Responding to a coup

An imperfect call to action

What happens when two young friends grow up to have PhDs in Psychology and History?  We text each other in the morning before teaching to determine if yes there is a coup happening and second, what we can do about it right now. 

You see when my longest held friend Dr. Shelly Cline was studying Nazi Germany in grad school, and I was studying psychology, we’d have long conversations about how much psychology was involved in the Nazi takeover. Nazis needed to have compliance, inaction, fear, and threats for Hitler to take power and convince seemingly normal day to day people to start murdering people that were different from them. 

And now we have Elon Musk, a non-elected Nazi billionaire, who just staged a coup. If you’re not 100% sure what that word means, according to Merriam Webster Dictionary, it means this:  “a sudden decisive exercise of force in politics and especially the violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group.”

If you need more evidence this is happening, please watch/read this, this, this, and this. Regardless of who you voted for, this should be of extreme concern to every person of age in this country who has the power to do something about it. All of these sources shared above have next steps for action, but I name a few below. 

Here’s what you can do now: 

1. At the very least, get on the phones and call your state representatives now and demand they resist Musk’s coup. 

2. Show up in person if you are able. Find organized events in your area here. 

3. Take excellent care of yourself and your loved ones. Be kind to strangers. Be gentle with people you don’t know in your community. Start organizing within your community. If these folks succeed at destroying our government, we will need each other, now more than ever. 

4. Take some deep breaths. Do not let fear immobilize you to do nothing. They are counting on us staying afraid, asleep, and against each other. Resist by taking care of your fear. Breathing in, I know I am afraid. Breathing in, I send compassion to myself. It is normal to feel this way. Do not take your fear out on your neighbors, your partner, your kids, or anyone else who you don’t like or don’t understand. You staying emotionally grounded is essential work. We MUST take care of our fear so it doesn’t lead to violence in words or actions and add to the intended chaos. 

5. If you’re in a union, be prepared to fight for worker’s rights. I’ve never been more proud to be a union member fighting alongside my fellow workers!

6. Support the press! Dr. Cline shared that in the Nazi playbook, attacking and limiting the press is next, which will limit our ability to know what is really happening. There are already unprecedented moves to limit long-standing media in the pentagon. 

7. Don’t minimize the fact that Love is resistance. Joy is resistance. Pleasure is resistance. Speaking up is resistance. Acting with a love for each other and our country is resistance!