> I understand the basic idea of how you fight an oppressive regime everyone hates.

If everyone hates it, you only need to fight it if has external support. A regime needs considerable active support and even wider at least tacit support to operate; if everyone locally hates it, it cannot function as a regime (but, if it has sufficient external support, can perhaps function as an occupation, that you do have to fight.)

> I have no idea how you go about fighting one that half the country supports.

You fight it by actively seeking to make it one that has much less support, by means such as revealing to the people who would oppose various acts the things that it is doing that have been effectively concealed or misrepresented to them that they would oppose if they understood.

> I understand the basic idea of how you fight an oppressive regime everyone hates. I have no idea how you go about fighting one that half the country supports. Protests aren’t going to fix that.

In reality, around 22% of the US populace (not just voters, but everyone) voted for Trump. Similar voted for Harris.

The rest didn't vote. I refuse to attribute justifications, since they are too numerous.

But that is correct, peaceful protests like 50501 aren't going to do much. Their value is more networking and mutual aid creation/management.

What does work, especially historically, is violence. As a historian, when you look at pivotal points in history, changes were only won after a LOT of violence was applied.

The trick is that groups like 50501 are absolutely needed for a different reason. The governments cannot negotiate with 'terrorists', but can save face by negotiating with 'peaceful groups'. We see this recently with MLK and Malcolm X, Sinn Fein and IRA, Ghandi and dozens of separatist factions.

I'm not publically advocating violence, but the more fascist they become, well, that will be inevitable. Different people and groups have different lines in the sand.

We're already talking about breaching medical records for 'defectives' (autism) list, turning trans folk into non-humans, kidnapping/disappearing people off the street, tattle-tale emails and phone#s to report people, lebensraum (Canada, Greenland, etc), off-country concentration camps (CECOT), and more. And we're only 3 months in of 4 years.

If I had the ability to get out, I would have. But I'm guessing that even the better off here also don't have the ability.

I think you’re counting people who aren’t even eligible to vote. Among eligible voters, it was about 1/3rd to each of Trump, Harris, and staying home.

I don’t give a lot of credit to those who stayed home. They also knew who Trump was and decided to let others make the choice on their behalf.

I’m not confident that even violent action would change things when so many people are in favor of or at least ok with what’s going on. You’re not going to win a fight, so is the idea to win hearts and minds? I don’t see that working.

> I think you’re counting people who aren’t even eligible to vote. Among eligible voters, it was about 1/3rd to each of Trump, Harris, and staying home.

Oh, I absolutely am counting every human in the US, and not registered voters. Total counts are like 45% of the whole population voted.

I chose total counts to get a better idea of density vs political affiliation since we have those at the district level.

> I don’t give a lot of credit to those who stayed home. They also knew who Trump was and decided to let others make the choice on their behalf.

Perhaps. Perhaps not. Usually, the back and forth between statist democrat and statist republican weren't that much diverging, although campaigns would portray the other side as baby-eaters.

This is different. And even just 3 months, I'm seeing apolitical people come out of the woodwork and actually start being political. And even though I do vote, I get the idea of 'as long as politicians do decent, I don't care'.

> I’m not confident that even violent action would change things when so many people are in favor of or at least ok with what’s going on. You’re not going to win a fight, so is the idea to win hearts and minds? I don’t see that working.

I'm not seeing a fight ala lines of militia lining up firing in lines. I'm thinking what we're headed towards is much much more like Luigi. Or more historically, what we saw in France during WW2 - sabotage and hit-n-runs.

And the battle lines are also pretty defined as well. Its going to be a fight between rural and cities.

Like I said, if I had the ability to leave until the situation here comes to some semblance of sanity and stability (along with respect for human decency), I would leave. But at the moment, that is not an option for me. So instead, its a "what can I do to safeguard me and mine, for the foreseeable future?"

(So far, my answer is: grow my own food, get to know local farmers and pay/trade, connect with local mutual aid orgs, become more self-sufficient, canning and food preservation. That sort of stuff. Goal is to just blend in, and help non-violently where I can.)