The Escalating Assault on Knowledge

Dick the Butcher is Destroying Our Defenses Against Authoritarianism

You will recall that I started with a review of “The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers”, spoken by Dick the Butcher, a villainous character, and the henchman of Jack Cade, leader of an armed mob of angry tenant farmers and tradesmen, in red MAGA hats, seeking to overthrow the ruling elites and all of England’s legal and governmental institutions. (Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part II, (Act IV), Scene 2 and originally published in 1594).

Cade and Dick the Butcher are aggressively anti-intellectual; will kill anyone who can read; and, will burn all the books and documents they encounter. They know that they’ll be able to take over an ignorant population with greater ease than one where everyone understands their rights.

My earlier Shakespearean study was to highlight the importance of the legal system and the protection of individual rights and the elimination of lawyers as a step towards tyranny and the suppression of liberty.

More Shakespearean Lessons: The Destruction of Knowledge and Autocracy

The dialogue of this scene goes further in laying the ground work for discussing the Trump regime’s rapid destruction of knowledge and education in the march to autocracy and suppression of liberty.

After the well tread “First thing, let’s kill all the lawyers,” some of Cade’s men come in with the Clerk of Chatham and dialogue viscerally demonstrates the destruction of knowledge and education:

Weaver: “The clerk of Chatham: he can write and read and cast accompt.
Cade: O monstrous! Here’s a villain!
Weaver : Has a book in his pocket with red letters in’t.
Cade: Nay, then, he is a conjurer.
Butcher: Nay, he can make obligations, and write court-hand.
Cade: Come hither, sirrah, I must examine thee: what is thy name?
Clerk: Emmanuel.
Cade: Dost thou use to write thy name? or hast thou a mark to thyself, like an honest plain-dealing man?
Clerk: Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up that I can write my name.
All: He hath confessed: away with him! he’s a villain and a traitor.
Cade: Away with him, I say! hang him with his pen and ink-horn about his neck.

So Jack Cade and his mob hang the Clerk because he can read and write. Then the mob kills Lord Stafford and marches on London, where Cade commands his followers to destroy the Inns of Court.

Cade: “So, sirs: now go some and pull down the Savoy, others to the inns of court; down with them all.
Butcher: I have a suit unto your lordship
Cade: Be it a lordship, thou shalt have it for that word.
Butcher: Only that the laws of England may come out of your mouth.

Cade: I have thought upon it, it shall be so. Away, burn all the records of the realm: my mouth shall be the parliament of England.

So all the lawyers will be killed and the Inns of Court are destroyed so that no future lawyers may be trained. All property records are destroyed, as are all titles and class distinctions. Jack Cade’s words are now the law of England. Then a messenger enters and announces the capture of Lord Say:

Messenger: My lord, a prize, a prize! here’s the Lord Say, which sold the towns in France; he that made us pay one and twenty fifteens, and one shilling to the pound, the last subsidy.

Cade: Well, he shall be beheaded for it ten times. Ah, thou say, thou serge, nay, thou buckram lord! Now art thou within point-blank of our jurisdiction regal….

Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar school; and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used, and, contrary to the king, his crown and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill.

It will be proved to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb, and such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear…. Away with him, away with him! He speaks Latin.

When Lord Say pleads for his life, describing the good works that he has done during his lifetime, Cade responds:

Cade: Go, take him away, I say, and strike off his head presently; and then break into his son-in-law’s house, Sir James Cromer, and strike off his head….

Lord Say and his son-in-law are beheaded. By this time in a live performance, audiences that may have laughed at the lawyer joke are recoiling with horror at what is being done once the rule of law is overthrown and knowledge and education are damned, destroyed and banished.

Ultimately, the crowd is dispersed and Jack Cade meets his demise. Before then, however, Shakespeare has taught us an important lesson about the rule of law and knowledge and education in fighting autocracy and the suppression of liberty.

This is where we are, in a short 130 days under America’s very own Dick the Butcher and the the Jack Cades’ behind the screen: The laws of United States come out of Trump’s mouth.

America’s Dark Ages: the First 130 Days

The "Dark Ages" is a term, often used in a pejorative way, referring to the early part of the Middle Ages in Western Europe, roughly from the fall of the Western Roman Empire (around 476 AD) to the beginning of the Renaissance (around the 14th century). This period is sometimes viewed as a time of decline in culture, learning, and economic activity, particularly in comparison to the perceived glory of the Roman Empire.

The Roman Empire's downfall was a complex process resulting from a combination of internal and external factors, including economic instability, political corruption, military decline, and barbarian invasions. These challenges gradually weakened the empire, leading to its fragmentation and eventual collapse.

It is debatable whether the warlords who overran Rome intentionally ushered in the Dark Ages, centuries of ignorance across Western Europe. The devastation they caused was not the result of a calculated plan. The same cannot be said for the Trump administration’s escalating assault on study and knowledge. What we are witnessing is not incidental—it is a calculated, ideological demolition of education, science, and historical understanding, carried out with an intensity that evokes the Dark Ages.

Nearly every week brings new evidence of this campaign. Colleges and universities face threats of losing federal funding—not just for resisting the administration’s demands, but in some cases even for complying with them.

America’s leading scientific institutions, including the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institutes of Health (NIH), are enduring relentless cuts. Cultural landmarks like the Smithsonian, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Kennedy Center are being transformed from spaces of historical inquiry and artistic freedom into instruments of MAGA propaganda. Libraries face funding shortfalls. Scientists are being fired. Educators are silenced. Researchers are warned off politically sensitive topics. Vital public-health databases, built over decades, face erasure. Any fact that contradicts Trumpist orthodoxy is dismissed as heresy.

These actions, while often discussed in isolation, are part of a coordinated ideological offensive. The Trump administration is waging a war on knowledge—an effort to destabilize American culture, history, and science. The consequences will be far-reaching. By rejecting truth, they aim to weaken the public’s capacity to understand reality itself. Like the inquisitors who condemned Galileo for challenging the Earth-centered universe, MAGA ideologues see truth as a threat to their political survival.

The Assault on Academia and Education

This Administration’s deeper aim is to soften the public’s defenses against authoritarianism. By sabotaging knowledge, they make democracy harder to defend. The danger isn’t only political—it’s civilizational. The institutions that collect, protect, and advance human understanding are being systematically dismantled. If Dick the Butcher and the Wizard behind the Screen succeed, the result could be a new American Dark Age.

Higher education has been one of the most aggressive targets. Elite universities have been stripped of billions in federal funding. Cornell University has had over $1 billion frozen. Princeton saw $210 million suspended. Northwestern was cut off from nearly $800 million. These funding and grant losses often come without any clear rationale. In some cases, the money and the financial commitment disappears without explanation. Johns Hopkins University, the top recipient of federal research grants, is facing $800 million in cuts that will force it to “plan layoffs and cancel health projects, from breast-feeding support efforts in Baltimore to mosquito-net programs in Mozambique,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

In other cases, the administration has made ideological demands. Institutions must conform to Trumpist expectations about curriculum and hiring or risk defunding. Some have chosen to fight back. “No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” Harvard’s president said, as the school launched a lawsuit to protect its independence.

West Point provides a glimpse of the administration’s vision for academia. The New York Times reported that the military academy launched “a school wide push to remove any readings that focused on race, gender or the darker moments of American history.” A genocide studies professor was reportedly told to avoid any mention of atrocities committed against Native Americans. The English department removed works by Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, and Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Some institutions tried to appease the administration and paid the price. Columbia University, after agreeing to ideological restrictions in order to preserve $400 million in federal funding, soon faced new demands. The administration reportedly considered placing the university under a court-enforced consent decree, extending federal control indefinitely.

These lost funds are not abstract—they finance real research, real teaching, and real knowledge. Without them, entire academic fields face collapse. Chris Rufo, a right-wing activist, told The New York Times that beyond controlling academic content, he also seeks to “reduce the size of the sector itself.” The impact would be profound: fewer student opportunities, stalled research, and diminished scientific advancement.

The Assault on Science and Expertise

But this war is not confined to academia. Across the federal government, experts who gather, analyze, and interpret information are being pushed out. These workers provide life-saving knowledge—on diseases, disasters, environmental threats, and more.

Thousands have already been dismissed. The CDC has laid off most staff responsible for workplace safety. At the FDA, scientists who test food and drugs for contamination, specialists tracking bird flu, and those monitoring pharmaceutical ads for false claims have all been purged. The Forest Service’s researchers, who assess wildfire risks and water resources, are facing layoffs. The Environmental Protection Agency’s research division is being dismantled. The Department of Education’s research arm has also been slashed.

The NIH and NSF—pillars of global scientific research—have seen catastrophic funding reductions. CBS News reported over $2 billion in NIH cuts and 1,300 job losses. One former employee noted that “work on child cancer therapies, dementia, and stroke slowed or stopped because critical lab and support staff were let go.” Grants considered politically incorrect are being canceled. According to Nature, Trump aims to halve both staff and funding at NSF, targeting grants related to diversity or marginalized communities. Hundreds of such grants have already been axed.

NASA, the CDC, the EPA, the Department of Energy—all face budget decimation. Staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have been fired, degrading the nation’s capacity to prepare for natural disasters and undermining weather forecasting.

Decades of public-health data have vanished. As Katherine J. Wu reported, efforts are underway to purge federal agencies of any mention of gender, DEI, or accessibility. This purge includes previously published research and ongoing studies. Nature noted that NIH staff were ordered to flag and potentially cancel grants related to transgender health, diversity in science, or environmental justice. According to the Associated Press, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has already terminated more than a dozen public-health data collection programs that track death and disease.

“Not being able to study a problem doesn’t mean that the problem doesn’t exist,” one public-health expert reported anonymously to the press. “It only means that we don’t know if it exists or not, because we don’t have the relevant data.”

To justify these purges, Trump has resorted to mockery and misinformation. In his March address to Congress, he ridiculed research on “making mice transgender.” He may have been referencing “transgenic mice,” commonly used in biomedical research, or mice treated with hormones to study health outcomes. Either way, the Trumpian distortion serves a purpose: to discredit critical scientific work by reducing it to a punchline.

The clearest consequence of these cuts will be a dramatic slowdown in American scientific progress which has driven world scientific progress. Federally funded research has driven major innovations—from agriculture and medicine to technology. The internet, GPS, touch screens, space flights, microchips, radar, MRI machines, advanced prosthetics, lactose-free milk—all were made possible through public investment. The private sector tends to profit from breakthroughs, but the costly, uncertain early-stage research, that underline and lead to major breakthroughs is often only feasible with government support. The foundations of America’s prosperity are being dismantled

On May 28, 2025, in a new front attacking scientific and medical knowledge and scientific institutions, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that he may bar government scientists from publishing in the world’s leading medical journals, instead proposing the creation of “in-house” publications. Translate: in-house propaganda.

“We’re probably going to stop publishing in the Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA and those other journals because they’re all corrupt,” Kennedy said during an appearance on the “Ultimate Human” podcast.

The three journals he named, all established in the 1800s, publish original, peer-reviewed research and play a central role in disseminating medical findings worldwide. JAMA, published by the American Medical Association, and the Lancet each say they receive more than 30 million annual visits to their sites, while the New England Journal of Medicine says it is read in print and online by more than 1 million people each week.

“We use rigorous peer review and editorial processes to ensure the objectivity and reliability of the research we publish,” a spokesperson for the New England Journal of Medicine said in an emailed statement. “NEJM will continue to focus on publishing scientific breakthroughs to improve the health of Americans and people around the world.”

The Attack On Knowledge that Informs Policy and Promotes Justice

Even more dangerous than technological stagnation, however, is the attack on knowledge that informs policy and promotes justice. Research into racial, gender, and economic disparities is being abandoned under the banner of fighting “wokeness.” The term’s vagueness makes it a convenient weapon for censoring inconvenient truths. Research impacted by the anti-DEI crusade, is basic research on infant mortality and long Covid.

“It turns out that when you pay close attention to these issues, you don’t end up where they end up,” said Phillip Atiba Solomon, a Yale professor of African American studies and psychology. “So they’ve had to manufacture their own facts, and they’re attacking the places that have the facts on the ground and the reality of history.”

That impulse extends into schools and museums. The administration issued executive orders compelling K–12 schools to teach sanitized versions of history. During her confirmation hearing, Education Secretary Linda McMahon declined to say whether Black history classes would be legal. Another executive order denounced the Smithsonian’s description of racial hierarchies as a “distorted narrative”—even though it merely acknowledged centuries of slavery and segregation.

The administration is also targeting the National Endowment for the Humanities, aiming to gut funding for libraries, museums, and historical research nationwide. What’s at stake is not just knowledge, but the nation’s very capacity to learn from its past and imagine a better future.

Libraries are among the many institutions losing funding from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services. In early May, Trump dismissed Carla Hayden, the first Black woman to lead the Library of Congress—part of a broader pattern of removing women and Black leaders from prominent positions. Given the Library of Congress paramount role in supplying research to lawmakers, her removal and the Executive Branch overreach to effectuate her removal, signals a deeper and uglier intention: the Trump administration is attempting to control the flow of information not only to the public, but to the government and Congress itself.

A Black-history museum in Boston, housed in a historic meetinghouse where abolitionists Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison once spoke, now faces an existential threat after losing its federal grant. The justification? Its programming “no longer align[s] with the White House policies.”

Manipulation of Data and Spreading Misinformation

Worse still, the administration appears poised to manipulate economic data to conceal the negative consequences of its policies. Officials have floated separating government spending from GDP calculations—a move designed to obscure the economic damage of mass layoffs conducted under Elon Musk’s authority through DOGE.

Trump has repeatedly, and baselessly, accused federal agencies of fabricating economic data during Democratic presidencies. If his track record is any guide, he may now attempt to do exactly what he once falsely alleged. As The New York Times reported, recent comments by Trump officials have “renewed concerns that the new administration could seek to interfere with federal statistics—especially if they start to show that the economy is slipping into a recession.”

Reliable data are more critical than ever, particularly in light of Trump’s reckless effort to replace the income tax with tariffs—a boon for the wealthy. He reversed course on some tariffs last month after a steep rise in bond yields signaled economic danger. But responding to crises requires dependable, unbiased information. If the data are suppressed, the administration can more easily mislead the public and avoid accountability.

This destruction is ideological as well as short-sighted. The conservative movement has long expressed contempt for higher education and intellectual institutions. In 2021, as noted by journalist Yair Rosenberg, Senate candidate J.D. Vance quoted Richard Nixon’s infamous claim that “The professors are the enemy,” adding his belief that universities make it “impossible for conservative ideas to ultimately carry the day.”

Yet the very existence of a second Trump administration undermines Vance’s premise. The administration’s actual goal appears to be the dismantling of any institution capable of generating or disseminating knowledge that contradicts Trumpist ideology. Though Vance frames his concern as opposition to dogma in favor of “truth,” the administration behaves as if the only acceptable truth is Trumpist dogma. “The voting patterns of most university professors,” Vance posted on X over Memorial Day weekend, “are so one-sided that they look like election results in North Korea.” A MAGA-style re-education is implied—one that instills the "correct" political beliefs.

To that end, the administration has moved to discipline workers, silence the media, control schools ideology, and constrain research institutions from engaging with topics deemed off-limits. Any information that might inspire dissent or challenge Trumpist dominance must be suppressed.

Last month, the administration canceled a climate-change research grant to Princeton, citing concerns that it might cause “climate anxiety” in children. In a call to defund NPR and PBS, the White House complained about accurate reporting on banana slugs being hermaphroditic, branding it “woke propaganda.” Intelligence analysts who correctly assessed that Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang was not a state actor and posed no invasion threat were either fired or pressured to alter their conclusions—an effort to fabricate justification for the administration’s lawless deportation program.

On May 29, 2025, there was another edition of the Trump administration dissemination of disinformation and propaganda. NOTUS, a non-profit news organization first reported, that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s much-ballyhooed “Make America Healthy Again” Report, had, among a host of other errors, cited a number of studies that simply didn’t exist.

“The paper cited is not a real paper that I or my colleagues were involved with,” one researcher cited in the report told NOTUS.

The Assault on Knowledge Workers

This assault on knowledge is also an assault on knowledge workers: researchers, analysts, scholars, and instructors. Cuts to funding mean fewer positions, fewer opportunities, and fewer institutions employing them. College attendance will decline, and so will the post-graduation prospects for those who manage to attend.

The administration is particularly eager to shrink the presence of underrepresented minorities in these fields. It has slashed funding not only for research focused on minority communities but also for programs designed to increase diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The goal is clear: reduce the number of educated workers, make the group whiter, male and skew it toward the wealthy.

Trump and his allies view the highly educated as a class enemy to the MAGA movement. As more college-educated voters lean left, the right has intensified efforts to bring academia under the right’s political control. By weakening and damaging universities, conservatives aim to curb the growth of a Democratic-leaning constituency. Wealthy tech barons who support Trump may rely on skilled labor, but they prefer obedient workers that lack political or active civic consciousness.

In an interview with Ross Douthat published in the New York Times on January 17, 2025, billionaire venture capitalist and cofounder of Netscape, Marc Andreesen, expressed his disdain for the younger generations of tech workers as leftist radicalized children of the privileged and attributes their leftist shift to the influence of elite education institutions such as Harvard University. In Andreesen’s view, this new cohort began to view capitalism as oppressive, contrasting sharply with the earlier pro-business sentiment of tech employees. Andreesen explained that the radicalization of young employees led to a culture of activism within tech companies, where dissent against traditional corporate practices became commonplace and where management was confronted over social justice issues, reflecting a significant cultural shift within the workforce.

A college education is not a safeguard against false beliefs, but two facts are clear: Trump’s supporters view institutions of knowledge as engines of liberal indoctrination that must be crushed, and they reject any authority not aligned with Trumpism. This fits with Trump’s media strategy, which he described to CBS in 2018: “to discredit you all and demean you all so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you.”

In that same 2021 speech, Vance said, “We have got to get out of the mindset that the only way to live a good life in this country, the only way for our children to succeed, is to go to a four-year university, where people will learn to hate their country and acquire a lot of debt in the process.” On its face, the point is valid—higher education shouldn’t be the only path to a good life. But destroying the country’s academic and research institutions won’t improve conditions for blue-collar workers. The beneficiaries will be Trump’s political machine and the billionaire class that profits from gutted public services, tax cuts, deregulation, and bloated government contracts.

Adding to the disdain for education and knowledge, and rubbing salt into the wounds of the over 260,000 federal workers have been fired, taken buyouts, or retired early, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested that these employees, mostly white collar, college educated, some with advanced degrees or specialized skills, could find work in blue collar manufacturing jobs. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trumps-plan-for-laid-off-federal-workers-get-a-factory-job.html

In March, The Washington Post reported that the administration was “moving to privatize a sweeping number of government functions and assets—a long-standing Republican goal that’s being catalyzed by billionaire Elon Musk.” This includes replacing federal employees with artificial intelligence tools—an unproven technology that serves more as a bailout for investors than a service to the public. Such automation will degrade government performance but prop up the profitability of the tech companies pushing it. Ironically, much of this AI was developed with federal support—by the very institutions now being dismantled.

The War on Transparency

This looting will be hard to trace because the war on knowledge is also a war on transparency. Without information, there can be no accountability. And without accountability, the Trump administration and MAGA operatives and their corruption can operate in secrecy, free from public scrutiny.

Despite Elon Musk’s claims that he is rooting out “waste, fraud, and abuse,” the administration is dismantling the very institutions designed to detect it. In February, Trump fired the head of the National Archives. If historical records are destroyed or manipulated, the damage may be irreversible.

The records of future misconduct may be even more vulnerable. Past records must be actively erased; current activities can simply go undocumented. The administration has fired inspectors general and gutted agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Securities and Exchange Commission, ending over 100 investigations. This undermines the government’s ability to improve itself, monitor the economy, or investigate corporate crime.

But corporate misconduct is not the only concern. The administration has also eliminated a federal law-enforcement database of officers fired, sued, or convicted for misconduct—making it easier for bad actors to remain in policing. At the Pentagon and Department of Justice, lawyers who might constrain presidential overreach or document illegal activity are being removed. The approach is simple: no evidence, no crime.

With respect to the very early firing of most government Inspector Generals and the Judge Advocate Generals, former DOJ inspector general Michael Bromwich sounded the concern: “What they’ve done is to effectively neuter the institutions that were created to do exactly what they say Musk and DOGE are doing... because you want to be able to do things in secret, and you want to be able to do them in a way that’s unverifiable.”

Eroding the Reality of Democracy

This assault on knowledge won’t just harm the elites Trump seeks to punish. The broader public will suffer as scientific, technological, and social progress stalls. Without access to information truth, and reality democracy itself erodes.

A population fed a steady stream of engagement-optimized misinformation is far easier to manipulate. By destroying knowledge and the institutions that create it, Trump and his allies ensure that their looting and destruction of the federal government and their misrule cannot be undone—or even properly understood. That, in the end, is the point.

For Trump and his backers, this knowledge destruction campaign may prove profitable. Musk has used his influence to secure federal contracts and halt investigations into his businesses. Trump’s oil allies have seen environmental regulations rolled back. Less oversight means more grifting, and more space for pseudo-scientific nonsense, like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s bizarre suggestion to treat the Texas measles outbreak with cod-liver oil. America under Trump is destroying one of the most effective health-care and scientific infrastructures in human history and replacing it nonsense on par with medieval doctors and the leech cures.

We are witnessing something far more dangerous than book burning. This is an attack not just on accumulated knowledge, but on the very ability to accumulate knowledge. It is better for Dick the Butcher’s citizens to be gullible and easily manipulated and the sort of people who buy brain pills from right-wing podcasts, use ivermectin to treat COVID, or believe that vaccines are “weapons of mass destruction.”

It will hinder our capacity to solve problems, prevent disease, inform the public, and innovate. Like the collapse of intellectual life after Rome, it is a self-inflicted disaster. But Trump and his Wizards behind the Screens care only that they rule unchallenged and that the United States is left looted and in wreckage.

Who is America’s Jack Cade

Donald Trump is Dick the Butcher, the tool and front for the real Jack Cade in the takeover and destruction of the United States and all that it stands for as the 80 year leader of the free world, leader of NATO, and leader of scientific advancement.

So, again, who is the real Jack Cade that is making Dick the Butcher, a/k/a Donald Trump an effective tool in the destruction of the United States.

Here are the possible Jack Cades or Wizards behind the Oz Curtain: i) the Tech Bros band of brothers made up principally of Peter Theil and his sidekick V.P J.D. Vance, Marc Andreesen, and Elon Musk and his D.O.G.E. boys and protégé, Big Balls that remain in control after Musk’s departure; ii) Curtis Yarvin, anti-democracy blogger and crusader who exerts influence over the Tech Bros; iii) the Heritage Foundation and Russell

Vought, author of its Project 2025; iv) Trump himself as Wizard: and v) Vladamir Putin, who may control some or all of the foregoing from Dick the Butcher to one or more segments or actors in the Jack Cade faction.

Today’s Headlines

RFK Jr. the Secretary of HHS Wants to Ban Fluoride in Drinking Water

Kids' cavities would increase by millions if every state banned fluoride, study finds

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Click the Link, Contrarian-Democracy Movement, to see Photos of Americans Making Noise around the Country for Democracy.

Suggestions for Making Noise

1. Call your senators and representatives. The Capitol switchboard operator is at (202) 224-3121. An operator will connect you directly with the House and Senate offices you request.

2. Write your congressman! Write the Senators, both Republican and Democrat! Write them all regularly and often. Remind member of Congress that they will soon be irrelevant if they ignore Trump and Musk seizing the power of the purse and smacking down acts of Congress like those acts have no meaning and never had any meaning.

3. Try talking to your friends and family to educated them that Trump/Musk are destroying our country and every great thing that it has stood for in the last 80 years, such as NATO, the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Health.

4. Join a local pro-democracy group organizing to fight authoritarianism. If there aren’t any in your community, build one! Autocracy flourishes when people feel isolated and powerless. So we have to build power—and that begins at the local level: in libraries, churches, offices, and cafes.

   Find local pro-democracy activists, and join them. The Grassroots Directory is a great resource for finding organizations in your area, and RepresentUS has a great page to help you get started.

5. Register! Then know who is running and who is on your ballot, at every level, and vote. Many election ballots include multiple races, from the president to your school board. Authoritarians and election deniers take power at local levels—so it’s important to stay vigilant and engaged there.

6. Hit them where it hurts—their wallets: The way to undermine corporate capitulation to authoritarians is to make them lose money. These brands are associated with the worst actors. Organize and participate in mass boycotts. Explore ways you can exercise other rights in the market: Tesla has already lost more than 43% of its value since Musk joined the administration; due to public backlash.

7. Hold your lawmakers accountable: ​Engaging with legislators and officials is crucial in defending civil rights. Here’s a resource for emailing or calling your members of Congress in your district. Get them on the record. Show up to city council meetings, testify at legislative hearings and town halls. Join mass call-in or lobby days in support of bills like the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (and oppose dangerous legislation like the SAVE Act (which weaponizes fear to restrict civil liberties.) Stay loud, vigilant, and relentless.

8. Educate yourself: understand the ways authoritarians try to take power and make policy that affects your community. Defending democracy and fighting tyranny starts with knowledge. Authoritarians thrive in low-information environments. They rely on people not knowing enough to recognize what they’re doing. Learn about your government and rights, whether in the workplace, during protests, or when interacting with law enforcement. Stay informed about how to register, key deadlines, vote-by-mail procedures, early voting options, ID requirements, and election security measures, using resources like nass.org/can-I-vote, and EAC.gov.

9. Take action with Hands Off or 50501 : Find an event and participate : Hands Off and 50501

10. Join the No Kings Protest on June 14, 2025. ‘NO KINGS’ Nationwide Day of Defiance on Flag Day, During Trump’s Birthday Parade

Make Noise!

Kristin M.

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