4-22-2025’s Action Guide
Beyond Doomerism
Welcome
We were relieved to find out that Kilmar is still alive. Huge props to Senator Chris Van Hollen who called the administration’s bluff. Goobers like Gavin Newsom, Chuck Schumer, and Hakeem Jeffries want to do next to nothing but wait ~560 days until the midterm elections. Meanwhile, in just ~100 some days of Trump we’ve had:
Oligarchy: Blatant corruption and bribery by billionaires
Loss of Military Allies: SignalGate, Russian DataLeaks
Loss of Soft Power: USAID defunded, etc.
Loss of Financial Reputations and role as the World’s Reserve Currency, market uncertainty
A dismantling of our federal government with nothing to show for it
Illegal Street Abductions. Loss of Due Process.
But there are helpers out there: Bernie Sanders, AOC, Jasmine Crockett, Tim Walz, Chris Van Hollen, many politicians and citizens who are speaking out. The Supreme Court may have given Trump Executive Immunity, but the jack-booted thugs, insider traders, and all of those other toadies and enablers can still be held accountable for their role in undemocratic, unconstitutional, treasonous activities.
The most recent example is that charges have been filed against the six men who forcibly removed a woman from North Idaho town hall. These people are fuck-ups. They will continue to fuck up. Our job is to pounce on those. Don’t cede an inch. Call your legislators. Boycott Target. Stand on a street corner or overpass and let people see that this federal government does not represent you, that these are not the ideals you uphold. This is not normal and we can’t act like we have the luxury of waiting to get our control back in the ballot box.
Protest Corner
“Protests Don’t Matter”
Similar to TikTok User DangerCarrot, we’ve seen the argument floating in online spaces that “Protests do nothing. Total waste of time.” We couldn’t disagree more. DangerCarrot shared the simile, “Resistance is like a dance floor. When you see others taking action you feel both safer and more motivated to join as well.” And on the flip side, NOT protesting is obeying in advance. It makes the administration think that people are okay with what is going on or that their culture of fear is working and no one will dare stand up to them.
Lesson 1, Do Not Obey in Advance.
Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given.
-Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny, Chapter 1
Protests motivate attendees to further build community and take action beyond the ballot box. Normative nonviolent protests may not be immediately politically effective, however they encourage citizens to be politically activated. From the Harvard Business School study, “When Are Social Protests Effective?”, they found that “[g]roup identification is a key motivator that galvanizes other psychological motivations and increases participation in protest.”
From the same study, Harvard found “[n]onviolent protests are effective at motivating sympathizers to join the cause, whereas more disruptive protests can motivate support for policy change among resistant individuals.” An example of an effective disruptive, nonviolent protest would be the sit-ins for the civil rights movement: “sit-ins [...] were effective in regions where there were medium-high levels of resistance (where 58% voted in favor of segregation).” Additionally, “a quantitative analysis of a large number of social movements found that movements involving a radical flank were more likely to achieve their policy goals than wholly nonviolent movements.” To learn more about the importance of radical flanks and their place in American history, read our previous action guide.
Normative nonviolent protests, such as the Hands Off protests we’ve seen in April, are more effective at increasing mobilization among sympathizers, whereas disruptive protests or violent protests seem to be more effective at advancing policy change among more resistant target audiences. Every style of protest has its place in the revolution.
I have seen the “3.5% rule” cited in these last few months, the claim is that no government has withstood a challenge of 3.5% of their population mobilized against it during a peak event. I would like to caution people, that in Harvard’s own updates:
The 3.5% rule is descriptive, not proscriptive. “Trying to achieve the threshold without building a broader public constituency does not guarantee success in the future.”
It required other factors like “momentum, organization, strategic leadership, and sustainability”
It is not a “rule” as it failed in Bahrain despite achieving 6% popular participation
Movements can win without achieving 3.5%.
This is not to demotivate you but to temper your expectations. We can have millions of Americans protesting every weekend, but we’ll still need other tools to preserve democracy and stop the encroachment of fascism in America.
“The Boomers are Cringe”
Grow up. We aren’t in middle school. Sure, the orange cheeto and adult diaper signs are cringe. Yes, protests do seem to be predominantly older, white people. So what? Embrace the cringe. Retired people have more time to participate. White people are less likely to be victims of police/state violence. They are less likely to have ICE come and question them. Don’t let the narcissism of small differences keep you from participating on the right side of history. Would you rather the fascists/techno feudalists/authoritarians take over versus risk looking uncool by proximity? You choose to do nothing because you are too irony pilled? You listened to too much Chapo and because Bernie lost the nomination you’re going to let our whole country burn? Because Bernie isn’t hard enough on Israel? Because AOC sometimes supports the democratic establishment?
If you are going to run everyone through ideological purity tests, you are going to end up with a movement of one. Some conspiracy minded people think 50501 and Indivisible are a psyop to channel frustration into “meaningless” protests and $5 ActBlue donations. If you truly believe that, then what are you doing? Where are you organizing? Or are you letting perfect be the enemy of the good? Are you proposing an alternative or are you making excuses for your inaction? Countless people have fought to bring us women’s rights, disability rights, immigrants rights, all of these hard-fought freedoms. You are going to let these lacquered-face weirdos take it away with no resistance?
Doomerism is not an option. Shake off that post-modern dread. Accept that we live in a stupid timeline with unserious people. It’s okay to be mad at the democrats. It’s okay to be mad at the people who voted for Trump (again!). It’s okay to be mad at Merrick Garland and Jack Smith and all of these other self-important functionaries that were cowards in the face of danger. They cared more about institutional norms than they did about facing the reality of the moment. It's not okay to do nothing. It’s not okay to think it’s someone else’s problem. We are not saying that every person has to do activism the way that we prescribe it, we are saying that you need to do something.
Do What You Can
With What You Have
Where You Are
What To Do If You Have
5 Minutes
Monitor (don’t necessarily sign up and give your personal information) to resources like Mobilize.us and 50501 to find out about an upcoming direct action events
30 Minutes
From Wired.com, watch: How Governments Spy On Protestors—And How To Avoid It | Incognito Mode | WIRED
Ongoing Commitment
Find an event and go to it. Invite others. If you are not a person who feels safe going to a protest, find other ways to engage.
Closing Thoughts
Today’s action guide was a little too online and less-action oriented. If you made it to the end and still want to do something, we recommend reading some past action guides or reviewing the active topics on 5 Calls on ResistBot.
“Why do you allow these men who are in power to rob you step by step, openly and in secret, of one domain of your rights after another, until one day nothing, nothing at all will be left but a mechanised state system presided over by criminals and drunks? Is your spirit already so crushed by abuse that you forget it is your right—or rather, your moral duty—to eliminate this system?”
- 3rd leaflet of the White Rose, part of the German Resistance movement.
And for a resistance related inspiration, watch the 2005 German film Sophie Scholl: The Final Days on YouTube.
