Get Organized, Get Armed

America is not “exceptional.” Authoritarianism can take root here like anywhere else, and it’s too late to vote our way out of it

I am exercising my First Amendment right to free speech. I never use AI in my writing.

On Friday, despite -20°F cold, people in Minneapolis turned out en masse for protests and a historic general strike, with solidarity protests around the country. This is the way. So long as resistance continues to grow, we still have a chance.

The next day, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old VA nurse who spent his life helping people, was murdered by the ICE-gestapo while helping someone. As with Renee Good, it’s apparent from multiple video angles that Pretti was not posing any threat before being executed. As with Renee Good, the Trump regime reflexively began spreading lies and propaganda and covering for their gestapo.

I believe in nonviolence. I also believe we must organize and defend ourselves in the face of tyranny, and that this view is consistent with nonviolence. When terrorists hijack your plane, you are wise to organize and fight back. Nonviolence does not mean obedience.

The stakes have been life and death for a lot of Americans for a long time. Despite the fascists’ best efforts to erase history, America was founded on state-sponsored genocide of Indigenous peoples and state-sponsored chattel slavery. The myriad ramifications of the resulting carceral state have persisted ever since. The stakes are now, finally, life and death for white leftists as well.

The regime and their gestapo are escalating violence. They’ve commenced going door-to-door. They’ve given themselves permission to enter without warrants, illegally, in violation of the Fourth Amendment. They’ve started demanding “papers.” They’ve started regularly detaining and harming children. They label dissenters as “domestic terrorists” as they themselves terrorize peaceful Americans.

We’ve seen this movie before. If you’re like me, you may need to pinch yourself, but deep down you know that this is really happening. No one’s going to save us but ourselves.

The regime and its thugs can no longer be reasoned with or shamed, any more than Nazis could be reasoned with or shamed in the 1930s. A core mechanism of all fascism is the dehumanization of the “other.” Fascist othering drops its roots into the deep psychic cesspools of racism and xenophobia and drinks deeply from that muck. It then grows to include anyone who doesn’t display loyalty to the regime, including protestors and observers acting legally and nonviolently.

During 2025, the regime was busy testing our norms and institutions, pushing on them, bending and breaking them to see how society would respond. In this, as in all else, America was not “exceptional”: Tragically, there was ample compliance from both individuals and institutions. Never forget the billionaires, corporate executives, judges, and others who have fawned and enabled the destruction of our nation from within. The regime is now done with the testing phase, and ramping up violence against their dehumanized opposition. There are no longer any institutional guardrails left to stop them.

The regime has promised its gestapo “absolute immunity.” Jonathan Ross has faced no accountability after murdering Renee Good. On the contrary, he received praise from the regime and a fortune in GoFundMe donations. ICE as a paramilitary group has access to $85 billion in our tax dollars for FY26, nearly a tenfold increase from their usual budget.

“American exceptionalism” is a delusion. The purges and mass murder that occur in totalitarian regimes throughout the world and throughout modern history can also happen here.

I still see people saying “call your representatives” or “wait until the midterms.” Suggestions like these are counterproductive at this point, and come from a place of denial. This regime has any number of tactics to ignore, invalidate, or cancel the midterms, such as declaring martial law. No authoritarian regime in history, once voted into power, has ever held free and fair elections and abided by the results.

The stakes aren’t just domestic; the entire world is now in extremely dangerous territory. Just this week, after Trump’s unhinged speech at Davos, Canadian PM Mark Carney gave a measured response: “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.” The US has over 5,000 nuclear warheads. And, of course, the planet continues to overheat.

OK, so what should we do?

First, accept how serious our situation now is. The ICE-gestapo is murdering us in the street with no accountability. The stakes have been life or death for a lot of us for a long time; now they’re life or death for all of us. You and I may die in this struggle.

Next, organize, organize, organize. Our best chance is to create a strong and organized opposition. Our institutions, including the Democrats, have let us down day by day by day, one foolish and cowardly concession at a time. An organized opposition can therefore only come from the grassroots.

Find the people who are already doing the work you’re interested in helping with. Go meet them, face to face. Show up and listen. Make friends. Attend trainings, and become familiar enough with the material that you can start training those around you. Keep the resistance growing! It’s so heartening.

Get onto local Signal chats. Observe and video the gestapo. Provide mutual aid when you can, accept mutual aid when you need it. Different localities have different organizations and opportunities; here’s one listing of resources in Minneapolis to give you a sense of how it works.

Finally, understand that the regime is going to do what it wants whether we defend ourselves or not. Consider getting a gun, becoming proficient at using it, and networking with other gun-owning leftists.

I’m not suggesting to immediately start shooting. I’m not entranced by the Hollywood version. I’m not saying there’s any glory here, because there isn’t. What I’m suggesting instead is to get armed, get organized, and get networked in order to defend our communities, if and when the time comes. I can’t pretend to know what that might look like, other than that it will be horrible. I hope with all my might that America can find its way out of this tyranny in a more peaceful way.

Many of us will not feel able to take on this role, and that’s fine. There are hundreds of other necessary roles in the ecosystem of our resistance movement. But as oppressed communities have come to realize throughout American history, in order to effectively stand up to tyranny we now must organize into well-regulated militias. Civil rights victories in the sixties, for example, were made possible by the Black Panthers. Crucially, in addition to community self-defense, the Black Panthers also provided constructive programs of medical care, food, clothing, transportation, education, and legal aid.

This is a momentous and complex topic, and no one knows how all of this will actually play out. Getting armed and getting organized is certainly risky. At this point though, I feel that the alternative is riskier. One thing I do know: it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

I wish we weren’t here, my friends, and I’ve never been a “gun person.” But here we are. All power to all the people.

With love and rage,

Peter