#Do Not Obey In Advance

[xkittzkornerx]

The lesson, put simply: do not obey in advance.

"We're living through the ongoing fascist collapse of the United States but I still gotta clean the kitchen and go to work tomorrow" sure is the mood right now, huh.

[emilianadarling]

- Timothy Snyder. The first and perhaps most important lesson from On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons for the Twentieth Century (2017)

Snyder's new book, On Freedom, was published in 2024.

[pintadorartist]

ADVOCATES IN CONGRESS HAVE THREATENED TO NOT VOTE FOR ANY SPENDING BILLS UNLESS KOSA IS INCLUDED

While the Continuing Resolutions does not include KOSA, advocates for the bill are still pushing VERY HARD to add it to the package of bills, even going as far as to not vote for disaster relief bills if KOSA is not added to the package of bills.

WE HAVE TO CALL AND MAKE OUR VOICES HEARD. Below are the posts for contact info and call tools to call, email, and fax both representatives and senators to tell them to say NO to KOSA, it's important to keep up the pressure.

STOP KOSA (SENATE VERSION)

STOP KOSA (HOUSE VERSION)

[captainxtra]

HEADS UP! HR 9495 HAS BEEN RECEIVED IN SENATE!

Reminder on how to find your Senators!

If you have a GOP/MAGA Senator, use this advice from Reddit in trying to convince them to oppose it:

Do not stop fighting!

[di-kot-o-me]

Do not obey in advance.

[booksinmythorax]

On Tyranny & Tumblr #1: Do not obey in advance

Like a lot of people, I've been reading Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny in the wake of the 2024 US election results. It's a good book, and a short book, and a book that's probably available in your library. I encourage you to read it for yourself.

There's a lot of panic happening and a lot of desire for action. I think if you're looking for ways to fight real-life tyranny, there's actually a little bit you can do online too.

Snyder's first lesson derived from the stories of 20th century authoritarian governments is "Do not obey in advance":

Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.

Some ways we can apply this in our online lives:

-If you create content - fan content or original, written works, visual art, cosplay, photos - and you're worried it might be targeted by the US government in the future, don't take it down yet. Don't orphan them on AO3 yet. Keep it up and keep creating.

-If you financially support sex workers, keep doing that. If you don't, consider starting now. They are going to be some of the most vulnerable people in the upcoming US administration.

-I'm a queer person. Because my immediate physical safety is not being threatened, I am choosing to stay out both in real life and online. I will not make myself invisible or palatable out of fear of possible future retribution.

-(this isn't necessarily just an online thing, but I'm going to suggest it anyway) Keep - or start - checking out books by and about queer people and people of color at your local library. Borrow erotica, too, and books on polyamory and kink, and books on liberation ideologies. Borrow the digital versions and the paper versions and return them on time and in good condition. If you're a librarian with any kind of control over this, keep purchasing and displaying these books in accordance with your professional training.

Feel free to list other options in comments or tags or on reblogs.

Other lessons from On Tyranny:

#2: Defend institutions

#3: Beware the one-party state

#4: Take responsibility for the face of the world

#5-7: Remember professional ethics, Be wary of paramilitaries, and Be reflective if you must be armed

#8: Stand out

#9: Be kind to our language

#10: Believe in truth

[in4newz]

[keydekyie]

hubris

[victusinveritas]

[lilhawkeye3]

“Why do you submit to it all?”

“Because [the Capitol] have the guns.”

“Is it really about the weapons, though? …I see the hangings and the shootings and the starvation… I do. And yet, I still don���t think the fear they inspire justifies this arrangement we’ve all entered into. Do you?”

-Suzanne Collins, Sunrise on the Reaping, 2025

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dean Obeidallah at The Dean's Report:

“Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. Individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want and then offer themselves without being asked.” Those words written by Yale Professor Timothy Snyder in his book, “On Tyranny” came to mind twice recently. The first was last week when MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski headed to Mar-a-Lago to capitulate to Donald Trump. And then again on Monday, when we learned that Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice was surrendering to Trump by voluntarily dismissing criminal charges against Trump in both the attempted coup and Espionage cases. These two incidents actually share a great deal in common. Both involve visible people with power who are fully aware of the danger Trump poses to our Republic and who Trump has vowed retribution against. And both surrendered soon after Trump won, thus, emboldening the aspiring autocrat. In defense of Jack Smith, he did move swiftly after being appointed Special Counsel in November 2022. The failure has always been and continues to be Merrick Garland, a person I have been vocally criticizing since late 2021 for his failure to timely prosecute Trump--even causing Democratic legal pundits to attack me in 2022 for not understanding how the DOJ works.

True, while I am a lawyer, I never worked in DOJ. But I’m a student of history and understood where this could go if Garland did not move swiftly. That is why in Jan 2022--on the first anniversary of Jan. 6--I wrote an op-ed for MSNBC pressing Garland to charge Trump that concluded with the line that if Garland didn’t move swiftly to hold Trump accountable: “I believe historians will count it among the key mistakes that ultimately led to the end of the United States as a democratic republic.” To be clear, Special Counsel Smith’s dismissal was demanded by Garland’s DOJ as he noted in his six-page filing on Monday.  Smith wrote that, “It has long been the position of the Department of Justice that the United States Constitution forbids the federal indictment and subsequent criminal prosecution of a sitting President.” The basis for that DOJ view is NOT a specific line in the US Constitution nor a US Supreme Court decision. Rather it was two memos drafted by the DOJ’s Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC)—one in 1973 when there were questions about charging then President Richard Nixon in connection with Watergate and the second in 2000 when President Bill Clinton was embroiled in the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

But as Smith notes in his filing, neither addressed the facts before us of: 1. A former president charged as a private citizen for committing crimes--as in Trump’s Espionage and obstruction case; and, 2. A former President charged after leaving office for crimes committed in office--as we have with Trump’s Jan. 6 attempted coup case. Smith—who has independence as a Special Counsel—is still required by way of DOJ regulations to “comply with the rules, regulations, procedures, practices and policies of the Department of Justice.” Thus, Smith ask Garland’s DOJ for guidance. And as you would imagine, Garland’s DOJ-- that has failed to charge even one GOP official for their role in helping Trump overturn the 2020 election--told Smith to stand down.   Smith wrote that Garland’s OLC “concluded that its 2000 Opinion’s ‘categorical’ prohibition on the federal indictment of a sitting President—even if the case were held in abeyance—applies to this situation, where a federal indictment was returned before the defendant takes office.”  In sum, as Smith noted, “Accordingly, the Department’s position is that the Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated.”

Smith has done all he can to warn us of the threat Trump poses. When the Jan. 6 indictment versus Trump was first unsealed in Aug. 2023, Smith publicly declared, “The attack on our nation’s capital on January 6, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy. As described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies.”  The Special Counsel then took direct aim at Trump, “Lies by the defendant [Trump] targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. government, the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election.” And earlier this year in connection with the U.S. Supreme Court case where Trump argued he should be immune from prosecution for any crimes he committed in office, Smith again rang alarm bells about what Trump was seeking. The Special Counsel wrote in a passage prescient for where we are today: “The defendant’s claim that he cannot be held to answer for the charges that he engaged in an unprecedented effort to retain power through criminal means…threatens the democratic and constitutional foundation of our Republic.”

[...] Again, Garland and Scarborough have chosen to surrender to Trump—just as we can expect others will going forward. We must not. As Prof. Snyder tells us: “Do not obey in advance.”  Instead, we must take the fight to Trump. That is the way we protect our freedoms, our self-determination and our Republic.

Picking Merrick Garland to lead the DOJ was the biggest mistake President Biden ever made, and he helped Donald Trump escape his legal issues.

[captainxtra]

Full text of Bill:

It passed 219-184, succeeding by two votes.

Basically it would allow the Treasury to strip Nonprofits of their Tax Exemption status if believed to be supporting terrorism without need of crystal clear evidence.

No word on when it’ll move up to Senate as of now.

House Dems who supported HR 9495 in round 2:

Allred, TX / Moskowitz, FL / Caraveo, CO / Panetta, CA / Case, HI / Perez, WA / Cuellar, TX /Schneider, IL / Davis, NC / Suozzi, NY / Golden, ME / Torres, CA / Gonzalez, V., TX /Wasserman Schultz, FL /Lee, NV

In the meantime, I’d suggest informing your fellow US citizens both IRL and Online + looking up your Senator and how to contact them if and when a Senate vote date is set up.

Here’s a tool for finding your Senator:

If you have a GOP/MAGA Rep, I’d advise listening to this strategy in convincing them once a Vote date is announced:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Defeat_Project_2025/s/jhrwGG0jAX

(If the link isn’t working by simple clicking then select the link text manually to paste and go.)

[3am-tarot]

some of my most popular & beloved tarot spreads, for your card reading pleasure.

[carlyraegender]

found this quote recently and it’s sticking with me. made some gonzo art about it, hope it sticks with you too

[democratthatlovesguns]

The Enemy Within

What you are seeing now, is how stupid JD Vance, Donald Trump, and Elon Musk believe the majority of Americans to be ...

With good cause, since a small majority did vote for these fucking dumbasses.

A self-accusation: the plan all along was to bring an end to democracy in America, as Trump promised ("you won't have to vote again"). His dumbass supporters hailed that as promising, because they too want to bring an end to democracy.

It is their firm belief that America would be best if only certain "born into the right family" people are allowed to govern. They believe that only upper middle class Christian nationalists should be allowed to make laws and hire the "right" people to enforce them.

JD Vance knows that Donald Trump and Elon Musk (Co-Presidents, Inc.) are the true enemies within to the greatest most prosperous democracy the world has ever known.

We stand with the party (Democrats) that will always consider all Americans to be of equal worth and with an equal privilege to have a place at the table and a say in governance. WE STILL BELIEVE WE HAVE THE BEST REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT, THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN - AND WE WILL DO WHAT WE MUST TO KEEP IT.

[pears-palette]

With how overwhelming the past few weeks have been, it can feel like all hope is lost. It is easy to burn out and give up. They are trying to kill your morale and scare you, so you obey in advance- do not let them! They cannot enforce all of these unjust orders they are trying to push. Do not make it easy for them.

[ID in Alt]