How Each One of Us Can Help Prevent an Authoritarian Takeover

I'm super energized to have this conversation on the heels of the massive No Kings protests of October 18th. The greatest mass mobilization to date against authoritarianism in this country.

At the same time, I also understand that it’s really easy to feel overwhelmed with all of the bad things coming at us out of this administration. And how easy it is to feel like the actions of one person can't make that much of a difference. But in fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

I was fortunate to be able to attend the huge protest in Washington DC on Saturday. Over 200,000 people were there. We filled Pennsylvania Avenue from steps from the capitol, all the way to the White House. It was extraordinary.

How amazing is it that there were over 7 million people who turned all over the country. In big cities, of course – New York, LA, Chicago. Even more inspiring to me were the thousands of smaller cities and towns and even rural highways, where people showed up to make their voices heard. And to make it abundantly clear that they are not happy with what is happening. They're not happy with the authoritarian power grabs that are happening from 47 and his crew, the complacency of the Republicans in Congress just letting him do whatever he wants. The whole thing is wrong and everybody knows it. And they're standing up to say so.  

Part of what was so inspiring and exciting to me was the energy – of hope and determination and belief that by banding together and through the power of our collective action, we can slow down what is happening. We can eventually stop it and then begin to reverse it.

The other thing that I so loved was the absolute joy that people were bringing. We all know it's kind of hard to feel joy with the unbelievably egregious actions from this administration damaging individuals and entire communities. 

You might even say it’s unreasonable to feel joy in the face of that. But the source of the joy was from being in the presence of all of these thousands and thousands of people who are here to accomplish the same thing. Who believe passionately in reversing the terrible stuff that's going on and moving us all toward a much better day. That joyous, hopeful energy is so important and so instructive for how we can prevail.

That, and taking concrete action…

In this episode, we share:

• The biggest pitfalls that will take you out of your power, and how to avoid them
• The one simple task that will put you on the path to powerful action
• How to leverage the power of collective action every day
• How to craft messaging that will engage a wider circle of people – even those who aren’t paying much attention to what’s going on
• How to destabilize the pillars that prop up a would-be authoritarian regime
• Three specific actions you can take as a nonprofit leader to make a big impact in this fight

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