use the most minor personal scandals to discredit activists and weaken their movements. This requires folks to clean up their both their digital lives as well as their personal lives. Gotta be squeaky clean.
How to be squeaky clean, in this era where someone (like me) is always holier than thou? Consider Euki, an app with a built-in web browser that retains no information about what users have viewed. So, for example, users can “search for reproductive health information without leaving tracks.” Euki also prompts users to set two passcodes. One being the real passcode, the other being a safety code that, when entered, blocks all access to the app.
In a similar vein, Tella is an app that allows users to share media and text files on an encrypted app that is accessible only with a passcode. The app can also be disguised as a calculator or some other innocuous utility on a users phone. It’s not a lot in an of itself, but when layered with other defenses, it can be effective.
Regarding anti-authoritarian movements that prevail, there tends to be a divide between violent vs. non-violent approaches to resistance. While sometimes those waters get murky and it’s oftentimes tough to clearly delineate between the two, the data shows non-violent movements have a better track record of bringing about change than do their violent, armed counterparts. And here’s the research: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/why-civil-resistance-works/9780231156837/
The 90,000 foot overview:
- “Listen intently to the internal voice that is uncomfortable with what’s going on around us.”
- “In an authoritarian environment designed to make us feel as if we have less and less room to maneuver, holding closely to our deepest values helps open space for dissent.”
- “Dissent becomes easier, and more effective, when we do it with others.”
- “Community is our best chance for staying safe amid the physical, psychological, and digital risks that come through dissent under authoritarian conditions.”
- “A society in which everyone has equal rights, dignity, and opportunity demands that we bring more and more people into the work of achieving it.”
It’s more than a little unsettling to be living in the land of the free and feeling like these topics deserve some serious considerations, and yet, here we are. We have as our President a man who may very well prove to be the most petulant, self-serving, self-congratulatory, self-absorbed, power hungry human on the face of the planet and from all outward appearances, his only goal in life is to become even more of all of the above. Barring some nicely timed intervention from divine forces or a poorly advised assassin (see above about non-violent vs. violent resistance), it seems that we Americans are going to have to link some arms, stand firm, and shout “Shut your stupid little puckered lips, you Epstein backslapping, racist, rapist, Putin bootlicker waste of humanity.” Or something along those lines.
