How do We Come Back from This Point?

When will you stop resisting?

I don’t worry about martial law or the insurrection act. No, what I worry about is a country whose citizens are so selfish, so brainwashed, so comfortable and so complacent that they will roll over and allow this fascist coup to completely consolidate power without a fight.

The only scenario in which this authoritarian regime doesn’t continue to escalate violence against us is if we stop pushing back against their tyranny. Renee Good was shot three times in the head because her murderer couldn’t abide that Renee, a queer woman, would dare question his authority. This is the perfect metaphor for the U.S. regime. A cabal of weak, insecure men, who can’t stand it when citizens dare to defy their authority.

Juan Carlos is a legal U.S. resident and was part of a community self-defense patrol that was following ICE in Minneapolis. He was brutally beaten, hospitalized, and then released from custody with no charges and a ticket for not having his legal documents on his person.

Marimar Martinez was shot five times in Chicago by Border Patrol on Oct 4, 2025. DHS claimed that she attacked federal officers and charged her with assault. The evidence showed that DHS and Border Patrol lied about the incident, and all charges against Martinez were dropped in November. She clearly didn’t commit any crime that justified her being shot, as evidenced by the charges against her being dropped, yet the border patrol agent who shot her has not faced any accountability.

Seconds before Renee Good was murdered she smiled at her murderer and said, “That’s fine dude. I’m not mad at you.” She was shot three times in the head as she tried to drive away from the brownshirts, two of the shots entering from her open driver’s side window.

The hundreds of activists that have been dragged out of their cars, beaten, brutalized, and shot by ICE over the past months have one thing in common: they refused to comply with the illegal orders of the fascist brownshirts. They dared to challenge the power of the secret police terrorizing their neighborhoods.

If your reaction when you see oppression and violence is to police the oppressed, and tell them to not give the oppressor a reason to oppress them harder, then you’re siding with the oppressor.

How do We Come Back?

Obviously any good, decent person doesn’t want to see violence. They don’t want to see their neighbors hurt and their communities ripped apart.

But you must understand that the violence you fear has already arrived at your doorstep and to not resist is to condemn millions of your marginalized neighbors to slavery and death. This is the reality of the moment that we’re in. A fascist authoritarian government does not give up power without a fight. They will not de-escalate unless they are forced to de-escalate.

How do we come back from this?

We don’t. Things have gone too far. You don’t come back when 1/3rd of your country votes for a demagogue and then cheers on masked brownshirts as they ethnically cleanse the country. You don’t come back when your government openly espouses Nazi ideology like remigration.

There is no reconciliation possible with people who would willingly empower their government to kidnap and inter their neighbors in concentration camps.

The only option is to move forward, to defend and uphold our constitution and laws, to prosecute the criminal regime and its collaborators, and to eradicate their hateful ideology. It won’t be easy and it’s not going to happen without a fight.

When Will You Stop Resisting?

The FBI has blocked Minnesota officials from accessing key evidence in the investigation of Renee’s murder. The DOJ Civil Rights division has announced it will not investigate Renee’s murder. VP Vance said that Jonathan Ross, the murderer, has “absolute immunity” from prosecution.

Absolute, irrefutable proof that this regime is willing to kill you if you don’t comply.

They are willing to kill you to gain control. What are you willing to risk and sacrifice in order to defend your rights and defend your neighbors?

Are you going to stop resisting if they declare martial law? Are you going to stop resisting if they shoot more protestors in the streets? Are you going to stop resisting if they go door-to-door, black-bagging activists, protestors, and dissidents? Are you going to stop resisting if they cancel elections?

Or are you going to organize? Are you going to stand shoulder to shoulder in solidarity with the good people in your community? Are you going to defend your neighbors? Are you willing to escalate when they escalate? Are you willing to show the fascists that we will not go gentle into that good night?

There is No Going Back

Our last opportunity to turn things back was the 2024 election. The fascists won, and they went all in.

They know that if they fail this coup their lives are over. They will lose their power, they will lose their money, and they will go to prison for the rest of their lives(if they’re lucky).

This criminal regime has demonstrated time and again that there’s nothing they won’t do to further their agenda. No law they won’t break and no constitutional right they won’t violate. Like all tyrants before them, this regime believes that they hold unlimited power.

They will not hesitate to kill you. Their most vile supporters fantasize about murdering minorities and liberals in the streets.

This is what we’re up against.

This is Not a Call for Violence

People miss this nuance every-time I talk on this subject.

A movement that does not have the willingness or capability to fight back will never prevail against people who are willing to kill them. This doesn’t mean that you go out and commit random acts of violence. No, it means that you need to understand the precarious reality that we’re facing and organize together with your community so that it becomes too costly and too dangerous for the fascists to attack you.

Fighting back can take many forms. Boycotts and strikes are effective because they disrupt the flow of money. And what is money ultimately, if not a proxy for life? Why are you afraid of running out of money? What’s the big deal about losing your home, not being able to buy groceries? The big deal is that you’ll die without resources. That’s the implied threat of economic warfare.

The implied threat of millions of peaceful marchers is that if their demands are not met then they will bring the system crashing down.

In order to successfully push back tyranny you must have the organization, training, and capacity for self defense. This is paradoxically the only way to ensure peace.

The 2nd amendment is not a call for violence. It is a call for preparedness. It is a mandate passed down by the founding fathers to all future generations of Americans. A mandate to take personal responsibility for the defense of our liberty.

These Black Panthers were filmed in Philadelphia on the 7th. They demonstrate perfectly the power of a peaceful, organized group who are willing and capable of defending themselves.

Authoritarians Escalate Violence as they Lose Control

The fear of violence and the threat of violence is the tool that authoritarians use to control their populations.

Escalating violence from authoritarian regimes is a sign that they’re losing control. If they were in control they wouldn’t need to violently suppress their population.

With every protestor they beat, with every activist they murder, with every new fresh atrocity they commit against marginalized groups they turn more of the population against them. Every high profile incident, like the murder of Renee Good carries with it the possibility that it will spark a ground-swell of public resistance that will lead to the collapse of the regime.

No one wants things to escalate. I understand that. But what are we willing to concede in order to keep the bully from escalating? Are we going to allow immigrants be put into camps and in those camps sexually assaulted, used as slave labor, killed from lack of medical care, and shipped off to foreign gulags? Are we going to allow trans Americans be pushed out of society? Are we going to allow women lose their bodily autonomy? Are we going to allow Americans to lose their healthcare and die because this criminal regime wants to give more money to billionaires?

That’s what’s happening now, one year into this regime. It’s going to get so much worse if we the people don’t put a stop it.

We must understand that every time the regime carries out a new escalation they light a spark. And each spark carries in it the potential to light a wildfire of revolution. History shows that if you set enough sparks that fire will ignite, and this regime sure seems hell bent on setting the country on fire.

Will You Trade Your Soul for Temporary Safety?

Depending on your skin color, your citizenship status, and your socioeconomic status you could very well sit it out right now and stay safe.

But how long will you be safe? Fascism always needs a new scapegoat. How long until you’re part of the new group being demonized? How long until you or someone you love gets drafted into the war that the fascists started to distract from their problems at home? How long until you lose your job and lose your home because the criminals in power looted everything for themselves?

I have the perfect opportunity to be safe. I work for myself online, I have savings, and I’m currently living with my German partner in Berlin. I could shut up, right now, and be about as safe as anyone can be in these perilous times. But I won’t shut-up, and further I will be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with protestors, that’s all I’ll say on this subject to protect my own security.

All things in life are impermanent. Nothing that we cling to will last. I will get old, I will get sick, and I will die. Thus is the nature of the cycle of birth and death. Seeing this reality clearly, I see no gain in trading my humanity for temporary safety. The cost to my soul if I abandon my fellow humans will far outweigh any temporary safety that I gain.

We are at this most dangerous point in history precisely because the wealthy and powerful don’t understand this fundamental truth. They accumulate wealth and power under the false belief that they can change reality. They have brought us to the brink of annihilation in the vain attempt to cling to a reality whose nature is impermanence.

See reality clearly. There is nothing to lose, and nothing to gain, because all things are impermanent. All of the things that you cling to, that you fear losing, they will all pass away with time. So why are you clinging so desperately?

As you work to let go of your clinging and attachments you free yourself from the fear of loss, and thus free yourself from the power that authoritarians hold.

Our best chance is to stand together today. Stand shoulder to shoulder in solidarity. Yes, there’s great risk. Yes, the regime will almost certainly escalate.

But the much greater risk is to do nothing.