Nancy Braus, a retired independent bookseller, is a longtime activist who contributes often to these pages.
GUILFORD-What is left of the sane population in the United States is pretty much collectively prepared to jump off the nearest bridge, as these fascists really mean business.
However, as vile of a playbook as they will be working from, there are questions, and the answers to those questions will make a huge difference in how we approach the coming fascist buzzsaw.
A clear takeaway is this: If you are a progressive, a Democrat, or even a never-Trump Republican, we are now going to be working outside the system.
Any arguments about how to be an activist were settled with this month's disastrous election: We will be outside of the government as long as it is run by dishonest, violent, racist men. The goal of these men is to make America white again - and we will always oppose that goal.
One overwhelming question is how we and they will approach the geographical chasm created by the election. The map is stark, but it shows clearly where the support for democracy and some form of justice still remains strong: in the Northeast and on the West Coast, with a few bright lights in the middle.
The policies that the Trump-Vance monsters have in mind, at least if we take them at their heartless words, would leave any town or city in New England or the mid-Atlantic reeling.
Their proposals for women and the future are absolutely chilling, as are some of the other changes we have heard proposed from Trump's esteemed colleagues:
• Eliminate the Department of Education.
• Kill the Affordable Care Act.
• Kill all environmental incentives to use cleaner energy.
• Eliminate birth control and morning-after pills.
• Tighten the noose on stopping all abortions.
• Outlaw rainbow flags.
• Actually censor journalism and books.
• Attempt to outlaw gender-affirming and nonbinary health care.
• Kill gay marriage, adoption, and fostering.
• Eliminate FEMA, NOAA, and the National Weather Service.
And, probably the worst:
• Imminently threaten our immigrant friends and neighbors.
This is just a random list that popped into my head - there is so much more to hate and fear! But the point is not to stand around and decide which aspect of this total package of horror is worst. We have to decide if and how we fight.
* * *
The only real opening it appears we have is the geography. Many of our states exist in a block, and those blocks will need to be making plans, community by community, by community. And these plans need to start yesterday.
Some of the community questions to address are:
• How will we as caring humans protect the most vulnerable - our immigrant communities - from being shipped to die in concentration camps? This is my greatest fear (along with climate disaster).
Do we somehow create an underground railroad? Do the states that are heavily wooded start building hiding places? Do we make statewide proclamations and use our National Guard? Do we create a completely alternative system to protect our friends and neighbors?
• Do we increasingly try to become food-independent? As the regulations are lifted from the already-quite-chemical-laden food supply, will our states step in to regulate these agricultural poisons?
• What are the wealthy states that actually tax people and fund programs going to do when Trump takes all their money and none of it comes back home in the form of Social Security, Medicaid, and other federal programs, like those for schools and other infrastructure?
• And how will our communities fight the floods and other ravages of climate change with a federal government whose policy is based on a lie - that climate change is a hoax - and will provide no assistance, as they also want to eliminate FEMA and federal weather monitoring agencies?
• How will states like New York, New Jersey, and California, which fund the federal government, use their power? They will need to use all their ingenuity to fight the destruction of a huge economic driver: the university systems.
• Will the Trumpers try what Gov. Ron DeSantis has so horribly managed in Florida - to turn the university system into a propaganda arm of the state? More-progressive elements in state governments had better get to work thinking how we can protect our vulnerable citizens and institutions.
* * *
The only way to survive with any integrity - with any kind of truth to ourselves - is get our towns and cities together and be ready to fight.
Because can you really imagine sending your child to school and having them bring home a Trumpian textbook that teaches your kid just how much fun it was to be a slave? Or how our Dear Leader was beloved by Martin Luther King Jr.?
Or whatever ahistorical blather the Trumpers feel like spewing today, because whatever they say, that is the new official truth?
We have all seen Trump and Vance lie and lie and lie with no tell at all - they are that good. Expect a complete palette of fabrications, with no counterprogramming except what we can create underground.
So of course we will hear about the greatest economy ever, the greatest cleanest environment, and the list of self-praise will go through the sky. But we will be learning the lesson of fascism: the ground is shaky under our feet, and the truth will always change.
I have to be honest here: As an outspoken, Jewish progressive, I am also a coward.
If it looks like people like me are being sent to prison camps, I will leave the country, with great regrets.
This Voices Viewpoint was submitted to The Commons.
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