Kat Gale’s Reviews > On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century > Status Update

For resistance to succeed, 2 boundaries must be crossed. 1st, ideas about change must engage people of various backgrounds who do not agree about everything. 2nd, people must find themselves in places that are not their homes, and among groups who were not previously their friends...nothing is real that doesn't end on the streets. If tyrants feel no consequences in the three-dimensional world, nothing will change.

He [Trump] banned many reporters from his rallies, and regularly elicited hatred of journalists from the public. Like the leaders of authoritarian regimes, he promised to suppress freedom of speech by laws that would prevent criticism. As president, he used the word lies to mean facts not to his liking, and called journalists enemies of the people (as Hitler and the Nazis had done).

The individual who investigates is also the citizen who builds. The leader who dislikes the investigators is a potential tyrant.

Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. Remember Rosa Parks. The moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.

If you carry a weapon in public service, may God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing a regular things. Be ready to say no.

Be wary of paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching with torches and pictures of a leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.
–State governors, mayors, and other elected leaders are in this fight now. Find a protest near you on the 18th. www.Nokings.org

Beware the one-party state. The parties that remade states and suppressed rivals were not omnipotent from the start. They exploited a historic moment to make political life impossible for their opponents. So support the multi-party system and defend the rules of democratic elections. Vote in local and state elections while you can. Consider running for office.

It took less than a year for the new Nazi order to consolidate. By the end of 1933, Germany had become a one-party state in which all major institutions had been humbled. That November, German authorities held parliamentary elections (without opposition) and a referendum (on an issue where the "correct" answer was known) to confirm the new order.

Defend institutions. It is institutions that help us to preserve decency. They need our help as well. Do not speak of "our institutions" unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions do not protect themselves. They fall one after the other unless each is defended from the beginning. So choose an institution you care about–a court, a newspaper, a law, a labor union–and take its side.

Anticipatory obedience is a political tragedy.