Fear and Fascism in America; or, Baby Steps for Resistance

I've been back in the US for a few months now. I had my goodbye party in Austria on July 4th, and left the next day to come back to the US after four years in Austria. It's been a hard thing to articulate to non-Americans what the political atmosphere is like here at the moment. It's been a hard thing to articulate it to myself. This is perhaps an attempt to do both, and to find a path through somehow to a better future.

I had reservations in writing this, in all honesty. I'm on the job hunt, and it seems that now is not quite the time to be Having Opinions Online. But it seems a good and valuable thing to try to understand our present moment, and I've been living in paralysis for a few months. It's time to change that. 

I first left the US to move to Austria in 2021, and although only four years ago, it was a very different era. Covid was ongoing. January 6th happened, then Biden took over. Black Lives Matter was bright in the brain. I left because I got accepted into a master's degree. I left because with Biden in office, although there was plenty to be done in the US, I trusted that there were other people across the country doing it. I left so I could go have myself an international adventure, could go get myself my free master's degree, and then I could come home and do the rest that needs doing.

In addition to everything else it gave me (love, community, rest), Austria gave me the context that what we're living through in the US now is not granted by God or an immutable fact of nature. The state works there. It takes care of people. It has its flaws, yes, of course, it has its flaws. But Vienna is clean and safe and has a highly subsidized housing market. Ambulances there don't bankrupt people. Women don't tell each other to "get home safe". The labor market is highly unionized, and people finish work by 3 pm on Friday, go offline on their vacations and weekends, and don't take meetings in their lunch break.

People there don't beg on Nextdoor because they're a grandmother about to become homeless, and they need to figure out how to find $300 in the next two days. People there get basic subsidies from the state to cover their basic needs. People there pay their taxes like adults to make sure that grandmothers with their grandbabies—or anyone else for that matter—don't become homeless or live in perpetual states of fear about the possibility thereof.

The atmosphere in the US right now is a strange mix of normalcy and fear. My context leaving the US was 2020, and right now 2020 it is not. It's something more paralyzed than that, something both more normal and more scared. We understood that 2020, that Trump 1.0, that Covid was out of the ordinary—"unprecedented times" was our phrase. But over time, normalcy has a way of reasserting itself. I wasn't here these last four years, so I can't explain why the Resistance 2.0 didn't come to fruition. My guess is exhaustion, financial pressure, a feeling of defeat, the shock and awe tactics of the right. But I grew alarmed watching from abroad, feeling that the left, or Democrats, or someone, or anyone needed to just do something. I ran a fundraiser for legal aid (which I wrote about here), then decided to return home.

 

Collages by me. L: Gods and Masters (2025). R: Homecoming (2025).

 

I left Austria on July 5th, 2025. It's now September 21st, and I have done essentially nothing to fight back. No protests, no ICE resistance, no organizing. The little I have done was progressing my Itch fundraiser project, which is still not live and honestly probably would have proceeded faster with me staying in Europe. I'm founding a game design company, preparing for my German exam in December, applying to and interviewing for full time positions. That's all good stuff. But it's not helping any of those people crying SOS from the ICE facilities.

The truth is, I've been terrified to act. I know they're not coming for me in particular. But the atmosphere of uncertainty and paralysis got to me. I worried that if no one else better qualified than I is doing something, what right exactly do I have to do anything? And I suppose I'm worried about how potential activism might affect the job hunt. And I don't particularly want to be in the city and state I'm currently in, and so I don't want to engage too much with the local community here in case it distracts me from my longer term goals. And I don't know exactly what to do or how exactly I can help. And I don't want to make a target of myself. And I do have longer term organizing goals, but those require me to have a full time job in Richmond, so I've been focusing on the job hunt. And a thousand other perfectly valid concerns and excuses that still don't help those people crying SOS in those ICE facilities.

 

Collage by me. De/Attention (2025).

 

So in the meantime, in this strange transitory stage of my life and our country, as the drumbeat of bad news continues, as Democratic leaders fumble the crisis, as the job market contracts, as the MAGA right froth themselves further into hate and violence, what can I do? Maybe only baby steps. But fascism is descending on America. Our trans and undocumented community members are depending on us. And power only exists if it's exercised. So it's time to figure this out and to do it scared. It's time to take some baby steps and to rediscover my, and our, capacity to act. It's time to let our power unfurl out before us. It's time to do something.

Baby steps, baby steps. 

 

Baby steps for me (and you!):

I still have the other obligations and concerns that I mentioned beforehand, so these are—as a disclaimer—actually baby steps and not a grand plan. But I do really think that baby steps can help! Maybe you'll consider joining me in them.

1. Signing up to phone bank every Thursday from now until Election Day in Virginia. https://indivisible.org/virginia2025. Anyone can (and should) do this. Virginia has off-year elections, and this November is an opportunity to flip Virginia’s governing trifecta of Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General from red to blue and to improve the Democratic majority in the Virginia House of Delegates.

2. Signing up for newsletters from the local migrant organizing and legal defense organization to find out about what's happening in my local community. Obviously I can't recommend the particular organization in your area, so at least here's a resource that might be helpful for you to plug in. https://immigrantsrising.org/support-for-immigrant-families-targeted-for-deportation/

3. Continuing to work on (and then eventually supporting!) the Itch fundraiser for legal aid. We got over 200 submissions and finally finished on-boarding our two non-profits. Now we wait for Itch to process it and for our participants to approve it. Once it's live, I'll of course let you all know. If you're interested in supporting the marketing for the project, please let me know. In the meantime, you can buy the PDF for the original publication here, of which all proceeds still go to the two legal aid orgs. https://swanandravenstudio.itch.io/hellogoodbye

YMMV, but I feel a lot better now that I'm taking some action. Baby steps, baby!