In the lead up to January 20th 2017, I felt a bit crazy. I couldn't tell if I was overreacting or not. Everything felt surreal. When I told one of the faculty at UW that I thought someone would get shot, I knew I was right but I also felt hyperbolic saying it. How could something so extreme be real?

A lot of people here are probably feeling like that right now, especially here. There are a lot of folks who are unable to comprehend what's happening because of a thing called "normalcy bias."

When you say things like, "the US is following basically the same path as Nazi Germany" or "there will be no more free elections" it sounds crazy to say. It's so far from normal that it's not possible to process as real (unless you've really been paying attention and know your history).

One of the folks who took a shot at Trump was just hanging out on a rooftop. A bunch of people, including cops, saw this guy and couldn't process it as real. They couldn't imagine someone being so bold and unhinged. Even when they saw something with their own eyes, their brains wouldn't let them believe it.

Timothy Snyder sees fascism. He's not wrong. Liberal academics are leaving the US. They're probably making the right choice for them. Authoritarians take over countries. It's been a rare thing, but there's a lot to study. They are sounding the right alarms, but they're also missing some details.

Trump is not Hitler. I don't mean this in the "he's not really evil" sense. I mean, he admirers Hitler. He wishes he was Hitler. He's not Hitler. He is not charismatic or competent.

Trump is a failure, a vapid loser who was propped up by lots of editors and a media machine bent on selling people to advertisers at any cost. He projects neither competence or confidence. He's a weaker and senile old man, slurring and stumbling. He's starting with less capability than most dictators die with.

Not only is he exactly as incompetent as he seems to be, exactly as much of a failure, he's useless even to the elites. He is so unpredictable, so wildly incompetent, that he can't even serve as a cover for their looting because he's burning down the economy they want to loot.

Liberals believe that he must be powerful because they can't imagine liberalism as a failure, but it is. Imagine how bad liberalism has to be, as an ideology, to let this buffoon win. Just because liberalism isn't able to confront even the weakest fascist imaginable, does not mean he can hold on to power.

The normalcy bias prevents liberal political theory from confronting the fact that liberalism, or more specifically capitalism, is over. Nations turning to authoritarianism is more common than economic systems collapsing. Economic super powers nuking themselves from orbit are extremely rare.

I don't think this has ever happened. I don't think that a global empire has ever destroyed itself so quickly. There is no prescient here.

This isn't to say, "don't worry," or "you're overreacting if you think it's time to leave." But it is to say, "even if you can't leave, you can win." Yes, the last time a country did something like this it took the combined power of the rest of the industrial world to stop it, but that was also a radically different situation. Guerilla wars swept through the developing world, ending empires in the 60's and 70's. Asymmetric warfare continues to frustrate and defeat the most powerful militaries in the world. Some times new things happen.

"History doesn't repeat, it rhymes." And when it rhymes, it can combine a lot of different threads. Trump is one of the "great idiots of history." Yes, the concentration camps already exist. Yes, they are speed running Hitler's playbook. But also, no, it doesn't have to turn out the same way. No, it doesn't require a foreign invasion to end fascism. But also, yes, every election from here on out will be rigged (but just enough to make you think there's a chance).

Liberalism can't save you, but you can save yourselves. Trump is weak. If you organize and fight, you will win. Police are the occupying army of fascism, and they are not good at being an army. The US army, assuming it could actually be deployed against US civilians without fragmenting, is extremely bad at asymmetric warfare. All of this may not be necessary because elites know that Trump is bad for them and risking revolution.

Don't give up, show up, and make it clear that you won't back down. Authoritarianism relies on fragile and complex coalitions of the elite. This one is more fragile than most. Go out and break the fuck out of it. Only escalate, and never back down.

Trump is trying to flood, to move fast, to shock you into compliance. He's not doing this because he's strong. He's doing this because he's extremely weak and he doesn't have much time. Those who are brave enough to resist have the advantage.

I hope this #MayDay opens another rift in his support and is one more step to his downfall.