5 Ways Communities Resist Authoritarianism (From History to Today)
Late last week as the Jimmy Kimmel news crashed across my screen and I was still trying to understand who Charlie Kirk really was (which is certainly different from the sanitized version even liberal writers are currently eulogizing), I fell into a bit of an emotional pit.
My partner and I chatted as she was getting ready to leave for work and I felt that familiar sense of overwhelm form in my gut.
But what can we do to actually stop any of this?
It wasn’t quite despair, but I admit it was the closest I’ve come to it in the past few months.
As she walked out the door, I just sat and stared at the wall for awhile reflecting on the week – specifically the cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel and the presence of ICE at my workplace.
And eventually, my history degree reared its head as if to say from the bottom drawer where it perpetually lives in darkness: look to what others have done.
So below are five ways people and communities have resisted authoritarianism – not always enough to end the violence or harm, but enough to maintain a sense of dignity and beauty in the midst of it.
I hope as you read through the examples below, you consider what “safe enough” actions you might take as we continue deeper into this moment.
1. Community, Community, Community
I’m leading with this one because it is a non-negotiable. Community is the only way we get through this – the only way hope exists beyond our imagination.
It can take many shapes and forms, from the loud and action-centered to the quiet and care-centered, but the question I offer is this: who is holding this moment alongside you?
In Mussolini’s Italy, the activists who lacked networks and communities were neutralized quickly. The “moderates” who had some power and rank, but were not part of communities talking about the danger of the moment, fell into silence.
But those who had some kind of community structure – churches, student groups, labor organizations, underground reading circles – had the resilience to resist longer. They emboldened each other to embrace hope and to identify the small ways to fight back; they kept the conversation and the tending to grief going.
During the HIV/AIDS Crisis of the 1980s, and in the face of governmental inaction, ACT UP began to form small, local groups of friends, partners, and neighbors who would come together in living rooms, church basements, and community centers to care for each other and share resources. These communities, absolutely and intentionally being failed by the government, gathered to survive, together.
Question: Who can you intentionally gather with for the purpose of tending to each other’s needs? (Who might you invite over for dinner to talk with about this?)
2. Protect + Pressure the Press and Academia
Across the board, the first enemies of an authoritarian leader are the free press, universities, and the public school system (if there is one.)
I remember in high school reading about book burnings in Weimar Germany – one of the first acts of the Nazi Party upon taking power. Or of how Pinochet in Chile would order raids on bookstores to terrify storeowners out of business. Or of our own American legacy of McCarthyism and anti-abolitionist book burnings in the South.
And yet – in the midst of each of these examples of censorship, there was resistance.
In Nazi Germany, the White Rose movement formed, a group of students quietly distributing anti-Nazi leaflets. During the McCarthy Era here in the United States, alternative publications like Dissent Magazine were created to hold space for intellectual debate outside the academic mainstream. In the Soviet Union, some would hand-copy books and articles – known as “samizdat” – so the ideas within them would survive and spread. In Pinochet’s Chile, multiple churches made the brave decision to shelter intellectuals and written materials, even hosting small discussion circles, under the protective guise of “religious activity.”
As we look around and see academic institutions, media companies, and publishers under pressure from the Trump Administration to fold or self-censor, one move we can make is to do our best to apply counter-pressure: demand our representatives protect academic institutions, boycott and divest from media companies that submit to Trump’s demands, and amplify and fund local journalists and creators who are pushing back.
Question: How can you apply counter-pressure by contacting representatives, writing letters to the editor, boycotting companies like Meta, Disney, and Target who give in, and/or amplify journalists and creators doing resistance work?
3. Small Acts of Refusal
These are the acts of everyday resistance, often silent and in the shadows, but present and powerful.
In China, where public resistance has a long history of suppression, there is an equally long tradition of silent protests (wearing symbols on clothing, etc.), family-led education to counter state-run curriculum, and “nod-and-deny” tactics, where people fall in line publicly and work behind the scenes to resist. In Nazi Germany, this was true as well: resistance could look like refusing to parrot party slogans or finding ways to quietly support underground resistance networks. Enslaved people in the United States would engage in everyday resistance by slowing down work, feigning sickness when safe-enough to do so, or “accidentally” damaging crops or farm tools.
As we consider what is ours to do to resist authoritarianism, it is worth repeating again and again and again: no action is too small.
Each of these small acts of refusal and resistance and counter-pressure can preserve our sense of dignity and purpose until larger movements take shape.
Question: What are the small ways, perhaps even silent or invisible, you can refuse to accept the Trump Administration’s use of power and story?
4. Create Pockets of Democracy
Democracy is always **a threat to those who desire to wield power over others.
That’s why every year, voter suppression bills are lobbied for and passed at all levels of legislature. (79 restrictive voting laws have been passed in the last four years in the United States.) That’s why poll taxes and literacy tests were used to exclude Black folks from voting in the Jim Crow South. That’s why Putin in Russia has jailed and killed his opponents and Orbán in Hungary has stacked the courts and re-written the constitution.
And this is why one of the ways we can resist fascism is by ensuring democracy – and the cultural norms and ideals that support it – continues to exist at all levels of public engagement.
In the Jim Crow South, registering to vote, teaching people to read, and joining organizations like the NAACP could be extremely dangerous as they were radical threats to the anti-democratic system of White Supremacy – and yet, people engaged in these everyday. In South Africa, folks educated each other, literally door-to-door, to make sure neighbors knew and bought into the cultural ideals that would uphold democracy following the transition from Apartheid.
With only 34% of Americans currently satisfied with democracy, we can do similar today.
Attending city council meetings, showing up at school boards, practicing democratic processes in our non-profits and organizations, going door-to-door to talk with our neighbors about local issues – all of these feel small and yet create cultural and institutional resilience to the sway of authoritarianism.
Question: How can you can help strengthen democracy – and democratic norms and ideas – in the spaces you already belong to? (Your neighborhood, workplace, or community groups, etc.)
5. Sustain Hope Through Care
Just as Mariame Kaba says, “hope is a discipline,” the work of sustaining hope is not about anything fluffy or sentimental — it is deeply practical, rooted, and embodied.
Throughout history, basic everyday care has been shown to be radical. Whether creating a community garden, making music, ensuring continuing friendship – all of these acts serve as a counterweight to despair and overwhelm, giving up and giving in.
When the Nazis spread across Europe and took over in places like Denmark, Norway, and France, people organized underground poetry readings, musical performances, and religious gatherings. Or in Japanese-American Internment Camps during WWII, families planted gardens and published community newspapers. The Black Panther Party was founded with a mission of care: to support Black folks with self-defense training and eventually breakfast programs, health clinics, and more.
All of these examples sustained hope – all of them centered the community and insisted in the primacy of dignity, beauty, and human value.
Today, we can see this work in mutual aid networks and in communities that focus on building a culture of resilience and care amongst themselves. Through their actions, these spaces build the community strength needed to resist authoritarianism and weave connection amongst people so that nobody has to feel isolated and alone.
Question: What can you do this week to show care (a meal, a phone call, a garden, a story) in a way that builds resilience against despair?
