Ask Lemmy

I won't say just vote, but you should do that, too, at every level!

Depending on how much time and money you have:

• Join a union (and give time and money to organising the union)
• Join an antifascist political party (and give time and money to organising the party)
• Lobby your representatives to demand they oppose fascism
• Join protests against fascism
• Join civil society groups that are antifascist (either directly or because they're pro human rights or anti-racist, or what-have-you) (and give time and money etc.)
• Boycott businesses that are owned by or enable fascists
• Join co-operatives (and give time and money etc.)
• Join community groups (these don't even have to be political)
• Support local, independent media and good freelance journalists
• Spread the word about all of the above

I've ordered these roughly by how effective they're likely to be. Fair warning, none of the above will instantly fix the problem and I grant that some of them probably seem pretty weak sauce in the face of fascism, but the more people do them, the weaker the fascists will get.

"A Riot is the language of the unheard"

-Martin Luther King Jr.

"When peaceful revolution becomes impossible, violent revolution becomes inevitable"

-John F. Kennedy

As per lemmy.world rules, I'm obligated to say that I do not condone violence, just quoting some people, interpret it however you wish to. 😉

Luigi

Lol these ppl acting like the SS division were on the way

M3 grease guns proved effective last time we tried it.

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.

Form a new grassroots party and encourage voters to demand change in exchange for their vote.

This is a tried and true method that has succeeded in multiple countries with much worse electoral systems than the US (I can vouch for PTI in Pakistan, it took them about 20 years including 10 years of military rule)

Unfortunately, it is too radical for the folks over at c/Politics, even though it was literally what Malcolm X often suggested and what MLK did before they were both shot (albeit MLK preferred endorsing individual candidates regardless of party rather than trying to form a new one since that would be slower).

So the real answer is unfortunately to sit back, relax, and enjoy the flames.

Sherman tanks and M1 Garands were quite effective once.

Couple of things:

• Information : Keep creating and sharing reliable information. Not just opinions, information. We are still the majority, the US fascists is not world, we need to flood all the relevant platforms with our content.
• Education: The reason these monsters have any credibility is because some people are too mentally weak to defend themself from misinformation. We need to educate around in any way possible. Everything counts, keep trying.
• Humor is a powerful weapon. These people have giant ego and 0 humor. Let's keep ridicule them and have fun at their expense. They need to understand we have some things they can never touch, even with all the money in the world, solidarity, humour and camaraderie.

I'm pretty sure that the answer is against the Terms Of Service of this instance.

Build a network of friends/neighbors etc. conceive plans to protect the ones who will be targeted first (POC, LGBTQI, ...) eventually either go underground or leave the country.

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.

Luigi

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 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/

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.