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NEW: For months, @juliaangwin.com and I have been interviewing foreign dissidents and opposition leaders. Today The New Yorker published our practical guide to courage in Trump's age of fear. If you want to oppose authoritarianism, but fear for your job, freedom, or way of life, this is for you 🧵:

Here's the reality: Many now traverse a labyrinth of novel choices, calculations, and personal risks. Ours is a time of lists—of “deep state” figures to be prosecuted, media outlets to be exiled, and genders to be outlawed.

We analyzed the literature of protest and spoke to foreign dissidents and opposition leaders, movement strategists, domestic activists, and scholars of nonviolent movements. We asked them for their advice.

There's good news: If you are one of the people prepared to take risks in to protect American democracy, there are some proven lessons, operational and spiritual, to be learned from those who have challenged repressive regimes across the world. Here are a few (but lots, lots more in the essay):

Successful campaigns weaken popular support for an authoritarian by encouraging sectors of society—e.g. biz leaders, religious institutions, unions, or military—to withdraw support from a corrupt or unjust regime. One by one, sectors defect, and, the leader weakens.

Take South Africa, where economic boycotts got leaders to the table. Or Serbia: a student movement weakened the willingness of state security forces to use violence against them. At the protests' peak, Milošević ordered police to disperse the protesters, but police refused.

“All power-holders, even the most ruthless and corrupt, rely on the consent and coöperation of ordinary people,” @mariajstephan.bsky.social, who co-authored a book with Chenoweth titled “Why Civil Resistance Works,” told us.