I don’t know why I’m posting this. Maybe I’m hoping for some epiphany or for someone to point to a way out I’ve missed though I’m certain that’s not going to happen.
I’m watching the Nazis rise again in my country. I never supported them. Not now, not in earlier incarnations that lead to this. They rose anyway.
I got out of homelessness. I got a college education, though admittedly not in anything useful. I’ve never committed a crime aside from speeding. I’ve always played by the rules, even when they were unfair to me. I believed we had to cooperate with eachother, debate, struggle along to arrive at something more honest, a compromise that would better serve more people in the long run. But that only works if both sides are playing the same game by the same rules. The Nazis aren’t. I bettered myself as best I could. They didn’t. And they are winning.
I know what’s coming next. I understand that great violence is coming. I fear I will not survive. I fear my friends will not survive. My siblings and nieces and nephews will not survive, or worse, the young will grow up in such chaos that it becomes normal to them to operate that way. That safety and respect become nothing more than stories from a primitive culture that existed long ago.
I’m gay. Im liberal. I’m an atheist. I’m outspoken. I’m poor. I’m honest. These are traits that are not desirable in the new country forming around me and they will be punished.
I’m not changing myself to make Nazis comfortable. They are just going to have to kill me. And they will.
Recently a friend was concerned about me and invited me out with others. We were out at a gay bar. A petition was going around gathering signatures to fight Ohio’s plans to reinstate a ban on gay marriage. They won’t stop there. I know they want us removed. And they have many ways of erasing me quite effectively. It ruined the evening seeing another loosing game being played. Ohio didn’t listen to its voters before, and America sure as hell won’t let them start now. I’m watching these people play the game as if they are setting things up for a victory tomorrow. People are already being disappeared. These people won’t be around to fight this tomorrow.
I signed the petition anyway. I might be wrong. Maybe this little bit will help if I am wrong. But I also felt that by increasing my visibility even this much, I’m increasing my risk. It is foolish to expect my state or country to handle opposition respectfully. But compliance with the regime just makes it more difficult for those strong and brave enough to fight back so on behalf of them, I signed my death certificate. I won’t likely win, but I won’t make it easy for them to silence me either.
When I lost my last job I lost health care and lost my psych meds and treatment. I went through withdrawal while working a retail job that wasn’t actually paying the bills but I had to keep trying. Now I have a better job and health coverage again but I cannot afford to go back on medication. RFK has already stated what he plans to do to people receiving psych medications. If he simply takes those meds away, I’ll go through withdrawal again and will likely lost my job as I’ll be unable to function while my neurochemistry readjusts. I literally can’t take the risk to better myself. My family and friends have noticed. They are worried. I can’t even see a therapist because I can’t afford one. Besides, the Trump regime has expressed opinions on enslaving people for that too.
I got a small windfall from this years tax return. I spent it all immediately on little tech project distractions for myself. I use them as puzzles to put my focus into. I dare not hold onto enough money to buy a gun while in this state.
I cannot survive like this much longer. If my country doesn’t kill me, I might do it myself just to get away.
I can’t afford to immigrate to another country. I have no money. I have no unique and in-demand skills. I only speak one language. And I’m an American in 2025. No one would want me in their country anyway and I can’t say I’d blame them for that.
I can’t keep stalling. I don’t know what to do next but doing nothing will most certainly lead to my demise.
I mean... I feel you
I'm struggling with depression, and because authoritarians are using psychaitry against dissidents, I can't admit I'm kinda suicidal, so the best meds I can hope for is for "depression" and not for my actual suicidal idealization.
I was born in the People's Republic of China, an authoritarian regime. And I immigrated to the US when I was a kid. I have derivative US Citizenship from my mother's naturalization. Then the US also started autocrarizing. Like... bruh, literally left an authoritarian country just to end up in another country on the same path. 😓 (Wtf people? Why?)
I'm constantly afraid of losing my citizenship. I'm a law-abiding citizen, but I'm afraid to even exercise my first amendment rights. I never even make any actual threats, but these fascists would see everything as a threat. I'm scared every day. And of course, it's making my depression worse and worse, ever since November 6th, the morning I'll never forget. I saw those results and I... I felt like as if my country foreign occupation. I just... I cried... I can't believe this.
People died for the right to vote, and now my fellow countrymen are throwing away their rights.
Please Do Not end your life. Elections are not gone (yet). Do not lose your vote, if people start ending their lives, the votes for the lesser evil will go down, which makes it easier for fascists to keep winning continue destorying democracy, until one day, it would be truely gone.
States run elections, some of the swing states have democraric officials, its gonna take a lot of effort to tamper with it. Their most effective tool is the propaganda. The actual vote count is still intact, the independent and democraric observers have not reported a widespread election fraud. Voter roll purges can be counteracted with by checking your registration often. Make sure every detail is correct. Vote in primaries too (vote for who you truely believe is the best candidate amonst the top 2 leading democrats). If the state requires you to register a party to vote in primaries, register democrat, vote, then after the primary, change your registration to independent. This would make it harder for them to know who is a democrat, making voter roll purging harder. As for the propaganda... you can't really do much except keep posting anti-fascist posts online to counteract the misinformation.
The US is an autocratizing democracy, but the fascists still have a long way to go to actually stay in power. trump isn't a true dictator, he's what I call a Pseudo-Dictator The military hasn't taken an oath to the president (yet), its not totally hopeless. In 2020, the military recognized Biden's victory. And judging by how incompetent these fascists are with the Signalgate, I'm gonna guess they are really bad at this fascist takeover attempt, they won't succeed if people keep resisting.
We still have some free speech and free press. It is deteriorating, but not completely gone. Not yet.
There are ways to potentially make a difference.
We have cameras. Go near protests, but don't actually get in the crowd if you don't want to take risks. Not everyone has to be on the front line, and it's okay. You can be the journalist. Record videos. Document everything. Share videos online (Scrub the metadata and use anonymous accounts). Ideally, use a burner phone, or the old-fasion cameras. If you decide to use a burner phone, you can set up auto-uploading or livestreams to ensure the recordings survive, but you could possibly leave traces to your movements and get linked to the protests. If you use a camera (and leave any phones at home), it'd be much harder to track your movements, but you'd also lose the potential to auto-upload. So pick which ever option that feels good to you. Make sure to cover your head as much as possible.
The more cameras covering the events, the more knowledge people have. It can really win the public opinion if we have evidence police brutality and suppression of peaceful protests. (Only do these things if your health is okay first)
TLDR: Cameras can be a powerful, non-violent, weapon against authoritarianism. Use them. Spread the knowledge.
(Also, if you aren't in a blue area, leave now. Move to a blue city in a blue state, or blue city in a purple state to make your votes matter slightly more, your choice tho. I live in Philly, and I know there ain't no open nazis around here. This city is diverse and has 40% Black population, and deeply blue city. Aint not way any nazis or klansman can walk in here doing salutes or wearing swastica armbands in broad daylight and not get their asses beaten.)