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On-ramp to the Resistance [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-03-14

'Where are the protests?' 'What can I do?' 'What about those Dems?' 'Where is the Resistance?' It's right here. It starts with each and every one of us. This story covers a few ideas, and many more will come out in the conversation that follows.

DIY Resistance!

You'll discover that you have leadership skills you didn't know about.

You can organise a small group and help it get to the point where it becomes collectively self-governing. You will be happily surprised at what you & a few friends can do together.

--- Getting started ---

1: Ask yourself how much time each week you can put into Resistance activity. Be honest about this. Even a half hour a week will help if you use the time well.

2: Make a list of the people you know who share your politics, both local (within reasonable transport time) and online. After each name & means of contact, some brief notes about their politics and their likely time availability.

3: Talk with each of them 1:1. Meet up for coffee/tea or a bite to eat if possible. If you can't meet up, have a phone call. Text & chat should always lead to talking by phone or meeting in-person.

Written communication (text, chat, email) is only 8% of human bandwidth. Voice is 40%, including the nonverbal elements of rhythm and intonation. Visual & kinaesthetic, nonverbal such as facial expressions and body language and friendly hugs, are the other approx. 52%.

In those conversations, ask you friends: What are your key issues? What kinds of things do you like to do? How much time do you have each week? Would you like to talk with others you or I know?

4: After your 1:1 talks, get a bunch of the folks together in person (coffee/tea, lunch or dinner) and/or online: a Wire chat room or a Jitsi voice conference. Talk about politics, ideas for things to do. Go blue-sky for a while, then focus on choosing something specific to do, and then make plans to do it.

At this point you have organised a Resistance group, or 'cell' if you prefer;-) Come up with a name for your group because it's useful as shorthand, and at some point you may need it for publicity. Then go ahead and do whatever-it-is you've come up with.

Wash, rinse, repeat. You will be surprised at the difference solidarity makes in your outlook and overall energy level.

--- Do actions together! ---

Quick & brief (1/2 - 1 hour a week):

- Solidarity with Canada. Search for Canadian music, television, films, novels, etc., and post links in socmed (social media).

www.CBC.ca is Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The website has a lot of accessible content, and the names of artists, shows, etc. you can use as keywords.

Find stuff you like, spread the word. You can do this alone or with friends. Even a half hour a week will help. The more Americans watch & listen to Canadian media, the more they'll support Canada and oppose Trump's 'Canschluss'.

- Write to elected officials or phone them. Their office staffs total up the points each day on each issue. Keep it brief, courteous, and to the point. (Yes, even if your Rep is a hard Trumpist.)

- Post news items to public socmed with mixed audiences. news.bbc.com is a great source, it isn't seen as polarised. For each story, post the title and link, ask people what they think. Get conversations going.

One day a week or a month:

- Small local protests!

The answer to 'where are the protests?' is, wherever you want to have one. Four people, each holding a sign, standing on the sidewalks at all four corners of an intersection any day of the week. Even better, two people with signs on each corner, total of 8, facing oncoming traffic.

Trump hates protests, wants to stamp them out. That makes them all the more effective at demonstrating opposition and getting more people into the Resistance. Always keep it peaceful, don't block the sidewalk, don't wiggle your signs back & forth like cheap advertising (hard to read), don't create a visual obstruction to drivers' lines of sight.

Be friendly to the police if they come by to check you out. Be friendly to anyone who stops to chat. Ideal case, have small flyers to hand out, inviting people to regular meetings (see below). Stand there with your signs, waving to people, for 1-2 hours, and then go grab a bite to eat together.

If you meet people who want to join, and who seem safe & friendly: 'Stand with us for the next hour, after that we're all going to [name of local pizza or burrito place or whatever] for [lunch, early dinner, whatever], wanna come along?'

- Local Resistance meetings!

Churches and public libraries, and possibly schools and other places, have rooms available for public meetings, occasionally free, usually for a nominal fee. Ask about their rules first. If they don't allow partisan activity, say 'thank you' anyway and look for another space.

Cafes, pizza joints, and similar places where you go to the counter to pick up food & beverages, are great places for groups of four to ten people. Find one where you can easily get together.

Close friends can meet in each others' homes, but Do Not Ever put anyone's home address on anything visible to or given to the public.

Online, use Wire chat and Jitsi voice conference.

Pick a day and time each week and stick to it.

Larger time commitments:

GOTV! This is ultimately the point of everything else we do: get people into their voting booths, voting for Dems. Check the laws in your state as to what you can do and how you can do it.

In 'voter ID' states, one of the most important things is helping people get their 'papers' in order. This may entail a lot of hand-holding but that's an opportunity to get to know people and help educate them about politics.

Join up! Indivisible.org, RedWine.Blue, MoveOn.org, others. Bring in your entire group, show up for events, meet-ups, etc. Network with other local members.

Make music (and other media)! Music is the soul of Resistance movements. Can you sing and/or play an instrument? A decent mic or two and free or inexpensive software = a basic home recording setup. Post your songs in public places. Graphics spread ideas: chances are you already have the software to create 'internet memes' that can be posted to socmed in public places. Got video skills? Put them to good use!

--- Tech, opsec, flyers, etc. ---

Email: Use Protonmail.com, free and paid versions are available, servers are in Switzerland. Proton also provides VPN. You can also set up an address for your group e.g. YourTown-Resistance [@] Protonmail.com and rotate who checks it each day.

Avoid GMail, Google's CEO was at the inauguration kissing up to Trump, and Google's 'watch everyone all the time' surveillance makes the agencies envious: don't feed the hand that bites you. While we're at it, avoid Google Voice too: 'everything you say, and all the emotions they can read from your voice, can and will be used against you'.

Phone: For the moment, a cash-paid 'burner' cellphone with no 'name' on the outgoing caller ID may have to do. Call someone's land line and ask them to check their caller ID, to be sure your name does not appear. Pass that phone around your org at meetings, so a different person handles it each week or each month. Treat it as if anything said over it will be heard by people you do not like. We can set up paid phone service for orgs, that works on your mobile or computer (Kosmail me); we are working on developing something that will be very low cost (one of our tech projects this year).

Chat: Wire.com, free download. Also supports 1:1 voice calls. Does not require a mobile device or other things that are tied to your identity. Does require an email address: give them your Protonmail address.

Voice/video conference: Jitsi.org , also has free & paid versions, looks & works like Zoom.

Avoid Zoom, it is a direct feed to China gov intel, a quick keyword search will turn up articles about thsis. Once again, don't feed the hand that bites you.

A lot of 'cool people' are using Signal for encrypted chat & voice. Problem is, it's tied to your mobile device, thereby your legal name and your GPS location. I say avoid it, use Wire and Jitsi instead.

Use DuckDuckGo for search: protects your privacy, does not try to read your mind and 'personalise', and as a result, searches are replicable between different people.

Don't post photos casually. Your face is now your faceprint. Ask yourself if you want that photo to turn up in a face-match photo search.

Do Not Ever put your physical address or personal telephone number on flyers or anything else that goes out to the public. Your physical location is the thing you need to protect most of all.

Flyers: Simple & plain & easy to do, for handing out at mini-protests to invite interested passers-by to come to your meetings. Include place, date, time, and your group's ProtonMail address as a contact. Use 'drawing' software to get four small flyers on one page. Print the page, take it to a photocopy shop, make a bunch of copies, use their paper cutter to cut the pages in quarters. Total cost about 1-1/4 cents per quarter-page flyer.

--- Resources ---

A few DK stories & other things, lots of good ideas there:

How to fight without leaders: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/3/13/2310081/-How-to-fight-without-leaders

Take down Tesla!: https://actionnetwork.org/event_campaigns/teslatakedown

Grey Ops department: How to stoke infighting between fascists in Trump’s movement. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/3/13/2309857/-How-to-stoke-infighting-between-fascists-in-Trump-s-movement

Timothy Snyder video, 1-hour interview on RedWine&Blue. He has things to say about Resistance. We & he are on the same page. Type youtube [dot] com followed by a slash, and paste this after the slash: watch?v=ZQqLRew4F1g

Always support, rec, and comment in, DK stories that have any Resistance ideas or news in them: too much of what hits the Rec list is gloomy-doomy, what we need is more encouragement to fight the Regime.

Indivisible, enter your zip code to find local meetings, thanks to KCK for this link: indivisible.org/…

Fifty Fifty-One: Someone gave us this one in an earlier story: https://www.FiftyFifty.one

Mobilize.US: mobilize.us Gets you a listing of local & nearby events. Demonstrations, GOTV, local Democratic party meetings. Thanks to Peregrine Kate for this one.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation music link: Thanks to Peregrine Kate for this one too: www.cbc.ca/…

American Friends Service Committee: Major subject-matter experts on all kinds of nonviolent strategy & tactics. afsc.org Associated with the Quakers but very much open to nonreligious/secular folks. Thanks to JTK0403 for this link.

--- Collective Analytics update ---

Work continues apace on the advanced encryption app, expected release mid April to early May. We're working our way through various mockups and feature tests. It's actually starting to look like the thing we plan to release. User-friendliness and ease of use by non-techies will be paramount.

We still urgently need financial support to keep people on tasks. We have raised about $9K on KoFi + another $6K outside of KoFi, that's $15K toward a $90K goal by ASAP. Go here: https://ko-fi.com/collectiveanalytics For larger amounts, Kosmail me: G2geek.

After the first encryption app is released, work begins on social media tools starting with the 'engagement engine', and on low-cost telephone system/service for Resistance orgs. Also on the stack, encrypted telephone, and a second socmed tool.

Encryption software will be released open-source, for Windows, Mac, and Linux, free (optional donation). Socmed tools will be made available to vetted orgs and campaigns.

In case anyone hasn't noticed yet, our use of the 'acronym' CAN, for Collective ANalytics, is deliberate. Yes we CAN! And you can too!

Now that you've read this entire story, including all the administrivia at the end;-), please go out there and start your own local Resistance group. The more the better. Everything counts!

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