There's so much outrage-sharing that people get overwhelmed and go silent. That's exactly what authoritarians want.
I'm trying to live by a 20:80 rule: 20% on how bad things are, 80% on what people are already doing — and what more we can do.
Right now most of us are at 95:5 — the reverse. No wonder people feel beaten down.
Here's what's true: since 2015, the United States has seen the largest grassroots pro-democracy mobilization in human history — millions of people civically engaged far beyond casting their own votes. In courtrooms, statehouses, streets, schools, phone banks, and living rooms. It's happening. You may just not be hearing enough about it.
So I made this: a mobile-friendly toolkit of concrete actions anyone can join — to Get Out The Vote and make November's results TOO BIG TO RIG.
https://sensational-fenglisu-96222c.netlify.app/
Every act counts. Find your niche. Share widely.
WE ARE GOING TO WIN.
The 80:20 List
For keeping what we take in — and what we put out — weighted toward hope and action, with enough of the tough news to stay realistic and effective
A note before the list: When abuses of power reach this scale, simply reporting the facts can look "partisan" — and those invested in those abuses would rather blame the messenger than be accountable to the facts. Naming abuses of power is not bias. Weigh every source below on its evidence. (More on this — and the starkest example — in the note at the end.)
Analysis & Action
Legal & Democracy Organizations
Good News
A Note on "Partisanship" and Documented Reality
Two cautions, from one principle: the evidence decides — not the volume, and not the team.
First, don't grant false balance where the evidence is one-sided. The starkest example: the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 — the largest criminal prosecution in Justice Department history, documented in tens of thousands of hours of video, with more than 1,500 people charged and over a thousand convicted. Yet to this day one side insists that what the country watched with its own eyes and heard with its own ears did not happen. That is George Orwell's 1984 made real: the steady work of getting people to abandon known, documented reality. Naming what is documented is not bias, and "that's just partisan" is often the dodge used to wave facts away.
Second, don't mistake volume for validity. Follower counts, viral clips, prediction-market odds, and "narrative" polling can manufacture a majority illusion — the loudest, best-connected voices feeling like consensus when they are not. A clip with millions of views tells you the clip did numbers, not how a city or a country will vote. So check what's viral against what's documented — every side, including your own.
Weigh every source above on its evidence — not on how loud it is, and not on whose side it's on. That is what keeps "volume is not validity" a principle rather than a partisan club — and it is the antidote to both despair and false hope.
9 Arenas of Action and Resistance
When I am hit by news of a setback for pro-democracy efforts, I remind myself that work is underway across many arenas at once. Low turnout at a street protest one day? I look to the other arenas — and I always find people making a difference. That keeps me motivated.
1. Protest and persuasion
Petitions · letter writing
Social media · artistic expression
No Kings Days · street protests
Makes the movement visible and builds public courage
2. Building alternatives
Cooperative institutions
Independent media
Parallel structures
Creates resilience outside the regime's control
3. Noncooperation
economic, political, social
Tesla Takedowns
Civil disobedience
Withdrawal of consent and compliance
Legal
ACLU, Public Citizen,
Democracy Forward, Democracy Docket
Political
Influence electeds at every level
Run for office · canvass · phone bank
Personal
friends, and neighbors
Hosting community conversations
Professional
or industry association
Open letters · whistleblowing
Cultural
Books · periodicals · blogs · videos
Podcasts · social media
Spiritual / Religious
Sanctuary movement
Interfaith coalitions · prayer vigils
Education
Libraries · civic education
Media literacy
Military
Refusing unlawful orders
Whistleblowing · legal dissent
Everyone can find their niche. No action is too small.
The future is bigger than our imaginations. It's unimaginable, and then it comes anyway. To meet it we need to keep going, to walk past what we can imagine. We need to be unstoppable. And here's what it takes: you don't stop walking to congratulate yourself; you don't stop walking to wallow in despair; you don't stop because your own life got too comfortable or too rough; you don't stop because you won; you don't stop because you lost. There's more to win, more to lose, others who need you.
You don't stop walking because there is no way forward. Of course there is no way. You walk the path into being, you make the way, and if you do it well, others can follow the route. You look backward to grasp the long history you're moving forward from, the paths others have made, the road you came in on. You look forward to possibility. That's what we mean by hope, and you look past it into the impossible and that doesn't stop you either. But mostly you just walk, right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot. That's what makes you unstoppable.
...human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. ...
The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.