"First: go beyond digital activism. A wave of anti-Trump street demonstrations recently swept across the US. In the age of social media, that might seem like an outdated or secondary tactic. But it’s not. In a time of effortless communication and online petitions, physical work matters twice as much. It sends a nonverbal message of urgency and sacrifice, and – more importantly – signals an invitation to fellow citizens to join. These protests should be regular and designed for the long haul."

"Second: no ageism, please. As our own history shows, opposing populism in power is possible only if intergenerational solidarity takes place. We heard a reporter sneer that the New York, anti-Trump protest crowd skewed old. So did ours in Poland! Yet over time, younger people joined in as the burdens of populism became more personal. Again – diversity matters most. Not just in communication tools, but in the social makeup of the protest movement."

"Third: it’s always the constitution, stupid. One hallmark of authoritarianism is the erosion of constitutional law. It’s not about abstract legal theories – it’s about changing the rules of the state without formal approval. Donald Trump’s musings about a potential third term are a prime example. The US constitution clearly forbids it. But the very mention signals a willingness to operate outside the legal order. "

"Fourth: don’t leave. Populists in power try to persuade neutral officials, such as public prosecutors, to resign from their government positions. Ideally, they want to rid their political opponents from the country. But don’t let them force you into exile, if you can help it; resistance on the ground will be crucial, just as it was for figures in the anti-communist opposition in eastern Europe before 1989."

@Remittancegirl

Hopes:

Looming bankruptcy proceedings for the GOP billionaires behind Project 2025 & Jan 6.

Tesla may go bankrupt.
https://cleantechnica.com/2025/03/10/who-will-buy-tesla-when-it-goes-bankrupt/

https://medium.com/predict/teslas-missing-1-4-billion-could-be-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-6261be7523ce

A number of companies getting fined for antitrust & Chapter 11
https://globalventuring.com/corporate/asia/corporate-backed-startups-bankruptcy-2024/

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/12-well-known-companies-went-150042008.html

The fossil fuel industry finally faces consequences, if we can thwart energy hogs like AI & cryptocurrency.

Lawsuits & fines will accelerate a badly needed fossil fuel phase out.

1/2

2/2

The protests at Tesla must spread to other GOP billionaire donors.

Oracle. Adelson. Koch. Blackstone. Mellon. Palantir. Google. Susquehanna. Elliott Management. Heritage Foundation. Claremont Institute. Bradley Foundation. Uline. Coors.

Send the message:
"Fund a fascist movement, & face the backlash."

Would IG Farben have turned into the monster it became under Hitler, if it had faced protests, early & often, after it joined the slave labor camps?

GOP billionaires need to be stopped.

@Npars01 👍 And the protests have to be spread to X. Too many institutions and private persons that call themselves democratic go on using X.

#boycottMusk
#boycottX
#boycottTesla

@Npars01

One at a time or all together?

@Remittancegirl I'm certainly hoping Canadians resist electing a further-right government today.

@Remittancegirl thanks for sharing this. Great article. Good ole fashioned organizing works! I'll share this one widely.

@northernlights @Npars01

As much as and in any order you can…

@DavidM_yeg @Npars01

It seems that part of the power of Tesla Takedown is that everyone is focused on one malignant bustard.

I'm not confident that a diffused boycott will be as powerful.

But maybe I'm wrong!

@northernlights @Npars01

You may be right… I think another reason for the success is the close ties between the person and the product, and that the product branding is singular and distinctive. For many of the others, a boycott requires a long and complex list of products covering multiple sectors… just a lot harder to get people into.

@DavidM_yeg @northernlights

Just as rotating strikes can be very effective at getting a boneheaded employer back to the bargaining table, rotating protests & boycotts can be equally effective.

It's worked before on Project 2025's funders like Coors.
https://vinepair.com/articles/hop-take-teamsters-molson-coors-history/

https://www.newsweek.com/fighting-fair-wage-texas-opinion-1892800

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/teamsters-boycott-pressure-forces-molson-coors-back-to-bargaining-table-302101663.html

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coors_strike_and_boycott

@Remittancegirl Thanks for the article. It was a good read.

To the Americans whom might read this, it's not too late. Authoritarianism is still just in its infancy in the US. You can still fight it.

@Kethianna @Remittancegirl
America has been authoritarian for generations.

Don't get me wrong - Americans must the current full-on assault on the rule of law, human decency, and literally truth and logic!, by all means necessary.

But the office of the President has simply gotten stronger and stronger over the years, decades and centuries.

Nixon, Reagan and W Bush were outright authoritarian; Clinton, Obama and Biden did nothing to roll back these extra powers.

And now here we are.

1/

@Kethianna @Remittancegirl

Now Trump has those sparkling new nuclear weapons that Obama started to build for him to terrorize the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renovation_of_the_nuclear_weapon_arsenal_of_the_United_States

----

The idea that something just recently went off the rails is entirely false. America has been sprinting toward this precipice for over fifty years.

When the Republicans ruled, the pace accelerated to a fast run; for the Democrats, it slowed to a walk; but never did America turn around and walk away from the precipice.

/2

@Kethianna @Remittancegirl

Please remember that free speech was sharply restricted in World War 2; in the Second Red Scare (1947-1957) in the United States thousands of people had their lives destroyed simply because they had leftist beliefs; then America had a brief, o so brief period of enlightenment where civil rights were codified in law, where much pollution was made illegal, where demonstrations by Americans stopped an unjust war.

/3

@Kethianna @Remittancegirl But after just two decades, Reagan came in, and anti-authoritarian America never recovered.

While the majority of the blame is of course with the Republicans, all hope was lost when the Democrats starting with Clinton moved sharply to the right on everything except identity politics (which isn't actually left or right, anyway).

When I moved to the US around 1984, both parties were promising what was essentially socialized medicine.

/4

@Kethianna @Remittancegirl

I left in 2016, when neither party was talking about it. In 2008, the Obama administration banned the mention of single payer from any of the discussions about the ACA, and also refused to allow any comparisons with any foreign healthcare systems, and I knew the game was up.

Why am I telling you this?

Because if we don't understanding our history, we're going to repeat our mistakes over and over again.

We've been fighting and losing for generations.

/5

@Kethianna @Remittancegirl

We have had two brief series of wins in this century - FDR's New Deal, and the 1960s.

The New Deal came from the Democrats, the changes in the 60s had their support, but then the Democrats also came to support the tremendous generational heist of the US economy from the pockets of poorest 50% into a tiny number of rich people.

The only way for change to happen is that either the Democrats completely revolutionize themselves and become a modern leftist party

/6

@Kethianna @Remittancegirl ...offering the services that a modern government in a developed country offers, which isn't just free medical care, but things like a *right* to vote - you don't have that in the US, you know - which means free and easy to get ID, active outreach by impartial election officials to make sure people who have a right to vote have everything they need, and mandatory time off for everyone to vote;

and I'm going to stop here, because you can imagine the rest.

/7

@Kethianna @Remittancegirl Whenever Americans are asked about socialist policies but cast in a way that is politically neutral, they generally end up in favor of them.

More, this is after generations of the Democrats, the supposed leftists, refusing to go to bat for fundamental ideas like socialized medicine and all the rest.

Without fierce champions, how are people to even know that a better world is possible?

So there are three choices:

/8

@Kethianna @Remittancegirl

Either the Fascists dominate forever.

Or the Democrats become an actual left wing party, a strong advocate for labor above all, free medicine, free post-secondary education, extremely high taxes on rich people, nationalizing or restricting key industries like Twitter which flout the law... etc.

Or conceivable a new left wing party will spring up and revitalize America. But the DNC has proven very talented at crushing anything to the left of "center right".

/9

@Kethianna @Remittancegirl

Thanks for reading my rant, written in all love.

Very best wishes.

/thread