“Nobody will listen to you about this. They will continue to jerk themselves off about how cool it would be if you could defeat fascism by being a goth.”

That is a specific reference, but the general principle remains true for the liberal grift-sphere when updated for their particular grift-pitch.

You aren’t going to fight authoritarianism by consuming the right products or by embracing the right aesthetics or making a clever argument or moderating your arguments just-so or marching with the perfect banner or donating to the right politician.

There is no “weird trick” to stop an abuser, whether that’s a household tyrant or an authoritarian government.

Power is the thing. You need an answer to the challenge, “Or else what?” It needs to be credible, and it needs to be something you have practiced asserting over and over again — you and everyone else you can motivate and support to do it with you.

This is not easy. This is usually not simple since even straightforward things involve a lot of complexity if you do them every day as these sort of things require.

There is no clout for it, no attention, and if it’s not entirely thankless, it’s definitely insufficiently appreciated.

No one is coming to save us. We have to save each other.

You cannot fight power with stinging remarks. You fight power by making it exert itself constantly everywhere and at maximum cost each time. You have to be prepared to lose a lot of fights but to keep insisting to fight, on your territory, at your thing, and daily, not just “at the ballot box” and not just in the future but today, today, today, and then tomorrow, too.

You cannot fight just to get “the bad ones out” but fight in such a way and for such ends that no matter who is in the role, you and those you care about are protected from their animus.

Don’t fall for the lie that someone else will do it for you if you just disengage and wait for them to save you.