Ask Lemmy

Organize en masse using a common enemy (billionaires). Fascists win when they are able to successfully divide and conquer, which they have been very successful at.

There's a very good reason both neoliberals and fascists have been working so hard for so long to distract the masses from who's causing the real issues in society.

We can't let them shut us down this time, like they did with Occupy Wall Street, the George Floyd protests, the hippy movement, MLK Jr.'s economic movement. We need to stay controversial and constantly active so we can stay in the news cycle (much like how Trump has been able to dominate the news cycle since 2015). If they try to distract us, we must counter at every step of the way.

Workers have the real power in society, and the oligarchs can't survive without us. The sooner we all realize that, the better.

I am writing this with the assumption that you are tacitly asking about US politics because of the moment in history. What I have to say will make people mad, but here goes:

A lot of the people on this webzone are what Eitan Hersh called "political hobbyists". These are people who do not really take political action in their daily life despite voting or occasionally attending a rally. They may be well informed about politics, but being well-informed in itself is not really effective at changing politics. You can get on your phone and "rub the glass" to complain about politics, or to find people who agree with you. But outrage on social media won't change anything, and if rubbing the glass and occasionally voting is all you do, then you are a political hobbyist.

Political hobbyism mostly functions as a consumerist approach to political engagement. A political hobbyist will passively receive news and information about politics, but will never really try to change anything, because to them engaging in a news feed is all they really do. That consumerism is painfully apparent here when, for example, posters denounce a Democratic candidate as being "not exciting" or someone they are "not passionate about" as if the candidate was the newest model in a brand of laptops that failed to zazzle in Q3. We see signs of political hobbyism again when political parties are treated as entities that are somehow completely separate from the public. For example when a lemmy user denounces the Democratic party for not doing what they want. "The Democrats need to do X!" Why are you complaining about that on the internet? You know the DNC isn't reading these threads right?

If you really wanted to influence the Democratic party (which I think is the best bet for resisting fascism right now) why aren't you lobbying the party? Why aren't you mobilizing voter bases? Why aren't you building political power in your local community so you can influence larger political organizations? Because its hard, because you don't know where to start, because you are busy? Ok, but fascism is coming, and you are too busy to do anything about it. Or too overwhelmed to even try?

The truth is, if you wanted your ideas (and I am including here opposition to fascism as an idea) to influence policy, or what candidates gain traction in nomination races, then you should have been working on that LOOOOONNNNNG before the national candidate was nominated. Treating the Democratic party as a vendor that offers political products is a losing strategy for gaining influence. There will be an endless parade of glass rubbers ready to denounce the various political parties, but by and large, they didn't do anything to gain influence with those parties. Their denouncements are ignored, they are irrelevant. My advice is to ignore the glass-rubbers. Identify one or two local issues in your physical area and try to improve them. What you should do is find a little slice of America (or your own country if you are not American) and try to make it better. Use those efforts to build up influence at higher levels. My goal here was to convince you not to listen to the glass rubbers. But my advice for resisting fascism is: Try to build political networks, try to mobilize local voters in local issue elections. Doing this will make your network an invaluable asset to larger (state and national) organizations. If you have a network of voters, of issue conscious citizens, or donors, larger organizations are going to want to leverage that network when it comes time for lager races. That gives you leverage. That gives you power. The glass-rubbers are going to tell you that is impossible. Its not. People do it all the time. The book I cited has examples of people doing it. Fascist conservative groups do it all the time. So why not you?

I will admit, this is hard. When I first read Hersh's book I was offended, because when he was describing political hobbyists, he was describing me. But it did give me some motivation to think about politics from the perspective of power. And set me down the road of trying to do all things I wrote about here. It is early days for me yet, and I have only seen limited success. My work complicates things. I am busy, and often overwhelmed. But fascism is coming.

Run for political office. The Democrats have no intention of fixing anything, let alone making things better.

And if you believe you're not qualified or don't know how to do the job, just remember that both parties are filled with incompetent fools, fakes, conspiracy crackpots, and morons. It would take considerable effort to do worse than some of the people in congress.

I think the solution is attack the systems themselves and when that isn't sufficient there are only a few people at the top with power.

I am leaving or unsubscribing from as many monopoly powers as possible: Google, Amazon, meta, Twitter, Netflix, etc etc. Be vocal about it, take friends and family with you if you can. I'm choosing open source when possible over more polished closed source, like jellyfin and Linux (transitioning this weekend 🤞), and donate. These actions take a small fraction of their income from them and if enough people do it I believe it will cause them issues.

I'm trying to not just leave these things but build communities for when we leave. For me this looks like trying to get a blog off the ground for friends and family, developing friend circles that have these discussions frequently, and then contributing/volunteering within my direct neighborhood or community (working on this one as I'm new in Germany and that comes with it's own time taxes).

Also, if you can afford to, buy local. Buy from someone you know. Buy from people with good supply lines. Be vocal about how this is critical and necessary. The more money that goes to our neighbors instead of the 1% somewhere else in the world, the better. That's all the shift of power, and it starts with not shopping at whole foods or Walmart and buying bespoke or sometimes worse products for sometimes more money so that those good people can work on their process and products.

But these are small steps, and personally I don't have any idea of the connective tissues between a person or group of people and the political systems most of us exist in. I guess in the past political parties were more grassroots driven, like get in a room with your neighbors and develop policies and debate. I've never lived in that reality. Getting back to that is probably incredibly important. I guess new age political parties and old school unions are the best path forward there.

But the inevitable path, if all else fails, is violence. That is the reality. That becomes a lot less personally risky the larger a community you have before starting it, but as we've seen one Super Mario brother is sufficient to make changes.

Nice try, FBI.

Ridicule them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs4P1kKK-5k

I want to do some more radical stuff without getting arrested. What should i do? I live in sweden and the right has been creeping up here as well(not as bad as the us but still a shit situation). I already did the first steps like trying to wake up friends to the reality(family already "woke" so thats nice, less work) of the situation.

Burning things down is "semi violent" but effective cost imposition on oligarchy. It may very well result in highly violent response though.

Tactical nukes.

I found this book to be very compelling and topical: https://www.ericachenoweth.com/research/civil-resistance-what-everyone-needs-to-know

Civil resistance is a method of conflict through which unarmed civilians use a variety of coordinated methods (strikes, protests, demonstrations, boycotts, and many other tactics) to prosecute a conflict without directly harming or threatening to harm an opponent. Sometimes called nonviolent resistance, unarmed struggle, or nonviolent action, this form of political action is now a mainstay across the globe. It was a central form of resistance in postwar anti-colonial movements, the 1989 revolutions, and the Arab Awakenings, and people are practicing civil resistance at higher rates than ever before around the world, including in the United States. If we want to understand the manifold protest movements emerging around the globe, we need a thorough understanding of civil resistance and its many dynamics and manifestations.

https://neighborhoodanarchists.org/find-a-local-group/

Stay armed.

Find charities, news outlets, podcasts, rights groups or other entities that match your message and support them.

Donate money, time, and whatever else you can to help.

I think everyone understands that being loud might draw the wrong attention, so do what you can to support the ones that you want as much as you are able.