What You Can Do Other Than Protesting

A Resister's Guide to American Fascism

(Author’s Note: I originally wrote this piece for my Substack Missives from a Middle-aged Man. I’m reposting it here because often I get asked “What can I do other than protesting”? Well here are some ideas.)

Before we start I want you to think of what you’re good at.

I don’t care how trivial you think it is, or how “useless” because it isn’t.

Got it? Awesome. Hold onto it for now. It’ll come up later.

Now for the story time opener…

I was in my last year of graduate school back in 2012 a professor challenged us before the start of the school year. “If you see something’s missing and you can do something about it do it. Don’t wait to be told to fix it.”

I wasn’t a teacher’s assistant but I’d gotten a job in the University Center Office as an office manager. Basically we ran the student center and were the liaison for all conferences and events on campus. We were the logistics and operations side of things for people who wanted to use the facilities. The nuts and bolts folks.

This was President Obama’s re-election year. I admired him, still do, and supported him online but I wasn’t politically active. I was a voter. I voted in my first election as an Independent in ‘04 and switched to the Democratic Party in ‘06 so I could vote in the primaries. But I didn’t canvass. Didn’t organize. I’d been to a single protest in ‘04 against the Iraq War. I just marched. No sign or anything like that.

But I wanted to do something. I wanted to say I’d done more than just voted for Obama.

So I wanted to join the College Democrats but there was a problem. There wasn’t a College Democrats at my university. They didn’t exist.

I decided to change that. I had no social media. It really wasn’t as big back then as it was now. Hell I’d just started texting people a couple of years before that which I found annoying, and kind of still do. I’d much rather talk on the phone.

But I knew how the Student Center worked. I was the one who took down the old fliers for student events. I knew where they got the most visibility. So I made some fliers. I placed them in the most trafficked areas. I put the meeting for four days from the date I put them up. It was a Wednesday in early September after Labor Day.

A total of 3 people showed up. Three.

“You organized the meeting Frederic so you should be President,” one of them said. I used to joke that I became the President of the College Democrats in the best way possible. I was an unelected one.

But from there with those three other people we were able to organize voter registration drives on campus, we got money from the university to host a panel on the effect of social media on politics which included

Bob Cesca

and

Vanessa Valenti.

I crafted educational talks to inform students about political issues in everything ranging from how to politically debate, the historical foundations of Liberalism, to the Southern Strategy.

By the end of that first year we had close to 100 members. We’d registered much more than that who voted in that election. I then went on to become a chairman of the Democratic County party in my area before I left for Washington DC to work in Aviation and not politics.

Myself and those three people who re-started the College Democrats at my university never went to a protest. But we educated people who did protest on how to get their message out more effectively. We supported them by stationing ourselves at protests for people to register to vote so they could vote in the upcoming election.

To date I’ve been to about three or four protests. I’m not much of a protestor. But I’ve done much more in political organizing and helping people to get involved and get educated.

And so can you! Because protesting is not the only means of resistance. It’s just one form of it.

In fact if you manage to get someone who doesn’t regularly vote to actually vote when you do you’ll have done more than if you just marched in a protest. If you can do both then by all means do both.

But this article is for the people who can’t or don’t really want to protest for one reason or another. It’s also for people who think they don’t have any skills that they can use to resist MAGA Fascism with.

You do. And this article is gonna give you some ideas on what you can do to help American Democracy because we need as many actual Patriots, not the fake ones who support Orange Whip Haired Fascism, involved as possible.

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Support Matters Just As Much

By now you’ve seen the posts that say “We gotta stop posting and hit the streets!”

Or “Protesting is the most important thing you can do right now!”

And while I appreciate that passion, and yes protesting is important it’s also not the only thing you can do. In fact it may not be the most critical thing you can do.

Unfortunately today in our social media eco-system which has replaced journalism in the US a protest comes and goes. Most of the time it’s relegated to the background noise of our lives so its effectiveness has been diminished. It gets lost in the sauce of the next “OMG! Will you Look at THIS?!” that much of social media is today.

Worse people who might be unable or too scared to protest are turned off from doing anything at all.

Well I’m here to tell you that there is something can do other than protest and it’s vitally important.

See in the military for every infantryman in the field with a rifle there’s 7 to 8 people in support that don’t carry a rifle that are still serving in uniform and are just as vital to the success of the mission.

So if you think of the protestors as the infantry they need people in support to help them be successful.

If you’re reading this you could be one of those people.

Maybe you don’t protest because you have to work.
Or you have kids.
Or you don’t like big crowds.
Don’t have reliable transportation.
Maybe you just don’t want to get arrested.
Maybe you’re more of a target for police brutality than I would be as a cisgendered, white, middle aged male.

You might be saying “I want to help but I can’t protest!”

Whatever the reason it’s valid.

Let’s tackle some of these problems.

What if someone could watch your kids and you didn’t have to spend the money to hire a babysitter to attend a political meeting?

What if you could get a ride with someone else to a protest or political meeting?

What if you pledged a little bit of money to an organization to bail out people who get arrested at a protest?

That’s just on the protest side of things. Let’s expand on that.

What if you’re a Baby Boomer and you own your own home? Would you be willing to host a get together there to discuss politics and organizing in your community?

If you’re Gen Z you know Baby Boomers can struggle with technology at times. Not all but some. Helping them use a canvassing or organizing app is a great icebreaker.

Maybe you don’t like meetings but you love kids. Wanna babysit them for free as your contribution to the cause? Watching those children so parents can attend a meeting or a protest is a form of resistance support.

A lot of political meetings happen at local schools. Or maybe a private daycare will let you use their facilities as a drop off for children? They just need volunteers to watch them as the parents head to a meeting.

Maybe you like to bake and you offer to bring something to a get together. Maybe you talk to your neighbor in the apartment building to go with you. Or you write a postcard about how the Trump administration has personally affected you or your family. And you send those postcards to your neighbors. Then they’ll be able to put a face to a name of someone who lives right next door. Politics don’t seem so impersonal then.

How about supporting your local paper if they practice good journalism? Are you attending town council or school board meetings where a lot of these messed up ordinances are decided? Don’t have a local paper? Wanna create one on Substack and let the world know what MAGA is doing in your area? You could do that. Nothing is stopping you from attending meetings, taking notes, and publishing it right here.

You good with website design? Social media savvy? Do you know how many county parties and other civic organizations desperately need someone like you? They need you way more than protesting in the street. They will take whatever help you can give them.

What about artwork? Artwork is a powerful form of political activism because it’s visual.

Remember this poster?

How much of an impact did that poster have on helping Obama win his first term? An artist named Shepard Fairey designed it. You can design one for protestors or a website. You can design a logo for a local organization. Put it on a t-shirt and gives the proceeds to an organization.

Are you empathetic? Have good listening skills? Can you make yourself available to talk to at risk youth especially LGTBQIA youth? Can you adopt one as sort of their battle buddy they can reach out to because they can’t to their family? You’ll do more than marching in a protest. You might just save that person’s life when they need it the most.

What if you’re drained yourself? Wanna volunteer somewhere that isn’t actively political like an animal shelter? Sit with dogs and spend time with them? It does a soul good to be out in the community even in small ways.

The VA accepts volunteers. So do senior care facilities. You’d be surprised at how many organizations need volunteer help. Whatever gets you out in the community to start doing that good work. It builds on itself if enough of us do it. It has an impact in the world. It makes it better.

These are just some of the ideas. There’s a lot more I haven’t touched on. Some I hope you’ll come up with on your own.

Thank you for reading this. I hoped it helped and it showed you that protesting isn’t the only way you can resist. Building communities are vitally important. They’re critical to any movement. This is how you do it, and it’s very much needed.

And I will rarely ask people to do this but if found what I wrote worthwhile please share this article.

Please spread the word because this movement will need communities that are built by us. We’ll need to be the ones who save ourselves and our country.

Thank you.