I have written 5-6 essays on all this (Medium) since December of 2023. There are people planning to resist an authoritarian transition and takeover. Among the principles and practices is securing oneself in your community and developing secure communications. There are legal teams that have been preparing. Governors are preparing. This will be unlike anything in my lifetime, and I am 70 years old.
Like I have said, my late father fought fascism in the 1940s and it looks like I will get to do the same in my own country 80 years later. Thanks for writing this.
Here is the essay I wrote in February. It has resources for follow up, along with some principles and practices from two main sources that began preparing for this scenario a year and a half ago
"I really hope I am wrong. I hope my assessment is off. Not just be a little bit, but completely, utterly off."
I think you will be wrong and your assessment be entirely off. Did you know that Stupid Idiot is completely 100% senile, riddled with dementia, and his health is deteriorating at an alarming rate to where he may not have much longer to live perhaps within 6 months or less? He couldn't speak, walk, stand or open doors like his used to. He even couldn't post tweets excessively like he used to. He's just as stupid and idiotic as he always been. And his mind is rotting from the inside out. This is one of the many saving graces we have. If you can look at Tom Joseph's Bluesky and X accounts and follow him (@TomJChicago) You will see Stupid Idiot's disease have been progressing all along and it's getting much worse by the day to where he won't last much long.
Magas kept saying that if he really wanted to be a dictator he would have done it the 1st time.
HE TRIED!!!!
But he hadn't corrupted the entire government, he had HONEST 4 STAR GENERALS and the like who TOOK AN OATH TO DEMOCRACY AND TO THE CONSTITUTION! They had to stop him countless times, reel him in, they were the guardrails that kept him from attaining ultimate power!
Why do you think he went through staff like a revolving door? If they didn't do what he wanted he'd fire them or many quit. Why do you think General Mark Milley came out and warned us repeatedly that he was a wanna be dictator and THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN TO. AMERICA?
AND KELLY WHEN HE SAID HE WAS. FACIST TO THE CORE? General Milley said that during the George Floyd riots he insisted he SHOOT them and when he refused, he said
well then AT LEAST SHOOT THEM IN THE LEGS!! So he fired him!
Kelly said that tRump said to him,
WHY CAN'T I HAVE GENERALS LIKE HITLER?? He wanted to be OBEYED!
Many of you heard these DIRE WARNINGS. ..and when tRump and HIS cronies just made light of and brushed the whole thing off by calling them disgruntled employees that he had fired...so YOU believed HIS LIES and brushed it off too!
We were ALL sounding the alarm!
Magas didn't listen! And so here we are now....completely corrupt government...stacking EVERY position with people who will do ANYTHING he wants!!! No guardrails this time. Nobody to hold him back.
MANY of you, probably MOST of you will either say I'M lying, all his staff were lying, everyone is lying....
Or...YOU JUST WON'T CARE!
Fine! Sick and tired of screaming out the truth, the DANGER we all face!
But I DO believe their HAS to be at least some Republicans (not maga)
Who may actually want to keep America intact, want democracy, want to uphold the constitution....
There has to be SOME PATRIOTS OUT THERE WHO CARE!!!!!!
And besides ALL of this (as if that isn't enough) we have all 900 pages of project 2025!!! It strips us of everything!
I'm done with my plea, my attempt to save America!
It is ALL of us on the left who are preparing ourselves for what's coming. I'm not some lone wolf spouting conspiracy theories.
Timothy Synder wrote a piece on Substack called Decapitation Strike. It's chillingly plausible and paints Trump's appointment choices as more sinister than deranged. Trump is easily lead by his nose, so his appointments were probably sold to him as rewarding his loyalists when it's actually in all likelihood his handlers' plan to hasten their desired regime change by cutting off democracy at its head by our own hand. Mind blowing...
Great weather report. Batten down the hatches and gather in the storm cellar where we can wait for it to blow over. We need an alternative plan. I'm not seeing one here Mr. Zimmer.
I may just copy and paste that first paragraph as an email excuse for the holiday invites... Living in FL (uber-red) we at least had some reliance on the unconstitutionality (state and Fed) clap-back from the courts as P2025 was/is implemented here--that is gone. Gone as well is any motivation to 'fight' right now--and I think that is both what is expected and already countermanded. I don't see any community building. People are hustling to 'go back to normal' after Covid, after storms, after elections and that is what got us here. Need to think 'outside the box' or watch it all collapse as DOGE coin collectors gloat on their 'earnings'. I imagine that infighting will cause further rifts (just got notified that Gaetz report was released) and that may take out the frontline, but if you have suggestions on how to hope (because religion is highly compromised), please share. I am hopeful you will continue to share these cogent pieces, teach, and keep you and family well.
Thanks for your ongoing work, and especially this piece. You've captured a number of the reasons why we need to regard the second Trump administration with much greater concern than the first. You've also correctly challenged the "this isn't unusual for democracies" and "but we've survived 248 years and seen worse" contingent -- however erudite, studied, and serious -- who I believe are wrong and are putting all of us at risk.
Those of us who believe in democracy, diverse and egalitarian civil society, and the just application of the rule of law are going to need to quickly sort out short and long term actions to counter both the potential and actual actions of Trump 2.0 and the other people and organizations on the right and far right that want to use it to remake the United States.
Almost a side point, the world is no longer within living memory of major world-scale disasters- major wars, depressions. Chronic pessimists aside, everyone living is predisposed to believing "it's just history, we're past all that". We have spent 80 years building supposed guardrails against the events of the last century, most of which have shown deep flaws- Israel shrugs off the UN, Russia is undeterred by NATO, international financial institutions are... doing what, exactly? (not an economist!). Locally the Republicans have played the flaws in our archaic government like a virtuoso. There are no guardrails for induced climate change. We're due.
The Heritage Foundation is well-funded and professional. They’ve worked for forty years to be in this political position. It feels like the Broligarchs just came to the party. If there’s ever enough infighting to derail this, it might be between THF elites and the Broligarchs. (!!?!!)
You’ve written what I’ve been thinking and warning about for four years. No one took me seriously. I was labeled “an anxious woman”. Also “just a stupid woman who has no idea how government works”. See the pattern? Being a woman automatically made my opinion, and the research I backed it up with, stupid, worthless and due to my feelings (anxiety).
On a larger scale those who should have busted their asses preparing for this did little to nothing. Biden was/ is useless, his approach culminating in donning a MAGA hat for laughs; garland is 100% complicit in paving the way for trump to return; Roberts & the other five trump lapdogs made sure he’s protected by law for every atrocity. And the rest of the Democrats? Just look to Pelosi - the supposed leader. No preparation whatsoever. The future of America only matters to her insofar as her corporate and individual donors keep lavishing her and the other Corporate Democrats with money and perks.
Now that you have laid out what is going to happen, write as detailed an article on what those of us who fought against what’s coming can do. And please spare us the Churchill mantra “never give up” which everyone is quoting right now. People need real, concrete things they can do to avoid sinking into absolute despair which leads to inactivity and worse. What now?
Please excuse my tone towards the end of my comment. I meant no disrespect by saying “do this” and “don’t do that”. I meant to add in the word please to each request but forgot my manners due to writing that at oh-dark-thirty and being in severe pain from a ruptured disc that’s pressing directly on the sciatic nerve root. I mention that medical issue specifically because the trump cult’s disrespect & disregard for women has been infecting our society since 2015 and is now rapidly increasing. That includes within the VA. In my case a hateful nurse practitioner has gleefully denied surgery for my military connected spine injuries all because he can and is enabled in doing by the increasing misogyny at the local VA hospital that goes straight to the medical director. For 13 months both have said “you can live with it” even though I’ve had multiple medical tests that show the very real damage. Their view is that women don’t belong in uniform therefore we don’t need medical care even though we earned it with our service and the injuries suffered because of that service. It is pure misogyny and outright cruelty. As Adam Serwer said and wrote a book titled “The Cruelty is the Point”. It’s only going to get worse - for everybody.
Thank you for this clear-eyed assessment. I doubt there will be mass protests, people are too discouraged and frankly, too worried about threats of violence. I don’t know what to do anymore.
The only crack of light I can see is that they will screw it all up so badly they will be gone in 2028. That is not assured by any measure but there is time to assess the possibility along the dark way forward.
I have written 5-6 essays on all this (Medium) since December of 2023. There are people planning to resist an authoritarian transition and takeover. Among the principles and practices is securing oneself in your community and developing secure communications. There are legal teams that have been preparing. Governors are preparing. This will be unlike anything in my lifetime, and I am 70 years old.
Like I have said, my late father fought fascism in the 1940s and it looks like I will get to do the same in my own country 80 years later. Thanks for writing this.
Here is the essay I wrote in February. It has resources for follow up, along with some principles and practices from two main sources that began preparing for this scenario a year and a half ago
https://medium.com/@jylterps/the-united-states-of-america-a-beacon-for-people-powered-democracy-if-we-can-keep-it-59d4edae8b99
"I really hope I am wrong. I hope my assessment is off. Not just be a little bit, but completely, utterly off."
I think you will be wrong and your assessment be entirely off. Did you know that Stupid Idiot is completely 100% senile, riddled with dementia, and his health is deteriorating at an alarming rate to where he may not have much longer to live perhaps within 6 months or less? He couldn't speak, walk, stand or open doors like his used to. He even couldn't post tweets excessively like he used to. He's just as stupid and idiotic as he always been. And his mind is rotting from the inside out. This is one of the many saving graces we have. If you can look at Tom Joseph's Bluesky and X accounts and follow him (@TomJChicago) You will see Stupid Idiot's disease have been progressing all along and it's getting much worse by the day to where he won't last much long.
Why aren't we removing him. Before he becomes king And it's too. Late?
It's starting to really get scary!
Dictatorship, Authoritarianism, Oligarchy, FACIST...incoming!
tRump can do ANYTHING he wants!
Magas kept saying that if he really wanted to be a dictator he would have done it the 1st time.
HE TRIED!!!!
But he hadn't corrupted the entire government, he had HONEST 4 STAR GENERALS and the like who TOOK AN OATH TO DEMOCRACY AND TO THE CONSTITUTION! They had to stop him countless times, reel him in, they were the guardrails that kept him from attaining ultimate power!
Why do you think he went through staff like a revolving door? If they didn't do what he wanted he'd fire them or many quit. Why do you think General Mark Milley came out and warned us repeatedly that he was a wanna be dictator and THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN TO. AMERICA?
AND KELLY WHEN HE SAID HE WAS. FACIST TO THE CORE? General Milley said that during the George Floyd riots he insisted he SHOOT them and when he refused, he said
well then AT LEAST SHOOT THEM IN THE LEGS!! So he fired him!
Kelly said that tRump said to him,
WHY CAN'T I HAVE GENERALS LIKE HITLER?? He wanted to be OBEYED!
Many of you heard these DIRE WARNINGS. ..and when tRump and HIS cronies just made light of and brushed the whole thing off by calling them disgruntled employees that he had fired...so YOU believed HIS LIES and brushed it off too!
We were ALL sounding the alarm!
Magas didn't listen! And so here we are now....completely corrupt government...stacking EVERY position with people who will do ANYTHING he wants!!! No guardrails this time. Nobody to hold him back.
MANY of you, probably MOST of you will either say I'M lying, all his staff were lying, everyone is lying....
Or...YOU JUST WON'T CARE!
Fine! Sick and tired of screaming out the truth, the DANGER we all face!
But I DO believe their HAS to be at least some Republicans (not maga)
Who may actually want to keep America intact, want democracy, want to uphold the constitution....
There has to be SOME PATRIOTS OUT THERE WHO CARE!!!!!!
And besides ALL of this (as if that isn't enough) we have all 900 pages of project 2025!!! It strips us of everything!
I'm done with my plea, my attempt to save America!
It is ALL of us on the left who are preparing ourselves for what's coming. I'm not some lone wolf spouting conspiracy theories.
It's ALL of us!
And it can be you too!
If you care!
If you care. ...PLEASE SHARE!!!
Thank you.
(Also: I listened instead of reading for the first time, good experience!)
Timothy Synder wrote a piece on Substack called Decapitation Strike. It's chillingly plausible and paints Trump's appointment choices as more sinister than deranged. Trump is easily lead by his nose, so his appointments were probably sold to him as rewarding his loyalists when it's actually in all likelihood his handlers' plan to hasten their desired regime change by cutting off democracy at its head by our own hand. Mind blowing...
Great weather report. Batten down the hatches and gather in the storm cellar where we can wait for it to blow over. We need an alternative plan. I'm not seeing one here Mr. Zimmer.
Is it possible to get the audio through a podcast app? And/or could you put it in the "Is this democracy" feed?
Yes. (though I don't think Nietzsche meant this)
I may just copy and paste that first paragraph as an email excuse for the holiday invites... Living in FL (uber-red) we at least had some reliance on the unconstitutionality (state and Fed) clap-back from the courts as P2025 was/is implemented here--that is gone. Gone as well is any motivation to 'fight' right now--and I think that is both what is expected and already countermanded. I don't see any community building. People are hustling to 'go back to normal' after Covid, after storms, after elections and that is what got us here. Need to think 'outside the box' or watch it all collapse as DOGE coin collectors gloat on their 'earnings'. I imagine that infighting will cause further rifts (just got notified that Gaetz report was released) and that may take out the frontline, but if you have suggestions on how to hope (because religion is highly compromised), please share. I am hopeful you will continue to share these cogent pieces, teach, and keep you and family well.
Thanks for your ongoing work, and especially this piece. You've captured a number of the reasons why we need to regard the second Trump administration with much greater concern than the first. You've also correctly challenged the "this isn't unusual for democracies" and "but we've survived 248 years and seen worse" contingent -- however erudite, studied, and serious -- who I believe are wrong and are putting all of us at risk.
Those of us who believe in democracy, diverse and egalitarian civil society, and the just application of the rule of law are going to need to quickly sort out short and long term actions to counter both the potential and actual actions of Trump 2.0 and the other people and organizations on the right and far right that want to use it to remake the United States.
Almost a side point, the world is no longer within living memory of major world-scale disasters- major wars, depressions. Chronic pessimists aside, everyone living is predisposed to believing "it's just history, we're past all that". We have spent 80 years building supposed guardrails against the events of the last century, most of which have shown deep flaws- Israel shrugs off the UN, Russia is undeterred by NATO, international financial institutions are... doing what, exactly? (not an economist!). Locally the Republicans have played the flaws in our archaic government like a virtuoso. There are no guardrails for induced climate change. We're due.
The Heritage Foundation is well-funded and professional. They’ve worked for forty years to be in this political position. It feels like the Broligarchs just came to the party. If there’s ever enough infighting to derail this, it might be between THF elites and the Broligarchs. (!!?!!)
You’ve written what I’ve been thinking and warning about for four years. No one took me seriously. I was labeled “an anxious woman”. Also “just a stupid woman who has no idea how government works”. See the pattern? Being a woman automatically made my opinion, and the research I backed it up with, stupid, worthless and due to my feelings (anxiety).
On a larger scale those who should have busted their asses preparing for this did little to nothing. Biden was/ is useless, his approach culminating in donning a MAGA hat for laughs; garland is 100% complicit in paving the way for trump to return; Roberts & the other five trump lapdogs made sure he’s protected by law for every atrocity. And the rest of the Democrats? Just look to Pelosi - the supposed leader. No preparation whatsoever. The future of America only matters to her insofar as her corporate and individual donors keep lavishing her and the other Corporate Democrats with money and perks.
Now that you have laid out what is going to happen, write as detailed an article on what those of us who fought against what’s coming can do. And please spare us the Churchill mantra “never give up” which everyone is quoting right now. People need real, concrete things they can do to avoid sinking into absolute despair which leads to inactivity and worse. What now?
Mr Zimmer,
Please excuse my tone towards the end of my comment. I meant no disrespect by saying “do this” and “don’t do that”. I meant to add in the word please to each request but forgot my manners due to writing that at oh-dark-thirty and being in severe pain from a ruptured disc that’s pressing directly on the sciatic nerve root. I mention that medical issue specifically because the trump cult’s disrespect & disregard for women has been infecting our society since 2015 and is now rapidly increasing. That includes within the VA. In my case a hateful nurse practitioner has gleefully denied surgery for my military connected spine injuries all because he can and is enabled in doing by the increasing misogyny at the local VA hospital that goes straight to the medical director. For 13 months both have said “you can live with it” even though I’ve had multiple medical tests that show the very real damage. Their view is that women don’t belong in uniform therefore we don’t need medical care even though we earned it with our service and the injuries suffered because of that service. It is pure misogyny and outright cruelty. As Adam Serwer said and wrote a book titled “The Cruelty is the Point”. It’s only going to get worse - for everybody.
I apologize for not remembering my manners.
I keep wondering what to do too - even if we all refused to work and shut the economy down they will do what they fully intend to do - doomed
Thank you for this clear-eyed assessment. I doubt there will be mass protests, people are too discouraged and frankly, too worried about threats of violence. I don’t know what to do anymore.
The only crack of light I can see is that they will screw it all up so badly they will be gone in 2028. That is not assured by any measure but there is time to assess the possibility along the dark way forward.
What can we do?