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Last week, I hosted an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on Reddit [ [link removed] ]. I got so many insightful questions, and I wanted to share some of my favorites…
In most parts of the country, life is relatively normal and not disrupted or unusual. When I go on social media, I see violence and mayhem committed by ICE, as well as what seems to be just an endless stream of lies from people in charge. Many of the people around me believe the lies. How do I get through to them?
In most authoritarian regimes, daily life does feel normal. In places like Hungary or Turkey, even Russia, people still go to work, send their kids to school, and shop for groceries — even as their freedoms shrink around them. That’s part of the danger: if it feels normal, it’s easier to ignore the lies and abuses of power happening in plain sight.
In America, the constant stream of disinformation, the cruelty of agencies like ICE, and the reality of American troops in our streets or paramilitary invasions of Chicago apartment buildings can feel distant until it touches our own families. That’s why real conversations matter. Not arguments, but genuine dialogue. Ask people what they care about, listen to their fears, and then connect those concerns to the truth and to solutions that will actually improve their lives.
We also have to show up in public spaces and ask our elected leaders at every level of government to take a position on what’s happening. That’s #8 in the Steps to Freedom and Power [ [link removed] ]. Public officials may not have the ability to change what’s happening elsewhere, but they should tell you how they’d respond if it happens where you are. Ask your school board how they will respond to whitewashing history, and support them if they say they’ll have to sacrifice federal funds to protect vulnerable children. Go to your city council and county commission and ask how they are treating ICE raids and what they’re doing to ensure that citizens know their rights. If someone holds office, they have a constitutional obligation to protect the Constitution - all of it, not just their part.
Propaganda loses its grip when it’s met with empathy, facts, engagement and community. Authoritarians want us to feel isolated. The antidote is connection — reminding people that what happens to any of us ultimately affects all of us.
In the last election, we saw the strong voting drive of young (18-36) men who felt like they were being represented by the right-wing figures (Ben Shapiro, Charlie Kirk, Joe Rogan, etc). Regardless of my disagreement with these statements, it is evident that the messaging worked.
What plan do Democrats need to take in order to motivate their younger voters to be more active? College and young adult voters have not be represented by many Democratic campaigns. Without messaging comparable to the right-wing affiliates, Democrats will hemorrhage voters. So how do we fix this?
We need to be clear about the fact that what we’re facing right now isn’t just a messaging problem. Young people are the demographic that will be the most affected by every decision that is being taken right now, and they will feel the effects of bad policy for decades to come. Young people are also smart, curious, and engaged — they’re not stupid.
In 2024, 62% of youth voters turned out in Minnesota. It might be because their state Democrats passed laws to guarantee free school lunch and achieved major reforms on abortion, climate, paid leave, and gun control. Our job is to show young people that we not only hear them, but that we will do everything in our power to make sure their concerns are actually addressed. So, whether it’s the affordability crisis, the housing crisis, gun safety, or the climate crisis, we need to show that we can deliver.
One of the reasons for the right’s success is how effectively they cast blame on other groups, whether it’s women in the workforce, people of color finally having access to opportunity or immigrants who are paying into the system and not causing harm. But they unapologetically cast these communities as the offending parties. Our job is not to try to match grievance for grievance, but to do the hard work of truly addressing the pain that makes anyone believe they have to hate to win.
Messaging only works if there’s meaning behind it. We have to show that we’re willing to take tough positions, to risk losing to do the right thing and to elevate the voices of young people as both truth-tellers and candidates.
So, in which step the US do you think is currently in? What do you think people (by this I mean regular people) should do to fight it?
We’re not in just one step. We’re seeing all 10 Steps to Autocracy unfolding at the same time. That’s the point. Authoritarians move on multiple fronts. They expand executive power, attack the press, and scapegoat vulnerable communities all at once, because they want us to feel overwhelmed and resigned.
The 10 Steps Campaign [ [link removed] ] is a good entry point to understanding what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, and what we can do to fight back. Over the coming weeks, we’ll continue to add more resources on the website that people can use to understand the threat we’re facing, fight back, and mobilize against their takeover. So sign up at 10stepscampaign.org [ [link removed] ] and stay tuned.
Why do you feel confident that there’s still time to fight back, nationally, when we haven’t been able to fight back and turn the tide in GA?
My confidence in our ability and opportunity to fight back is because I’m a daughter of the South. My parents were born into a mean, bitter segregation that only ended in the late 1960s. Both of them were activists as teenagers, and my father was arrested at the age of 14 for registering black people to vote. They helped defeat one of the progenitors of this authoritarian regime: Jim Crow, which mixed ethnonationalism, Christian nationalism and state capture. And the civil rights freedom fighters won.
In Georgia, we went from near decimation in 2010 (we lost every statewide office, the state Senate went into super-minority the next term and House dems had the fewest members in our history). HOWEVER, we have turned the tide. A decade ago, they didn’t have to worry about winning every election with ease. Now, they have to go into each legislative session prepared to rig the rules to hold onto power. Because we have built our own narrative about what’s possible. I didn’t win my bids for office, but we added 800,000 new voters to the process in 2018, and many of them are still showing up. They helped elect a Democratic president who created the ACA tax credits that Democrats are fighting for right now. We elected two U.S. Senators who have pushed back against this regime. And we have a chance to elect two members to the Public Service Commission who can deny companies the ability to pay for their investments with our utility bills.
But victory is never permanent. The regime learns as much as the victims do. Which is why this authoritarian regime is moving with such speed, but it’s also why they tested out their tactics before taking power this time. Georgia is one of those testing grounds: voter suppression led by the Secretary of State; cronyism and state capture where the governor and the powerful get all the benefits and the working class still can’t get healthcare they paid for; preemption of good policies by a state legislature and an Attorney General who works for the corporations and conservative think tanks instead of the people.
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All of which is to say: we have time to fight back, but it takes time, focus and a refusal to let one (or two) losses become a reason to quit fighting. We all have a role to play, and we have the tools to do it. That’s why I created the 10 Steps Campaign [ [link removed] ] - because I’ve seen it work before.
My question is this: Aside from the typical methods of getting involved (writing legislators, getting out the vote, protesting peacefully), what can the average Joe do in order to curb the effects of this?
Most people I talk to feel powerless and rudderless. The people that want to fight back are too scattered and lack any organization (the job of our leaders). They’re unsure as to what to do aside from the methods I already outlined.
I launched the 10 Steps Campaign [ [link removed] ] because we have to do the typical stuff and things they don’t expect. When resistance becomes most powerful, it’s when millions of folks do something - not the same thing.
What makes the 10 Steps to Freedom and Power effective against this authoritarian regime is that you can start to learn more, and do more, at whatever point you feel comfortable.
For example, #3 - Organizing doesn’t mean that you have to start up a major group. You can go to Indivisible’s website [ [link removed] ] or Red, Wine and Blue’s website [ [link removed] ] and they’ll show you how small ways you can act. Like hosting your pickleball team to do a food backpack drive for kids on Fridays or getting your neighbors to show up for school board meetings to support teachers. That doesn’t feel like resistance, but what it does is show others that we still care about how our communities work.
Another tactic is sharing. We can build stronger relationships with our neighbors and members of our communities to share accurate information. You can do a text tree or a social media post where, every week, you share an important fact about one of the 10 Steps and give them a link to take action. Yes, your friends might get annoyed, but they’ll listen. And if just one or two decide to join you, that’s mobilization (#4)
We can also support independent media that hold power to account - especially public radio and television. One of my favorites is #8 - work with your neighbors to make sure they understand civic systems like petitions and ballot initiatives. Your ideas don’t have to be massive changes, but try to fix the problems being made worse by the regime.
All of this makes it harder for authoritarians to isolate and silence communities. Democracy survives when everyone decides to stay connected, informed, and unwilling to look away.
The Trump administration has been incredibly vocal about blaming the government shutdown on Democrats for “wanting to provide healthcare for illegals” when that is not true.
What can Americans do in the face of these blatant lies, disinformation, etc., when Trump’s base believes him, no matter how easily disprovable the lie?
Republicans repeat their lies until they sound like truth — but they’re not. The best way to break the hold of propaganda isn’t to run from it and express exasperation at those who believe it, but to meet it head on with compassion, empathy, and facts. We have to tell a different story than the lie they’re spreading.
That means having real conversations with the people in our own lives about what it means for them. Not shouting matches, but honest conversation that reminds folks what’s real and what’s at stake. Instead of attacking their beliefs, ask them what they are concerned about and listen to the answer. Then point out how what you believe can actually help.
For example, when they argue that undocumented immigrants will get health care, don’t disagree. Instead, I would ask if they would want the hospital to prove their child’s citizenship if she was in a car accident. Most good folks would say, of course not. Then you insert the truth: what the Republicans are talking about isn’t giving non-Americans tax credits, it’s letting them die while we prove they have the right to get emergency help. Democrats are actually trying to give us the same tax credits we’ve had for years. That’s it.
When we tell the truth — consistently, clearly, and with care — it’s harder for lies to take root.
At the end of the day, Democrats are fighting to protect healthcare for millions of Americans. Republicans are the ones trying to raise costs and cut care while working families pay the price. We can’t let them lie their way out of that.
A sentiment I’m seeing a lot (and that I’ve struggled with as well) is that we’re now at the point where any actions by citizens will be pointless, that the country is now locked in to a fascist, authoritarian regime no matter what we do. What would you recommend to address/counteract this “doomer” mindset?
That sense of overwhelm, of resignation: that’s exactly how they want us to feel. Authoritarians depend on people giving up. But if we look at other people who’ve faced this type of threat, we know the doomsayers are wrong. We can win if we refuse to comply and if we organize to resist.
What we dismiss as apathy isn’t - people care, but they are so besieged that it’s hard to think, let alone plan resistance. And they feel alone. But millions of Americans have been fighting for their rights here in our country, and we can learn from them and from people around the world. Our primary job is to give people the tools to reengage in civic life and to realize they aren’t alone. It starts by recognizing their playbook — the 10 Steps to Autocracy — and calling out how they consolidate power. Then we answer with our own: the 10 Steps to Freedom and Power [ [link removed] ]. We don’t need every person to take every step. But we do need more Americans to take a step to push back. Small actions add up. We commit, we share the truth, we organize, we mobilize, and we demand more.
They want us silent and resigned. Instead, we need to be loud, active, and unafraid — that’s the antidote to their authoritarian takeover.
How do you keep going? How do you hold onto hope? It is so, so dark out here.
My nieces and nephews are extraordinary young people, yet they are the first generation since Reconstruction to lose constitutional rights in their lifetime. And before them, my grandfather—my mother’s father—was born only 25 years after the end of slavery. My paternal grandfather fought in WWII and the Korean War, only to return home to Mississippi where Jim Crow told him he wasn’t worthy of the rights he was sent abroad to defend. Within my parent’s lifetime, my mom and dad fought for civil rights that their parents were denied, and they raised me and my siblings. We are living proof of what progress looks like. The arc of history - which connects our family’s past to my present and my nieces’ and nephews’ futures - is why this fight cannot wait. That’s what gives me the energy to keep working.

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