The Power of Personal Resistance Against Authoritarianism

I wrote this as a comment on Lucian Truscott’s Substack site:

If you saw the images of the first get-together between Xi and Trump, the Chinese must have been appalled with Trump’s appearance. Drooping eyes which led me think, “He’s going doze off. In fact if the 40 or so people sitting across from each other, Trump stood out as out of it. And the other thing that stood out on the American was the lack of diversity. All white men. Your listing of Trump’s hideous, and disgusting images of Obama and other politicians should have been juxtaposed with reporting by ABC and NBC. They have trivialized the felony, criminal and civic crimes of Trump and made him normalized. Thank you for doing what the American press should be doing.

Two authoritarians met in China over the past two days. It was pomp and circumstance on the outside. It wasn’t that on the inside. Behind closed doors, Donald Trump had to listen to words of the autocratic leader of the second most populous country on the Earth. Trump was weak one when the windows are down. Xi warned Trump about Taiwan. There could be “clashes and conflicts.”

Autocratizing

Trump returned from the biggest autocracy in the world to a democracy in decline propelled by Trumpism. Our country is experiencing a rapid decline to levels prior to 1965.¹ This, according to the 2026 report, “Unraveling the Democratic Era.” According to the report, democracy is back to 1978 levels, and for the average citizen in Western Europe and North America, their lowest level in over 50 years. The United States has lost its designation as a liberal democracy for the first time in 50 years. The report also notes that the world has 92 autocracies ands 87 democracies. Also, 74% of the world population (6 billion) now live in an autocracy. Only 7% of the world lives in a liberal democracy.

Autocratizing is a movement we’ve not seen before. Forty-one percent of the world population now reside in a country heading toward autocracy (autocratizing). These include seven EU countries, the UK, and the USA. Here are some of autocratic methods being employed in these countries—with special emphasis on the United States.

• Media censorship, and attacks on individual journalists, and networks
• Repression of civil society, especially the dehumanization of people caught up in the immigration abuses, especially in the U.S. with the Miller/Trump deportation program.
• Freedom of expression against all citizens, especially those considered enemies of the autocracy.
• Torture and dehumanizing conditions in concentration camps in the U.S.
• Extreme movement toward concentration of power in a presidency.
• Using the justice system to carry out revenge politics against people who opposed Trump in previous years.
• Disruption of elections, as is going on in the U.S., and has gone on in other autocracies.
• State and local laws that ban books, and discussion of topics relevant to learning about the past, and what the future might bring.
• The banning of DEI

Authoritarianism rarely announces itself all at once. It arrives in fragments: a threat against the press, attacks on judges, the targeting of immigrants, the silencing of teachers, the rewriting of history, the normalization of political violence. These fragments began in 1981 with arrival Ronald Reagan, and got a boost from Newt Gingrich when he was Speaker of the House. Over time, these fragments accumulate into a culture of fear and submission. Trump capitalized on this progression. Yet history also teaches another lesson: resistance begins in fragments too. One person speaks. Another marches. A teacher refuses censorship. A writer documents the truth. A community organizes. Eventually, these fragments become a democratic counterforce. It’s the resistance that is important in this post.

Personal Resistane

Today, personal resistance stories matter because they restore the human dimension of democracy. Statistics and headlines can numb us. Personal testimony breaks through abstraction. It reminds us that authoritarianism is not merely a political theory—it affects families, schools, neighborhoods, libraries, workplaces, and the emotional life of a nation.

The frontline of democratic resistance is often local and personal long before it becomes national.

Consider the communities in states where book bans have swept through school systems and public libraries. Teachers and librarians have become unexpected defenders of democratic culture. In some districts, educators have faced harassment campaigns simply for teaching history honestly or making literature available to students. The pressure is deliberate. Authoritarian movements often seek control over memory because controlling memory helps control identity.

Yet resistance has emerged from ordinary citizens.  Parents have attended school board meetings to oppose censorship. Students have organized read-ins and public testimony campaigns. Retired teachers have volunteered to distribute banned books. These acts may appear small compared to national political battles, but they represent something fundamental: the refusal to surrender civic space.

Another example can be found in immigrant communities increasingly targeted by inflammatory rhetoric and aggressive state policies. In cities across the country, local faith groups, legal aid organizations, and neighborhood coalitions have mobilized to protect vulnerable residents. Churches have offered sanctuary. Volunteer lawyers have provided emergency legal representation. Mutual aid networks have helped families survive economic and political intimidation.

Isolation vs. Solidarity

Authoritarian politics thrives on isolation. Resistance thrives on solidarity.

This is why civic engagement matters so profoundly. Democracy is not sustained by elections alone. It survives through institutions and relationships that encourage participation and accountability. Local organizations often become the first line of democratic defense because they are closest to the lived experiences of people under pressure.

Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the NAACP continue to challenge voter suppression, censorship, and discriminatory policies through legal action and public advocacy. But resistance also depends on smaller local networks: community newspapers, grassroots organizers, teachers’ associations, independent bookstores, student groups, neighborhood coalitions, and citizen volunteers.

Perhaps solidarity against the repressive Trump administration is “No Kings Day.” Groups such as Indivisible, and the No Kings Organization have spearheaded No King Day three times so, far bring out more than 7 million Americans and millions world wide.

Protest Culture

One of the most striking developments in recent years has been the resurgence of protest culture itself. Demonstrations once considered episodic have become sustained expressions of civic identity. Marches defending reproductive rights, voting rights, academic freedom, LGBTQ protections, and immigrant communities have created new alliances across generations.

Events like “No Kings Day” capture this spirit particularly well. The phrase itself rejects the idea that democratic societies should revolve around strongmen, personality cults, or unquestioned authority. “No Kings” is not simply a slogan; it is a declaration that citizenship matters more than obedience. Such demonstrations remind participants that they are not isolated. They belong to a larger democratic tradition that stretches from the civil rights movement to labor organizing to anti-war activism.

But protests alone are not enough. Resistance also depends on narrative.

Witnesses to the Strain of Democracy

Authoritarian systems attempt to monopolize storytelling. They portray dissenters as enemies, intellectuals as elitists, journalists as traitors, and vulnerable minorities as threats. Countering that narrative requires serious writing that documents reality with moral clarity.

This is where Substack and other independent publishing platforms have become unexpectedly important democratic spaces. Writers who refuse simplification or propaganda are creating communities of readers committed to democratic discourse. Their work preserves intellectual resistance in a moment when outrage and misinformation often dominate public conversation.

I’ve written a post that describes these writers as witnesses to the strain of democracy. You’ll find brief biographies and their role in writing about resistance to American autocracy. Each of these individuals helped illuminate a different dimension of democratic resilience. Some explained the patterns of authoritarianism; others defended the rule of law or the integrity of education. Some spoke through scholarship, others through satire or broadcast conversation. Together they represent a quiet but essential truth. Democracy survives not only through elections and constitutions. It also survives through the persistent work of those who interpret, defend, and teach its principles to the public.

Writers such as Ruth Ben-Ghiat have provided essential historical context for understanding authoritarian movements. Her analysis connects contemporary political developments to patterns seen in fascist and autocratic regimes throughout history. Rather than relying on sensationalism, she examines how democratic erosion occurs incrementally through normalization.

Similarly, Mary Trump—Dr. Mary Trump, psychologist, writer, and neice to Donald Trump—has used personal testimony to explore the psychology of authoritarian culture. Her unique position within the Trump family gives her commentary unusual depth and immediacy. Rather than focusing solely on political strategy, she examines the emotional dynamics—fear, cruelty, grievance, humiliation, and inherited patterns of power—that sustain authoritarian movements. In doing so, she transforms personal experience into political evidence, illustrating how authoritarian behavior can emerge first within families and then expand outward into public life.

Writers like Lucian Truscott and many independent Substack authors have also contributed to a broader democratic conversation by documenting local resistance efforts, exposing disinformation, and amplifying voices often ignored by mainstream media. These writers understand that democracy depends on witnesses.

Personal Stories

Sharing personal stories now takes many forms. Essays, newsletters, podcasts, interviews, oral histories, TikTok videos, documentary photography, and local journalism all contribute to a democratic archive of resistance. The method matters less than the authenticity. People trust stories rooted in lived experience because they recognize themselves in them.

A librarian describing harassment. A veteran warning against political extremism. A teenager speaking at a school board meeting. A pastor sheltering immigrant families. A writer refusing silence. Together, these stories create a civic memory that authoritarian movements struggle to erase.

History suggests that democracies survive not because authoritarianism disappears, but because enough people decide that silence is unacceptable.

The voices from today’s frontlines are therefore more than commentary. They are democratic acts in themselves. Every testimony, every march, every essay, every refusal to submit expands the moral space in which democracy can survive.

And perhaps that is the most important lesson of all: resistance begins when ordinary people decide their voices still matter.

1. “Unraveling the Democratic Era,” Democracy in the World 2026–10th edition ↩︎