Advice for defeating the authoritarian threat

GEORGE LAKOFF, GIL DURAN

Welcome to the New Year. Let’s get to work! Photo by BoliviaInteligente / Unsplash

JANUARY 01 2025

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It is hard to compete with Woody Guthrie’s timeless list of New Year resolutions from 1943, which includes these ever-relevant goals:

Work more and better.
Read lots of good books.
Keep hoping machine running.
Help win war – beat fascism.
Wake up and fight.

But here’s a list of FrameLab resolutions as we head into 2025:

Be Brave. Avoid helpless/hopeless talk. Authoritarians want you to feel powerless because it makes their work easier. Courage, faith, and optimism are essential. Fascism feeds on cynicism and pessimism. Starve it. No regime lasts forever. Resolve to do your part to ensure the survival of democracy. Choose to believe that we will find a way to come out stronger.

Cultivate empathy. One way authoritarians defeat democracy is by trying to destroy empathy. Their strategies depend on dehumanization, demonization, and division. One of the best ways to resist is to actively cultivate empathy. Do your best to understand other people’s feelings and perspectives. Empathy is a powerful antidote to fascism and hatred. Democracy depends on empathy – you can’t have democracy without it.

Stay focused. Authoritarians try to overwhelm you with constant attacks to keep you distracted and unbalanced. Maintain a steely focus on what matters: Your health, your family, and the survival of our country. Constant chaos and provocation are a strategy to undermine freedom and the rule of law. Keep your eye on the big picture. Limit your intake of social media, which is designed to destroy your attention span and manipulate your brain.

Be Proactive. Defeating authoritarianism will require a movement of dedicated citizens. Get involved in your community. Show up to protests and meetings. If you can, donate to organizations doing crucial pro-democracy work. You have more power than you think. Resolve to get involved. Build local power! Authoritarian regimes gain strength by undermining local institutions and ignoring community voices. Participate in your city council, school board, or neighborhood association. Support candidates, companies, and initiatives that prioritize democratic values at the local level. A strong democracy starts with empowered communities.

Foster real connections. One of the ways authoritarian regimes isolate people is by encouraging fear and distrust. Fight back by building strong relationships with neighbors, friends, and coworkers. Find ways to connect beyond political differences and strengthen the fabric of your community.

Avoid brain rot and lies. Social media is overrun with clickbait traps that profit from outrage and misdirection. Block these and seek out legitimate information sources grounded in truth and reality. Subscribe to trusted media outlets so journalism survives – we’ll need it more than ever. Always do a basic fact-check before sharing memes, texts, or stories. Never spread false stories or conspiracy theories, even if you wish they were true, even if you think they’re funny. Once we can no longer discern fact from falsehood (or we no longer care), the authoritarians win. Don’t be on the wrong side of the information war!

Share a positive message when possible. Trump and his ilk want the country to be angry, fearful, and polarized because this is the soil from which their darkest policies will grow. While it’s essential to stand in fierce opposition to his regime, we must also offer a positive message centered on the value of freedom and what it really means. When the pendulum swings against the Republicans, we must be ready with a compelling and moral vision for a better future. Stand for something.

Demand accountability. Authoritarians thrive on impunity. It’s critical to hold leaders, corporations, and institutions accountable. Insist on accountability. Write letters, sign petitions, and participate in boycotts when necessary. Demand transparency and fairness at every level. Corruption and injustice wither under the light of scrutiny.

Engage young people. The next generation will inherit the consequences of today’s struggles. Engage young people in conversations about democracy, freedom, justice, and the climate crisis. Empower them with tools, education, and mentorship to shape the future. Encourage them to imagine a better future – and support them in creating it.

Don’t help Trump. Some of Trump’s opponents are obsessed with focusing on him personally; thus, they unwittingly amplify and boost his propaganda. By focusing solely on Trump – his ridiculous statements, mannerisms, and antics – Trump’s opponents make him a larger-than-life figure. They also reinforce his messages by constantly repeating them and thus marketing them. In short, they help Trump. We can’t completely ignore his quirks and lies, but the constant boosting of his every utterance appears to have worked in his favor so far. See: 2024 election results.

Don’t argue with his supporters. It doesn’t work. Your chances of converting a pro-Trump voter are virtually zero. At this point, their support for him is a physical structure in their brains. Instead of arguing with Trump supporters, focus on motivating fellow pro-democracy citizens to get more active.

Remember: This is a regime. Trump is not acting alone. He is a puppet of powerful would-be oligarchs who want a government of the billionaires, by the billionaires, and for the billionaires. Elon Musk’s role as Trump’s co-president is already creating tension among Trump’s supporters. When the American people realize that the country is being run for the benefit of a handful of greedy billionaires, the tide will turn. Expose them.

Learn from history. Authoritarianism, oligarchy, and tyranny are not new inventions. Study past movements for democracy and justice to understand what works and what doesn’t. From the Civil Rights Movement to resistance efforts in authoritarian regimes worldwide, history is full of lessons and inspiration to guide us in our current struggle.

Support artists and the arts. Literature, music, and art are crucial to a healthy society and a functioning democracy. Fund them and support them in every way you can. Artists, musicians, and writers will help inspire the changes we need. Buy tickets, buy art. Buy books and read (or listen) to them!

Take care of yourself. This will be a challenging era. Saving democracy will take lots of energy, passion, and stamina. Take care of your health. Get plenty of sleep. Drink lots of water. Exercise. We’re all in this together – for the long haul.

Celebrate victories. The road to preserving freedom and democracy will be long and challenging, but it’s essential to recognize progress when it happens. Celebrating victories – no matter how small – can keep hope alive. Optimism and spirit matter! Don’t be a downer. Help inspire others to stay engaged in the fight.

Persist! Persistence is the best resistance.

Two Treatises of Government

John Locke

This is a new revised version of Dr. Laslett’s standard edition of Two Treatises. First published in 1960, and based on an analysis of the whole body of Locke’s publications, writings, and papers. The Introduction and text have been revised to incorporate references to recent scholarship since the second edition and the bibliography has been updated.

About the author

John Locke

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

John Locke was an English philosopher. He is considered the first of the British Empiricists, but is equally important to social contract theory. His ideas had enormous influence on the development of epistemology and political philosophy, and he is widely regarded as one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers and contributors to liberal theory. His writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. This influence is reflected in the American Declaration of Independence.

Locke’s theory of mind is often cited as the origin for modern conceptions of identity and “the self”, figuring prominently in the later works of philosophers such as David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant. Locke was the first Western philosopher to define the self through a continuity of “consciousness.” He also postulated that the mind was a “blank slate” or “tabula rasa”; that is, contrary to Cartesian or Christian philosophy, Locke maintained that people are born without innate ideas.

(Goodreads.com)

The Eight of Disks The Lord of Prudence is not quite as austere a card as it first sounds. It’s another of those Disks that works on more than one level. In the purely material and mundane sphere it indicates a period where financial resources must be carefully managed.So long as it does not appear with cards like the Ten of Swords or the Five of Disks, there will not normally be any grave material problem. But there is a warning here that there may be unexpected expense, and good money management will enable us to fund whatever arises.At the next level, the Eight of Disks can apply to a period where you enter into additional training in order to enhance your career projects. In this case look for cards like the Three of Disks, or the Ace, to indicate some new area of study. Then look for cards like the Universe, or the Sun to indicate the successful outcome of your efforts.Finally in the spiritual area, when the Lord of Prudence comes up with cards like the Priestess, Death, the Moon, or the Hierophant, you’re approaching a period of rapid spiritual development – almost an initiation. In this case, this card is warning you to be alert for opportunities, ready to deal with stress and pressure, and to manage your energies thoughtfully and carefully. You can perhaps see the correlation which exists with regard to energy management between the material and spiritual definitions of the card – in either case energy must be regulated and respected in order for life to go smoothly and for you to get the best out of your experiences.

The Astrology Podcast • Dec 23, 2024 • Monthly Astrology Forecasts Discussing the year ahead astrology forecast for 2025, and making predictions about the planetary alignments in the coming year, with astrologers Chris Brennan and Austin Coppock! 2025 will be a big year of change, with all of the outer planets moving into new zodiac signs this year, marking the beginning of a new era.  This will be the first year that Pluto spends entirely in Aquarius, and then in March Neptune will move into Aries, followed by Saturn entering Aries in May, Jupiter ingressing into Cancer in June, and finally Uranus entering Gemini in July. This year also sees Venus and Mars retrograde periods, the last of the eclipses in Aries, and finally the beginning of a new series of eclipses in Virgo and Pisces.  We spend the first two hours giving a big picture overview of all of the major outer planet shifts in 2025, and then we transition into giving a more chronological breakdown of the astrology of the next year in the second half of the episode. This is episode 472 of The Astrology Podcast.