A Legion of Normal Nobodies...
We have met those who will come and save us, and it is us.
Hello Friends and Citizens,
We take a break from our normal programming of chair-making and glider flying to talk about another hobby of mine: fighting fascists. I always got time for that. While I am new to this whole fighting fascists thing, I have been thinking about it for a while. Since 2017 to be exact.
So before we talk about how to fight fascists and what we can each do, let’s put ourselves in the fascist’s shoes. I promise: it’s only temporary. Here are the 7+1 things you need to do to successfully subvert your civil society into a fascist hell scape.
Undermine rules and norms. Make people feel powerless. Make examples out of a few political opponents, people at the top of institutions, and hope the rest get in line. Fire all the Inspectors General. Usurp authority and circumvent normal checks and balances. Dare judges and Congress to try and stop you.
Create an atmosphere of fear where you never know who is a quisling who will rat you out to the local thugs or put you on a list. Selectively disappear a few.
Turn people against each other. Race scapegoating and race baiting, or class warfare are usual go-to’s. And blame the Jews or the brown people. Classic move. (“They’re rapists, murderers, and drug dealers…” “They’re eating the cats and dogs…”)
Consolidate loyal security forces and thugs to do your bidding. (Release 1000 convicted rioters who stormed the Capitol to let future thugs know you got their backs.)
Engineer public chaos during peaceful protests with your thugs such that your loyal security forces can violently suppress resistance and scare you off the streets for good… in the name of “security and safety” of course.
Make people dizzy and start questioning the truth. As Orwell would say, 2+2=5.
Control all the news and information, and keep people from connecting and reminding each other that this is nuts. (Threaten journalists, stack the press pool with loyal propagandists, and lie. A lot.)
And the + 1 is to start a foreign war after you’ve completely screwed the pooch at home. Distract everyone with nationalism, “patriotism,” dehumanizing racism, and cool weapons and drones.
It’s a race. The fascist needs to scare and confuse as many good people as possible before a resistance forms and people figure out how to break the spell and toss these clowns out. They need to disorient us with outrageous stunts and statements, like disappearing lawful residents, staged diplomatic theater in the Oval Office, and tariff wars and math that defy any economic logic. Harvard broke the spell on bullying colleges. Perkins Coie broke the spell of scaring law firms into folding like tacos. While the fascist regime may act scary, they are also ludicrously foolish. They add reporters to top secret war plans chats on a third party app. They confuse artificial intelligence with A1 steak sauce. They go to Greenland and couldn’t look more stupid if they tried. They are good at bullying, not governing or building consensus for good policy.
It’s actually kind of difficult to get 160-180 million normal people to eat this bullshit. Decent folk don’t just forget their morals and turn on their neighbor who they’ve drank beer over a fire with for decades, or watch thugs harass innocent people and not feel like an icky bystander.
So here’s what we can each do, individually, in small groups, and as communities, companies, and institutions:
Connect with people by phone or face to face. Tell them that what you see happening around you is wrong. Say the words. Post rants like this one publicly on social media. Get used to calmly vocalizing your values. Exercise this muscle and commit to speaking truth calmly no matter who is asking in the future. “It is not right to deport lawful residents who haven’t broken the law to gulags. It’s not right to ban books or threaten judges. No- that person is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.”
Find people around you who are courageous, even unbreakable, in spirit and values. Tell them that you respect their values and that you will stand behind them.
Reread stories of the toughest, most courageous motherf***ers you’ve come across. It might be MLK, Miep Gies and the Van Pels family, or your grandma, or in my case, James Bond Stockdale (more on him in another post). Share these stories with each other. Tell yourself that you will try to be 10% as courageous as they were.
People around you also want someone to stand behind in times like these. Find a few people who would stand behind you.
Remind each other that things were actually not that crazy a few months ago. Yes, we had problems that need fixing, but not this hell scape. This is not normal, and it doesn’t have to be.
Don’t be surprised when rich lawyers, CEOs, or tech moguls cave early. To get to the top of their food chains, greed was probably more important than courage, values and empathy. The fascist regime knows these people are spineless cowards. Easy pickings! They choose clutching their riches and status over principles and values. They don’t mind the shame.
Eventually, the regime will work their way down to normal people made of stern stuff who stand tall. The millions of normal nobodies like us who aren’t super rich and famous, but have decency. And we would feel shame to compromise our values just to save our skin or the little riches we have. And we want our kids to live in a brighter world.
(Maybe this is because if you’re not mega rich, you can’t buy yourself out of problems. You have to rely on social connections and empathy to get by. Therefor, you feel accountable with a minimum standard of values to those around you.)
It all comes down to creating a legion of normal nobodies in every community who remind everyone of what is right (and wrong), calmly, and non-violently. Be the backstop to make someone nearby choose decency over shame. Like in the emperor’s new clothes, it doesn’t take many. Maybe only 10% of any group to remind the other 80% who feel icky and uncomfortable about what the last 10% are doing. Erica Chenoweth’s research suggests this number may be as low as 3.5%. Whatever it is, be the Hugh Thompson at My Lai. More on this courageous badass in a future post.
Be Well Normal Nobodies!