\n<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not as though we weren\u2019t warned.<\/p>\n
Everything Trump Touches Dies: A Republican Strategist Gets Real About the Worst President Ever<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n That was published in 2018.<\/p>\n This was published a few days after Trump won, digesting Timothy Snyder\u2019s warning:<\/p>\n Is Trump trying to kill us? Authoritarian expert says yes. Here\u2019s how.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n (Professor Snyder has since moved to Canada.)<\/p>\n Yesterday,\u00a0The Economist<\/em>\u00a0gave us\u00a0The Age of Chaos:\u00a0 How Trump\u2019s Incoherent Trade Policy Will Do Lasting Damage.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Just a few months ago,\u00a0The Economist<\/em>\u00a0dubbed our economy \u201cthe envy of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Because \u2014 despite its problems \u2014\u00a0it was<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n And here we are today with\u00a0The Third-Worlding of America<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0by Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman.\u00a0 Subhead:\u00a0\u00a0How to destroy 80 years of credibility in less than 3 months<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Putin is succeeding beyond his wildest dreams.<\/p>\n (The tariffs, and Russia\u2019s singular exemption from them, are the least of it \u2014 though he\u00a0likes<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0them, too.)<\/p>\n But is this what anyone\u00a0here<\/em>\u00a0wanted?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n What any of\u00a0us<\/em>\u00a0voted for?<\/strong><\/p>\n Would they have voted for this if they had known?\u00a0 Yes, 24% of American citizens voted for him (the rest voted for Kamala, were too young, or just didn\u2019t bother).\u00a0 But I\u2019m wondering what proportion of that 24% think the economy is better now, and that the country has a brighter future, with a more competent people running the government and its myriad departments and agencies, than when he took office.<\/p>\n Consumer confidence has\u00a0plunged<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0to its second lowest level since they began measuring it 73 years ago.<\/p>\n I hope you found time to read yesterday\u2019s warning:<\/p>\n On April 20th, 2025, the United States may Cross the Point of No Return<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n >\u00a0As crazy and unthinkable as all this is,<\/strong>\u00a0remember how crazy and unthinkable the Ukrainians thought a Russian invasion was.\u00a0 Putin was very straightforward in assuring them and the world he would not invade.\u00a0 He was just conducting military exercises.<\/p>\n >\u00a0Is it any crazier or more unthinkable than that Kash Patel runs the FBI?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Before setting foot there for the first time, he was a podcaster selling K$h-branded wine and\u00a0tie pins<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0and \u201can elixir,\u201d Rachel reports, that could reverse your COVID vaccination status in case you had foolishly gotten the jab.<\/p>\n Acknowledging that his authorship of\u00a0a children\u2019s book<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0extolling King Donald and his charity work on behalf of the January 6th hostages might not make him the ideal candidate to lead the world\u2019s premier law enforcement agency, he promised to appoint as his deputy someone from within . . . but instead hired a\u00a0Fox News Host Permanently Banned From YouTube<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0who had no experience but required a full security detail 24\/7, which no prior FBI deputy director had ever had,\u00a0even when he was inside FBI headquarters<\/em>.<\/p>\n Because this is an administration focused on eliminating waste and abuse as it hires the best people to fight crime.<\/p>\n The only possible crime here is that I could not find Rachel\u2019s\u00a0segment<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0lambasting Patel in its original form.\u00a0 It is too funny.<\/p>\n Reacting to the April 20th doom-sayers, Oliver Kornetzke offers\u00a0this message<\/a><\/strong>:<\/p>\n I keep seeing these anxious posts bubbling up from the swamp of doom-scrolls, clutching their pearls about April 20th<\/strong>\u2014the day, supposedly, when the Trump regime will dust off the Insurrection Act like a vintage bottle of fascism, smash it open on the table, and toast to martial law. Constitutional rights? Suspended. Civil liberties? Vaporized. America? Repackaged as a theocratic police state with a God complex and a meth addiction.<\/p>\n And sure, the evidence pointing in that direction? Compelling. Chilling, even. But let\u2019s not confuse \u201cpossible\u201d with \u201cinevitable\u201d . . . and let\u2019s certainly not confuse \u201cdangerous\u201d with \u201cinvincible.\u201d This is not some fucking Marvel movie where the villain has a flawless plan. No, this is a clown car of egomaniacal sycophants with the strategic acumen of a toddler playing Risk while hopped up on Pixy Stix.\u00a0. . .<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n [So] here\u2019s my answer:<\/strong><\/p>\n Don\u2019t. Fucking. Comply.<\/p>\n You want to know what non-compliance looks like? It looks like whatever the hell you want it to look like. It\u2019s not about heroism or martyrdom. It\u2019s about being a magnificent, ungovernable pain in the ass. It\u2019s about weaponizing inconvenience, absurdity, and joy against a system that demands fear and obedience.<\/p>\n Throw a wrench in the works\u2014everywhere, all the time. Go limp when they try to arrest you. Laugh like a lunatic in the face of their solemn tyranny. Fill their inboxes with existential poetry or pictures of your morning post-coffee porcelain bowl masterpieces. Tape absurd messages in public places: \u201cAuthoritarianism gives you hemorrhoids.\u201d Get petty. Get weird. Flush their toilet paper. Release crickets in inconvenient places. Spoil their scripts, trip their rhythm, yank the narrative from their hands.<\/p>\n Join a general strike. Practice the black cat sabotage\u2014cut their supply chains not with violence but with broken protocol and creative disorder. Don\u2019t show up. Don\u2019t respond. Don\u2019t cooperate. Don\u2019t validate their authority with your silence. If you\u2019re going to get arrested, make it for being a glorious bastard who refuses to play their game. Make a mockery of it.<\/p>\n Because here\u2019s the ugly truth they don\u2019t want you to hear: authoritarianism only works when the people allow it to work. It\u2019s a performance, a bluff, a collective hypnosis. Break the spell. Break the frame. Mock it. Undermine it. Set it on fire (proverbially) with your refusal to kneel.<\/p>\n But here\u2019s the thing\u2014this has to be everywhere. Everyone. If you sit back, clutch your pearls, and hope someone else will jump first\u2014you\u2019re part of the problem. This isn\u2019t Putin\u2019s Russia (yet). We don\u2019t need a handful of martyrs; we need a flood. A tsunami of \u201cnope.\u201d A wildfire of \u201cfuck you.\u201d\u00a0We need resistance so widespread, so creatively chaotic, so utterly unmanageable, that the regime cracks under the weight of its own overreach.<\/strong><\/p>\n History is watching. But more importantly, your children are watching. And if you let a pack of psychotic Bible-thumping oligarchs jackboot over your rights while you nervously refresh Twitter and do nothing\u2014then don\u2019t be surprised when the future looks back and calls you exactly what you were: a coward.<\/p>\n Choose better. Be bold. Be clever. Be feral.<\/p>\n And above all\u2014DO NOT COMPLY.<\/p>\n And let me be crystal clear here: NO violence. None. Not a shred. That gives them the excuse they\u2019re desperately craving to justify tyranny. What we need is coordinated, irritating, clever-as-hell, petty-as-fuck, infuriating noncompliance. Be a stone in their shoe. Be sand in their eyes. Be a bureaucratic migraine. Drive them nuts\u2014but never give them the moral high ground. This is about outsmarting them, not becoming them.<\/strong><\/p>\n Editors Note: This article was originally published on April 11th, 2024 on andrewtobias.com, syndicated with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n