Take Your Power Back

No one can empower you except you. With Trump as president, no one else is going to.

Donald Trump as president for at least one term- if not more, in the event he decides to abolish the Constitution- almost certainly means more recklessness, lawlessness, and rampant corruption of the kind observed during his first term. There’s every chance Trump could be impeached for a record third time for crimes yet to come. His previous actions and history suggest he doesn’t know how to live without committing crimes and lying every chance he can.

Some officials have been obeying in advance, even before Trump got elected. In Idaho, anti-vaccine sentiment became so strong that no one can administer a COVID-19 vaccine. Red states have already made it their business to make the lives of women, black people, migrants, and LGBTQ+ people as difficult as possible. On the whole, Republican governance disempowers the individual while empowering the wealthy.

In a Trump administration run by nincompoops, failures, racists, sycophants, sociopaths, and idiots, appealing to the federal government to make any kind of change for the better is going to be a useless endeavor for the next four years.

Instead, people looking for empowerment have to find it for themselves, in whatever way they can. Here are a few suggestions of how to do that.

Avoid the Surveillance State

With Trump at the helm of a massive surveillance state that has found partners in large corporations only too willing to collect data for the purpose of perfecting advertisements, every digital or monetary activity becomes a risk. Imagine a hostile government looking for any excuse to identify a person as a member of a group for whom enforcement action is recommended- then supercharge it with racism and bigotry coming from the White House on a daily basis.

Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit are nothing more than opportunities for data mining- in other words, surveillance of the individual. Every site that uses an algorithm has chosen to use it to amplify conservative propaganda while stifling leftist content. Twitter, under the ownership of Elon Musk, has been especially bad at this.

Even if your friends are there, even if it’s a nice place for you to relax, even if it’s a place to learn about meetings, social media is too much of a risk under a Trump administration with little, if any, reward. This past year, conservatives in Manchester, NH used a Facebook post to get a person fired from his job because he made an off-color remark regarding politics. If Trump has his way and installs loyalists all across the federal government, such scenarios could become more commonplace.

Red states have often offered bounties against LGBTQ+ people existing in public. Under the Trump administration, there’s no reason to expect he will halt such practices; if anything, surveillance could be utilized to discover who deserves enforcement action and who doesn’t (ie, arbitrary arrests).

This would include: illegal wiretapping of phone conversations, targeted usage of public surveillance footage, disclosure of emails, illegal disclosure of medical information, disclosure of DMV and/or court records. If Trump really wants to deport 20 million people, he will not hesitate to use any tool at his disposal to achieve that goal. In a dystopian state, everyone is a suspect.

Avoiding the official surveillance state means having subversive discussions in person, or over Signal. Protonmail is an encrypted alternative to normal mailing services. Mastodon is a safe alternative to most social media sites, including the burgeoning Bluesky. Web browsers such as Vivaldi are preferable to Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Mozilla Firefox, each of which has made no pretense about where their loyalties lie.

While it may be impossible to eliminate every point of vulnerability, getting rid of as many as possible could ensure individual safety in a distinctly unsafe time. Avoiding the surveillance state means avoiding police arresting you for falling into disfavor with government authorities.

Reclaim Your Autonomy

Individual autonomy- that is, the right to make choices for oneself- has been taken away on a daily basis by authority figures for the purpose of profit and/or aggrandizement of the ego. The modern workplace has, at times, become little more than a prison with activities regimented, controlled, and dictated at every turn.

Reclaiming power at the workplace can mean starting a business for oneself. It can mean joining a union. It can mean working as a freelancer. It can also mean finding a less oppressive working environment. Each person will have a different experience. The key is, and will continue to be, a refusal to tolerate circumstances one finds unacceptable. Whatever happens, no one should complain to Human Resources; they are not there to help you.

Some men have deliberately decided they are so pathetic that they can’t gain sexual intercourse except through sexual assault. Masculine ideas fueled by extreme misogyny have in turn resurrected a niche movement from South Korea called 4B. 4B is a movement that has four central prohibitions: no heterosexual dating / sex / marriage, and no childbearing.

The movement initially was a response to strict standards of feminine beauty in South Korea, which has the most plastic surgeons per capita of any country in the world. Unequal treatment before the law and dehumanizing conditions eventually led to the 4B movement, which today claims to have around 4,000 participants.

For American women, the choice may be to engage in abstinence or risk death by having a miscarriage doctors don’t want to treat. One solution women can pursue would be to have their male partners provably have a vasectomy; those who do not will not have heterosexual sex.

Rather than turning to law enforcement, women should empower themselves against abusive male partners. In practical terms, this means owning a house, or having one’s name on the lease. It means always having access to, if not a car, then sufficient savings to utilize a means of transportation if flight becomes necessary. Any woman thinking about having a heterosexual relationship should first take self-defense classes, at minimum.

While there are good men out there who are honest and friendly, it’s impossible to tell at first glance who is going to be nice and who is going to be an abuser. A heterosexual relationship has become a risk in a society where a majority of voters have declared that a woman’s life does not matter.

Government agencies and authorities will be of no help in this matter; instead, police enforcement of sexual assault may only make life more difficult for the woman reporting such crime. Women must reclaim their autonomy by themselves, in whatever manner seems best to them.

Get Your Passport

If you can get a passport, get one. Additionally, if you can save up money to move, do so. Don’t be afraid to sell your house and your possessions in exchange for renting an apartment in another country. Don’t be afraid to re-house your pets with a friend. Doing so could avoid a jail sentence, or a stay at a concentration camp.

Unfortunately, while many countries have better policies than America, most Western nations are faced with their own housing shortages. It may be necessary to learn a new language, or live in a strange place surrounded by strange people. If all else fails, survival should be the highest imperative.

Continued resistance will likely have its costs under a Trump administration in which the president cannot be prosecuted for official acts. He can, officially, have certain people or groups declared as terrorists, then have them detained whenever he wants. Future generations will have a lot of apologizing to do for Trump’s actions; but, if it comes down to it, don’t let yourself be a person for whom an apology must be issued.

Instead, if your home country becomes hostile to you, don’t hesitate to leave at the first opportunity. Your life and your survival are more important than any political statement you may wish to make.