We can't resist what we can't see, and the critical limits of "protecting your peace"

Over the past few weeks we've witnessed the greatest civil resistance movements of our time. Hundreds of thousands of everyday citizens are mobilized across American cities trying to protect their neighbours from being snatched off the streets, from their homes, out of their cars, from their workplaces... Minnesota and Minneapolis have become beacons of community resistance, Portland, San Francisco, Austin, Chicago have entered the same reality, and many in other cities are preparing for incoming ICE occupations, building on the methods and tactics of the organizers currently fighting in the streets while Trump's regime spreads propagandic lies.

The bravery of the people is stunning. Their resourcefulness inspiring. Anyone anxious about experiencing similar scenarios is watching attentively and taking notes.

Everyone except the people I talk to, I guess.

When I bring it up with coworkers and friends, their responses vary from vaguely informed to proudly stating "I'm not watching the news, I've decided to protect my peace".

One such response came from a former RCMP officer currently encouraging his son to enter the Canadian military, which nearly broke my brain. How is it even possible to "protect your peace" while planning to send your child to war? What the fuck??

Similar sentiments of "I'm protecting my peace" have come from other family and friends living in Alberta, while the MAGA-aligned government is literally in the process of securing a meeting in Washington next month to ask for a "$500 billion credit facility, which would help fund the province if an independence referendum passes."* The Alberta government has spent the past four years (at least) working with Christian Nationalist separatists, and media is only just now starting to take it seriously.

I work with a nonprofit that exclusively supports new Canadians and people living in poverty, and in meetings I've mentioned my anxieties as well as scenes like the one below – both worrying and breathtakingly inspiring – and the dismissive responses of, "oh I've stopped paying attention, I'm just gonna protect my peace"... it truly makes me feel crazy. The apathy. The self-centredness. The lack of cognitive resilience. It kills my soul. If people refuse to see what's coming – and it is coming – what hope is there of resisting it?

We're living through the most consequential social upheavals since the Great Wars – there will be stories told of this time and our duty, if nothing else, is to make sure those stories reflect the truth of the moment. Is that not the bare minimum we can contribute? To witness and remember?

In thirty years when the next generation asks, "where were you when everything changed?" how asinine will it sound to say, "I was protecting my peace". Cool, thanks.

But of course they won't say that. They'll have stories about how they reacted when the threat finally came to their doorstep, and I'm sure plenty of those stories will frame them as hapless victims within the senselessness of it all. "How could anyone have seen this coming??"

And fine, maybe plenty of them will rise to the challenge. Maybe they'll contribute to the waves of energy required to hold the line and sustain resistance. Maybe I'm worrying about something that time will resolve on its own. But it's still hard to watch so many willingly step so blindly into authoritarianism, and that complacency is only making the future work of resistance that much harder.

Below is a video from Tad Stoermer, a public historian, teacher, and author of A Resistance History of the United States. Talking-face videos aren't my favourite way of consuming information, but his advice captured everything I've felt over the past year. I'll transcribe it below the video as well (bolded emphasis my own):

Experience is the most brutal teacher—and for many, it’s the only one they’ll believe.

Right now, Americans face a reality that resistance history has tried, repeatedly, to teach us: institutions won’t save us, political opposition without active resistance is complicit, and there is no built-in limit to how much power authoritarian leaders will seize.

Historians and scholars of authoritarianism, such as Abby Heffer and Tim Snyder, have shown how modern autocrats like Donald Trump—and powerful enablers such as Elon Musk—actively dismantle institutions, erode democratic norms, and consolidate power. Their work helps us understand exactly how authoritarianism operates today, in real time. But knowing how it works isn’t enough. The urgent question is: what do we do about it?

There is no “normal” to return to. If institutions were capable of preventing authoritarianism, they would have already done so. Opposition leaders who preach patience and trust in the system—rather than actively resisting—only serve to enable authoritarianism. And history shows, time and again, that believing “this is as bad as it gets” is dangerously naïve. Hannah Arendt warned that authoritarianism doesn't self-correct—it escalates, consolidates, and redefines what people accept as “normal.” Albert Camus argued that resistance isn't about guaranteed victory—it's about refusing to become complicit. James C. Scott explained that power isn't absolute; it’s fragile and constantly working to maintain itself. And Joseph Tainter and Arnold Toynbee showed us that oppressive systems eventually collapse, not out of moral awakening, but because they're unsustainable—yet collapse never happens on our terms unless we actively force it.

These lessons are hard because they challenge our hope that someone else will fix the problem. They remind us that the responsibility to resist rests with each of us. We must be optimists to our families and friends—but we must also be pessimists in the mirror, ready to face the reality that things won’t fix themselves.

There is no normal to return to. There is only what we do now.

So, what do we do now?

"Protect our peace"? Ignore the news, block the scary thoughts, retreat to what's left of the status quo as it shrinks beneath our feet like a sinking island? And when that island finally sinks and the sharks start to circle, what then?

What then?

Okay fine how am I supposed to resist? What am I even resisting?

I'm glad you asked.

What we are resisting is a global authoritarian movement driven by a depraved and deeply misogynist capitalist class wielding technology as its primary tool of repression.

Sounds like something a conspiracy theorist would say.

Sure. We'll get to that.

Every "big tech" CEO who sat in the front row of Trump's inauguration is part of this movement. This is now well-documented and reputably reported. You can also search their names in the Epstein Files database. Many of those files have revealed the ring of corrupt power that revolved around Epstein is directly responsible for conspiring to end democracy and bringing us to this breaking point. They have conspired together collectively to protect each other, placing each other in positions of power and hoarding wealth through tech monopolies.

Here's a great breakdown of how Epstein leveraged early online discourse tools to create an entire culture of poisoned misogynists, ultimately bleeding into Silicon Valley. Click through for Ryan Broderick's full article, I'll quote the most salient parts below (bolded emphasis my own):

Here’s how Epstein broke the internet

His meeting with the founder of 4chan and his quest to profit off the end of democracy

Garbage DayRyan Broderick

As Broderick notes, Epstein's obsessions were, "manipulating what we see online and finding digital alternatives to traditional finance. During the last years of his life, these two ideas would dovetail into one project — building a far-right takeover of Europe with Steven Bannon."

...

Journalist Michael Wolff, who advised Epstein on media strategy, would formally connect Bannon and Epstein in October 2017, two days after The New York Times published the investigation into director Harvey Weinstein, which jumpstarted the #MeToo movement. Bannon and Epstein would message often about #MeToo, referring to it by its other name, “Time’s Up.” At one point, the two men brainstormed how to use cryptocurrency to fund a “populist/nationalist coalition” that could “stave off ‘Time’s Up’ for next decade plus.”

...

One of the central internet mysteries of the last 15 years is why 4chan creator Christopher Poole reversed course in 2011 and brought back the site’s politics board, which is called /pol/, or “Politically Incorrect.” It would become the staging ground for Gamergate, the 2016 Trump campaign, and the far-right populism wave that swept the world in the back half of the 2010s.

On October 20th, 2011, Boris Nikolic, a venture capitalist and former advisor to Bill Gates, sent Epstein the Wikipedia page for Christopher Poole, writing, “There is a cool guy (KID) that you should meet.” Four days later, Nikolic followed up, asking Epstein, “How did you like moot? He is very sensitive so be gentile.” (Poole’s username for years was moot or m00t.) “I liked [him a lot]. I drove him home, he is very bright,” Epstein replied. Nikolic went on to write that, “he will be a friend” and that he is “one of the greatest hackers.”

...

Meanwhile in March 2012, Bannon, following the death of conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, was installed as the editor-in-chief of Breitbart News. In 2014, 4chan’s video game board, /v/, and /pol/ started lighting up about the Gamergate conspiracy theory. Milo Yiannopoulos, then a young tech writer for Breitbart, would transform Gamergate from fringe message board drama into the cornerstone of the global far-right movement by repackaging it in articles optimized for Facebook traffic.

Which was perfect timing, because Epstein was beginning to work his way into Silicon Valley.

...

In 2012, Epstein asked British investor Ian Osborne to set up a meeting between him and Thiel and “zuckerberg.” Osborne also tried to connect Epstein with Apple’s Tim Cook. And in 2013, Epstein was recorded telling former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak that he should try and work with Palantir.

...

Epstein, possibly the most prolific sex trafficker in human history, spent the last decade of his life investing in technology that would help Russia, as he wrote in a 2013 email, “leapfrog the global community by reinventing the financial system of the 21st century.” He was fascinated by websites like 4chan and technology like Bitcoin and was personally invested in the success of far-right politicians in the US and Europe. He believed he was months away from ushering in a new world order that would allow him to continue with his monstrous passion projects, like creating a super-race of children with his own DNA and building fascist nation states to manage overpopulation and climate collapse. And he wined and dined the world’s most powerful men (none of whom seemed to have an issue with these ideas), inviting them to his island and his ranch, and made sure they were surrounded by an endless supply of young girls. And I’m just not sure what we’re supposed to do with that knowledge.

Anyway, you should really read the whole thing. It's enlightening.

Trump's role? He was the human trafficking pipeline, supplying Epstein's island and ranch with a steady flow of underage girls (many of whom were murdered and buried in his golf course, along with Ivana) via Trump's beauty pageants (Miss USA, Miss Teen USA, Miss Universe) and teen modelling agencies. More on that disgusting tangle here.

So here we are.

The powerful protecting the powerful, carrying on Epstein's legacy as a matter of existential survival, because if the world becomes collectively aware of the horror they've inflicted, the malignant hate they've spread, and the disastrous damage they've done to liberal democracies, they would be wiped away. So these horrible, powerful men have created a global coalition of other horrible, powerful men. Everything about where we are right now is because of them.

Endless privacy violations? That's them.

AI being forced on the world with zero regulations and no concern for public safety in the hands of corporate monopolies? That's them.

Insane push for fossil fuel extraction? That's them.

Unchecked surveillance? That's them.

Monstrous actions of the Israeli elite? That's them.

Mass Covid disinformation? That's them.

Rampant misogyny and racism stemming from digital spaces? That's them.

The rise of crypto? That's them.

Western democracies being teetotaled from the inside out so corporations can govern their own territories like feudal lords? That's them.

Feel like resisting now?

Can we see it?

We can't resist what we can't see. What's happening isn't just "the way things go", it's a malignant movement spawned by the very worst, most depraved elite class.

RESIST.

• Resist unregulated tech that's being used to profile and surveil citizens.
  - Don't engage on or add value to Meta products (Facebook, Instagram, Threads, WhatsApp).
  - Divest from American tech. Paris Marx wrote a great guide.
  - Refuse to adopt genAI and LLMs
• Protect your data.
  - This one is important if you don't want to go crazy: become surveillance-literate. Understand which technologies are harvesting your data.
  - Know how to make your smartphone secure.
  - Never use Siri, Alexa or any other chatbot.
• Find clear flows of information. See my previous post re: why Bluesky is a good tool for this
• Use secure modes of communication, ie: Signal or in-person meetings.
• Educate yourself and find the Cassandra content - the people who've been yelling about this for a while have left a clear trail of information. Start digging.
• Reject complacency. Reject "but they'll think I'm a conspiracy nut". Reject "you're crazy". Women have especially been stigmatized in this movement and I can tell you nothing feels crazier than holding in a truth because you're afraid people will think you're "too extreme".
• Be annoying. Make the work of fascism extremely tedious and expensive. Question everything. Inconvenience all of them.
• Get furious.

And my dear Alberta. I left because I couldn't do the work I needed to do while barely surviving in a hostile city of rotten conservatism. What I saw and intuited a year ago hasn't stopped evolving, and there's more coming that I need to filter and process. My life may well become one long-term resistance strategy. I'm working on a few different projects relating to communications at the moment.

We all have skills to contribute and parts to play, but what's most critical right now is that we see what we're dealing with.

Alberta might still have a chance to resist the infection that's spreading, but that window is closing quickly. Speeches from the opposition that skirt around the very real issues of rising fascism and a broken status quo are worthless. Short of Nenshi saying "we ride at dawn", he isn't helping and is borderline complicit.

The aim is no longer to "undo" what is being done, but to stop it. From there, a rebuild.

Remember Stoermer's words from the video above:

There is no “normal” to return to. If institutions were capable of preventing authoritarianism, they would have already done so. Opposition leaders who preach patience and trust in the system—rather than actively resisting—only serve to enable authoritarianism. And history shows, time and again, that believing “this is as bad as it gets” is dangerously naïve.

It will take hoards of fury on the streets. Alberta, please get angrier.