I'm shocked more people aren't already better prepared for this, but it's actually the same thing we should be doing now, and continue to do if Biden actually wins:
Organize locally. Get hyperlocal. Organize your city, neighbors, block, building, workplace, and friend group. Establish mutual aid networks, take back city councils, county boards, and school boards from the stewards of landlords and big employers.
Establish protection for those who need it, and plant the crop of future national leaders who will do the long overdue work of putting government to work for the masses. Make it harder for any president or governor to exercise state violence by getting our people in prosecutors offices and judgeships.
The Democrats are not going to save us. Biden is just planning to go down with the ship. Absolutely vote for the lesser of two evils if you live somewhere where your vote matters, but recognize that the Democratic party is not an ally to the antifascist movement, because combating fascism conflicts with the interests of capital.
That can change, but until it does, don't put faith in them. Anything positive they do will be because power-players were replaced. And that starts in your own neighborhood.
Edit: Since this has been well received, I want to say a quick word on third parties: don't be afraid of them.
Without getting into a lot of details, there are a lot of myths about the risks that third parties present, but before we parrot all of that, we should just acknowledge that there is no harm in listening to their platforms. It doesn't make you a kook to hear ideas that often get suppressed by the mainstream, or to use third parties as a way to network and meet people. I think Jill Stein has a lot of useful things to say, and if a pollster asks me, I will gladly try to bump her numbers up so that she is harder to ignore. Don't be afraid to do that.
This is for everyone that is taking the "oh well" stance... or the I'm going to wait it out stance... If you are unfamiliar with what the Republicans plan to do, I encourage you to look at the Project 2025 plan.
Some highlights
slash funding for the DOJ
dismantle the FBI
decimate environmental and climate change regulations in favor of fossil fuels
eliminate the department of commerce
ending the independence of multiple federal agencies
abolish the department of education
scientific funding would be limited to pro-conservative principles
end abortion nationwide
infuse government with Christianity
criminalize pornography
removing protections against discrimination for sexual or gender identity
terminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs and affirmative action
the military would be used for domestic law enforcement
the arrest and detention of undocumented immigrants
speedy capital punishment
Project director Paul Dans, a former Trump administration official, explained that Project 2025 is "systematically preparing to march into office and bring a new army, aligned, trained, and essentially weaponized conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state."
So, for fucks sake, can we stop saying that we can wait out Trump for another term. There won't be an America left if there is another term.
Keep doing what I have been doing - dragging MAGA fence sitters back from the brink one by one. The ones who have adopted Trumpism as their religion are too far gone. But there are a lot who just need to be taken by the hand and shown a better path.
When you see MAGA BS, challenge it with well-reasoned arguments. The object really isn't to change the mind of the poster. It's to prevent them from changing the minds of others.
I’m torn on this. I’m “white”-ish enough, no kids, can’t get pregnant (or anyone pregnant) and I’m in the top 10%… so would anything for me fundamentally change? No…. I could stick my head in the sand and ignore it, but that’s really not me and it freaking breaks my heart to see all the people it impacts.
So I see one of three things:
Try to ignore it and keep voting blue and on policies to help those where i can
go one step further and put my money where my mouth is and help run an Underground Railroad for those who need to get to blue states while they still have the rights
flee to another country
I don’t really want to think about it, but it’s been at the back of my head.
As much as I fear what Trump will do to the nation it probably won't have much of an effect on me personally.
I live in a deep red state that's already about as corrupt and authoritarian as it can be, of course that's never really true- but it's not like it's being held up by anything Trump will target. The powers that be and a wide majority of the population are already fully subservient to Trump so it'll just be business as usual here.
I'm middle-aged, own my home, no dependents, all the childhood friends I've had that would be vulnerable already moved away and I have a pretty small circle of family\friends and not really looking to expand. And have a good position that's very insulated from economic and political turbulence. I'm also a cis white male and a gun-owner, I blend pretty seamlessly unless I tell people what I think about state\national politics. And I love the food and nature here. Also I kinda can't imagine job hunting at this point at all, let alone in another state. I'd like to live in a place that better reflected my values but I don't actually think that would help me or anyone else.
I'm established here and I don't really have any incentive to leave. Nobody is coming for me here and me moving to a Blue state won't help anyone there. And my accent has made people react negatively to me in the past and I'm worried I'd actually appear to be more of a fish out of water in those places than I do here, even though that's kinda what I've always been here. I vote, I donate. I used to volunteer but I'm tired now. Weird that I've made such a comfortable home in a viper den but we make lives how and where we can.
I know it's just my privilege to say this but no matter what happens in 2024 my life will be pretty much the same for the foreseeable future. Intellectually I worry a lot about the fate of the nation and humanity but personally I worry more about collapsing global trade and infrastructure fucking up supply chains and creating civil unrest that will effect me personally. But idk what to do about that but worry so I guess why worry...
Step one: Buy a few firearms, for different scenarios (which should be easier under Trump sigh)
Step two: Go to work, home, and limit unnecessary errands, order for delivery more.
Step three: Practice marksmanship with various firearms. I have a country, but sane, friend of the family with a shooting range on her land.
Step four: Hunker down in my deep red state, because I hold non-christian belief's and I won't recant them on pain of death. Not because my beliefs "protect" me, but because as an American, I believe in freedom of religion and I'll die a proud American before I die as a Christian, my belief's don't matter compared to that. The protection of those belief's does.
Spend a solid week posting screenshots of my comments on this platform about how the DNC is digging their own grave after they inevitably blame the voters for their loss just like in 2016.
There's not much to do except try to stay in my house and not engage with the outside world any more than I have to for four years.
It's also not like the Democrats are going to reign Trump in in any significant way. (Don't get me wrong. I'm voting for Biden, I just don't expect much.)
Continue living in California, and probably not go to any red state. At least not with my wife. Continue to vote Democrat and spread progressive values.
If anyone needs help moving to the EU (and in particular Finland) let me know. I moved to Finland after 2016 (I saw the writing on the wall for awhile, before Trump - it's just that's when I finally had the best opportunity and Trump accelerated the need to move).
It takes less money to move than you might think to move. If you have a specialty (especially in STEM) it's really easy, and most jobs will even provide language classes for free.
If you don't, it's still possible, but it'll be much harder work I'll admit. You may end up as a janitor or laborer, but know this - you'll still be able to live comfortably. Wages can be much fairer here, public transportation is excellent to the point where you don't need a car at all, and you won't be bankrupted by healthcare. Even a low skilled SINGLE job will afford you financial security - something I remember was not the case in the USA.
And on the bright side, if you want to go to higher education here, university is a lot cheaper or, if you live long enough in a place to become a permanent resident or citizen, free.
If you get yourself at least 8k and 3 months of intensive Duolingo and maybe Mondly, you have a chance to move.
Canada. Maybe northern Europe. But I live in a blue state and I don't want to see how long it takes him to say "states' rights only apply to those that voted for me"
First I'll do whatever I can to be sure my communications and whereabouts aren't trackable, tell my friends how to contact me, and recommend they use the same channels anyway.
Then I'll find protests to go to and local campaigns to support however I see fit, and I'll do that right up to the point where I feel unsafe, at which point I don't know how I procede.
Just try to live my life like I did during all the bad presidents I've had over my life. I grew up protesting against George Bush Jr and my friends still died in Iraq. now I just try to live my best life, and love and help protect others. I've always been lower class and on the outside of middle class suburban America, so I'm used to just going about my life, no matter what's taboo, or illegal at the time. Hell, DnD was the devil when I was growing up and I still played it. I still smoked weed when it was illegal, and I'll still love a man even if they say I can't.
Before the election we will be preparing bugout bags for my nuclear family and establishing concrete plans to flee.
After the election, if Trump wins we will monitor and be ready. At the first sign of trouble we get out of dodge. I have the ability to get EU citizenship for my family if need be. In the meantime, my wife and I have skills that can get us the privilege to move into some countries based on their employment needs.
My family and I would have reasons to be targeted by white nationalists if they felt empowered. I have received semi-threatening letters from such people in the past.
In any sane world he’d have no chance. At least he’s shown enough incompetence and appointed so many corrupt greedy assistance, that he won’t succeed in doing as much damage as he wants, except to Ukraine. At this point it’s hard to believe he’s running for anything more than staying out of jail, making himself above the law
Just keep doing what I am doing. My kids will have citizenship in my wife's home country by the end of summer. So I can get them out if I have to. Me personally I am in no real danger.
I'd like to think I'm not so backed into a corner that violence is the answer, so I'll do what I do every day of the week: keep my head down and wait.
If push comes to shove, and the lives of myself and my people are genuinely threatened, I won't retaliate in kind. I come from a long line of people that knew the benefits of blending in. I may not have the moxy to be a firebrand or to rally others to a cause, I may not have the heart to pull a trigger, but I have the means and skill to make triggers and the good sense to stay away from they places they get used.
It may not be the heroic sense of most Americans, but I was born into an America that sold us an action hero instead of providing us safety and I've never been one to buy rhetoric. I will not give my life for a cause, I will live to see it succeed.
Resist. Reorganize. Endure. Survive. Same as we've always done with presidents.
Idk what settlers are gonna do. Probably what they always do: whine, move to someone else's land if they're seriously inconvenienced, steal their shit, ruin that too, complain about how this keeps happening to them.
I'm a proficient software engineer and have the financial means to leave. I'm staying. 100%. This isn't a fight we can run from. If the US falls to fascism, there's a lot more damage we can expect around the world.
The plan is to increase the rhetoric and efforts already in place, but hopefully with more participation, as people (hopefully) slowly wake up to reality.
I had a buddy once in a previous job who didn't vote in 2016. His stance was that the system was "working as intended", and voting was equivalent to condoning the system. Not voting was his way of exercising his freedom of speech. I disagreed with his logic but I understood, mainly because I couldn't verbalize a valid and logical counterargument. Today I can.
My buddy was right. The system is working as intended. But you can't say that without also stating that, at our best, more than ⅓ of eligible voters don't vote. Couple that with a system meant to disadvantage large populations, and, yeah, the system is working as intended. I believe that our best option is to stay and fight by being politically active and encouraging others to do the same.
I also do believe in our fellow man. Trump has plenty of supporters, but I honestly believe they're outnumbered and endangered. This doesn't make them less dangerous. Probably moreso tbh. And even though they're outnumbered, the only way to truly push forward is to keep up the fight and not underestimate them. We need to be louder, fight harder, and make our voices heard when it counts. ie, vote.
So I just barely make it into the classes that do well under trump, but I’m very worried as the social safety net is falling apart for most americans, and that republican rule only speeds that problem. I’m going to be trying to strengthen resources that help people trying to make it to self-sufficiency, but I can’t overcome the typical american attitude of “I’ve failed because I need help.” I guess the best plan for most people is to take care of those around them, be moral and resist bad policy by quiet lack of compliance, and try to help good people get out of bad parts of the country so they collapse all the sooner.
Not sure. But my partner and I have an out, we will probably move to their home country and start a new life there if need be. It's kind of hard to determine when the right time to leave is.
Trump will eventually do something that gets between rich people and their money while also being an impeachable offense. The "sane" bussiness republican VP will pardon Trump after his impeachment and have him live out the rest of his life as a fox news call in guest until he died of "old age".
Move faster and work lots of overtime to get the last of my debt paid off then going to a friends place in Mexico. I speak Mexican Spanish well enough so I can avoid areas filled with expats.
Hope it's not as bad as I think ("as bad as I think" means "mass killings;") What else can I do? Everyone else here seems to be privileged enough to have the skills or plain cash to say "I'll go somewhere else," isn't as worried as they should be, or think they're Apocalypse Badass Man (see: accelerationists.) That's not me. I'm unskilled, poor, I have the self-introspection to know I don't have what it takes to be a revolutionary.
I'd still prefer to not get set back another decade by having him in office, and the danger of him never leaving office by way of dismantling all of the safeguards that prevented his coup in 2021 can't be ignored.
If there are ways I can resist, I will. If there are people I can help just by reaching out, I will extend my hand to them. I won't let Trump's hateful rhetoric poison my humanity or turn me against my fellow man.
If things get bad enough, my girlfriend and I have a "bug-out" plan that we discussed and agreed upon that basically amounts to - withdraw everything from our financial accounts, sell everything that isn't nailed down if we can or abandon everything in place, round up the family and buy plane/boat tickets to head somewhere that has low requirements for citizenship or will accept American petitions for political asylum if things get desperate enough. This is in the worst-case scenario where the U.S. descends into a full fascist/totalitarian state and there is a clear and present danger of us getting killed just for being political dissidents.
Ideally, we'd like to stay here and hope that things get better, but every year things seem to get worse and worse. The American Dream is dead and rotting, and we can just barely see a pinhole of light at the end of the tunnel for us to be able to achieve a life, but we're both left wondering if we're even going to be able to hold on to that if we do manage to seize it given how much the economy is backsliding each year.
tl;dr: the plan is to keep our heads down, but our spirits as high as possible, and always know where the closest exit is in case of an emergency.
As a person made utterly destitute and disabled by a series of crimes committed against me, well, I have SSDI and thats basically it.
Cost of living is way lower in Ecuador, i can relearn the Spanish I knew in high school, and theres a good number of affordable cities and towns there with considerably better crime statistics and public transportation than anywhere I can afford in the US.
I have done the math and it would be vastly more cost and time effective to move abroad... as I have been evicted, and basically that means I can't rent anywhere in the US for at least two years.
I am seriously considering noping the fuck out if Trump wins. Spent most of my adult life advocating for minorities, the poor, the disenfranchised, and now I am too fucking tired, in too much pain and too broke.
(Ironically my last job was at a non profit assisting the homeless, who didn't give a fuck about me becoming homeless.)
Not like anyone will miss me, every family member and friend I thought I had either committed crimes against me, told me to fuck off, or told me that they what was happening to me was too emotionally traumatic for them to deal with right now.
Of course this plan goes to shit if Trump and the Republicans somehow massively defund or cancel Social Security.
I used to think they would not be so stupid as to actually do that, as... an insane number of Trump's core voter base rely on SSI ot SSA or SSDI... but obviously with the MAGA crowd, anything is possible.
Guess I can always teach English. Maybe if I can ever walk again I can guide tours.
I would immediately erase everything that I have ever posted, anywhere. I would go underground as much as possible, online speaking. When the purges come, I would be a target.
IDK if we would leave. We are not prime immigrant status, not qualifying for Canada. That shocked me, TBF.
I'm a govt. contractor. I will retire the day before he's swarn in. I'm not sure what I'll do beyond that. A lot of Americans already retire to Costa Rica or Panama. I'll have to decide whether to run away or stay & resist.
We cannot house and feed you. Most of you will die of exposure the first winter you are here.
If you have thoughts of coming here with guns and taking our homes or food by force know that most of us outside the cities are armed, we're just not so scared that we constantly show off our guns and feel no need to go prepared for combat to buy donuts or groceries.
So, Mexico is your best bet, if they will take you. I bet you'll be glad that all the talk of a border wall was just neo-fascist virtue signaling.
I'm leaving the country either way on my small sailboat. America is done for.
You absolutely cannot vote fascists away. These aren't the people that you reason with, these aren't the people that you can convince of a different viewpoint, these are the people that have to be stopped because they've left you no other choices.
Look through history, I'm not making this up. There is only one way to stop fascists and until we the rest of the nation are willing to take those steps, they will remain, and they absolutely will not stop until they are made to. And in the meantime they get more organized and they grow stronger and they further their agendas.
Have a general sense of disappointment and despair as I watch bad decisions be made. My glimmer of hope is that he is an old man in bad shape and he could drop dead at any moment now.
Same as every year the country gets shittier, keep trudging along, voting, and hoping things improve. The way things are set up here I can't feasibly leave, even moving in country would be a beast to save and prep for let alone out of country.
The "Freedom" we have is voting every couple years and that's it. Even then they have tried everything possible to strip the voice of the majority of Americans. We are pretty fucking powerless for the most part.
I live in Texas and i work in public education. That said, I'm in a mostly blue bubble, I have a pretty good retirement fund, and I'm unlikely to get pregnant. My school district is still mostly reasonably run (by idiots, but not magas, just regular idiots) but we're feeling the budget cuts, increase in kids with needs, and difficulty hiring. I'm hoping for the house and Senate to protect us because it looks like the justice dept is already too far gone.
Ill see what happens, presidents like to talk big before they're elected, but if everything really goes down the shitter, and project 2025 is successful I'll seriously consider leaving. Very fortunately I am British by decent. Not the greatest improvement but a significant one nonetheless.
Start getting into a resistance mindset. People have a rapidly vanishing window to organize for what's coming. Biden or Trump this cycle it doesn't really matter that much, Democrats and their supporters are simply are not equipped to resist fascism. We've reached the terminal end of the lesser of two evils, and it's going to be bad. Genocide Joe won't save us.
Anarchy seems more likely to mr than fascism in the aftermath of such an election outcome. Trump has too many haters for there to be a peaceful transition this time.
My plan is to vote in candidates at all levels that are endorsed by The Forward Party.
We need to overhaul our voting system so that we're not trapped in this downward spiral of a 2 party system that we're currently in. Ranked Choice voting, Star voting, Approval voting... they all have pros and cons but any one of them is better than the current system that we have.
The way we get better options for Presidential candidates is to have a voting system that gives other parties a chance.
I don't care if I have to vote for a particular Republican, Democrat, or some third party individual for this to be accomplished.
Following the trend of "vote out all Republicans/Democrats" is how we got here in the first place.
the same thing i did when even biden, et al. voted against gay marriage; gays in the military; supported gay ban in the federal gov't and stayed silent on a slew of anti-immigrant & anti-abortion state laws.
I'm a bit cynical here and I think the country is headed down the same path whether Trump or Biden wins in November. We're seeing pseudo-fascist rhetoric increase in frequency. We're seeing authoritarian and militaristic policies pass virtually unopposed through our political system. War is virtually guaranteed with either candidate.
I know this opinion may be unpopular but I don't think this election matters very much. There are of course potential differences- such as access to abortion. If Biden wins, maybe there's more hope. But that's really it- just hope. Democrats have had majorities dozens of times since Roe V Wade was ruled and never wrote abortion into law.
I don't think it's suddenly going to change in the next 4 years which looks to be a potentially very dangerous period of time geopolitically speaking. Biden isn't going to have very much political capital to spend and the Overton Window is gradually shifting right.
Instead of looking only at this election, look at the next. And the one after. Do people think MAGA will go away? The world is in economic and geopolitical restructuring- instability breeds radicalism. The problem will likely only get worse. Especially with another weak Democratic administration.
Which brings me to the answer to your question. I have dual citizenship in South America. The only reasons I would leave the US are if there is a WW3 scenario or some sort of clear descent into a form of fascism. We're toying with it right now, but it can get a lot worse.
It probably won't be much better in my home country if I'm being honest, but there will be less chances for war. Any global war will inevitably involve the US in some capacity.
All the young uni kids who went full anti Biden on one issue, are likely too young to remember what president Trump was really like. They're gonna love him, since being miserable and outraged seems to be their preferred default.