Post

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):

First, a baseline step: Know that autocratic leaders can be successfully challenged. @chenoweth.bsky.social has found that when at least 3.5 per cent of the population participated in nonviolent opposition, movements were largely successful.

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.

The key to challenging authoritarian regimes, Stephan said, is for citizens to decline to participate in immoral and illegal acts. She has a phrase for this mind-set: “I think of it as collective stubbornness."

Another lesson we learned: Dissidents we spoke to said establishing a political home is necessary for nurturing non-cooperation. Have a practice to help guard against loneliness/despair, and check in with others going through a similar experience.

Felix Maradiaga, a Nicaraguan opposition leader jailed in 2021, credits his ability to advocate against dictatorship before his imprisonment to a network of support. He now teaches finding your people as a dissident tactic: “A community is a powerful tool of resilience.”

Others emphasized being clear-eyed about your risk profile. “There’s never going to be zero risk,” Ramzi Kassem, CUNY law prof and leader of CLEAR legal clinic, said. “You just have to decide how much risk you are willing to carry to continue to do the work you’re doing.”

If you’re considering non-cooperation work, write up a plan for the worst-case scenario—what you’ll do if you get fired or audited, or find yourself in legal trouble. Reach out to a lawyer and an accountant, or others who could help you navigate complicated decisions.

Now is the time to clean up your life—digital and personal. Dissidents describe a pattern: autocrats use personal scandal to undermine activists and weaken their movements. “You have to be a nun or a saint,” a prominent Venezuelan political activist told us.

Another key strategy, ironically: compliance, where possible. Tax laws. Traffic laws. Sandor Lederer, who runs a corruption-watchdog group in Hungary, said orgs there are targeted to find something to disable and distract––"keeping us busy rather than shutting us down."

Those who defend women seeking abortions in states where it's illegal warn when women are betrayed it’s usually not through digital surveillance but through someone they know. Codewords can help, allowing you to talk about sensitive topics where you might be overheard.

There are MANY, many more strategies––and you can read about them in our essay in @newyorker.com But the bottom line is this: in a society where people continue to take risks for the greater good, there is hope.

Even in their darkest hours in the late 70s/early 80s when KGB sent Soviet dissidents to labor camps and psych institutions, activists kept writing books and making art. When they gathered they raised glasses in the traditional toast: “To the success of our hopeless cause.”