Let me say this straight out the gate: If you’re waiting for someone to knock on your door and officially declare the end of democracy, you’ll be waiting until your lights get shut off, your meds stop coming, and your vote “somehow” doesn’t get counted again. That’s not how autocracy works. It doesn’t announce itself—it builds itself one broken brick of democracy at a time. Quietly. Legally. And then violently.
And what’s wild? We’ve seen this movie before. Brazil. India. Russia. The Philippines. Every country that once danced in democracy but now limps under a dictatorship took the same damn steps. And guess what? We are walking that same path right now in the U.S. — whether you want to see it or not.
Let’s break it down before they break us all the way.
🔟 The 10 Steps to an American Autocracy
Win an election—the last real one.
That first win is legit enough to look official. Then everything after that gets... murky.Expand executive power.
The president (or whoever’s in charge) decides checks and balances are for suckers. Starts doing the most.Neutralize Congress.
Either by making them complicit or useless. Sound familiar? SCOTUS just greenlit a president with immunity. That ain’t democracy.Gut the civil service.
Fire the experts. Get rid of the people who actually make government work—then replace them with loyalists who answer only to the regime. You want to know why nothing works anymore? It’s by design.Break basic government systems.
When your SSI checks are late or Medicaid won’t approve a prescription, it's not an accident. It’s a feature of autocracy: Make people hate government so they don’t mind when it disappears.Take over how people talk.
Media becomes “fake news,” propaganda becomes “truth,” and the rest of us are drowning in algorithms that feed us lies wrapped in a patriotic bow.Blame somebody.
DEI. Black folks. Immigrants. Trans kids. Protesters. Pick a group, scapegoat them, and fuel rage from people whose lives are falling apart. Redirect their anger at the wrong enemy.Silence anyone who could help.
Sue civil rights law firms. Strip colleges of funding. Accuse philanthropists of “radical” giving. Eliminate the support systems that might organize resistance.Greenlight violence.
From Proud Boys to ICE raids to kidnapping protesters off the street in unmarked vans—this is state-sponsored terror. Make folks too afraid to fight back.Rig the next election.
By the time we get here, democracy is on life support. Fear, poverty, disinformation, and voter suppression have already decided the outcome. You can’t win when the game is already fixed.
🛑 So What the Hell Do We Do?
Don’t panic—organize. They want us isolated and overwhelmed. But we are not powerless. We are not helpless. And we damn sure are not done.
Here’s how we fight back:
1. Stop waiting on a savior.
A politician ain't coming to save you. Stop treating voting like it's the only tool in your resistance toolkit. It’s a screwdriver, not the whole toolbox.
2. Mutual aid is not charity. It’s survival.
Help your people. Share food. Trade services. Check on elders. Pool resources. Build neighborhood pods. Autocracy starves people—community feeds them.
3. Tell the truth out loud.
Do not let their propaganda become your silence. Say the uncomfortable thing. Push back on the lies. Talk to your family, your co-workers, your group chats. Don’t let the algorithm win.
4. Protect the protectors.
That journalist, that activist, that organizer—support them. When the state goes full fascist, those are the first folks they target.
5. Don’t let fear fool you into compliance.
It’s okay to be scared. But don’t let fear turn into passivity. Fear without action is surrender. Fear with community? That’s strategy.
6. Local is where the fight lives.
Support local candidates who aren’t bought. Fight school board takeovers. Protect your libraries. That’s where policy gets born and battles get won.
7. Don’t just resist—rebuild.
We can't just fight to stop the fall. We have to plant the seeds of what comes next.
🔮 What’s Next: Rebuilding Community to Fight Capitalism and Control
Next up in this Substack series, I’m talking about community. Because once they break democracy, they’ll use capitalism to keep us too tired, too broke, and too damn divided to do anything about it. But the truth is, we had power long before we had politics. We had each other.
So I’m gonna break down how we rebuild the collective village, redefine success outside of hustle culture, and create systems of care that capitalism can’t co-opt. You don’t wanna miss this.
Stay loud. Stay grounded. Stay ready.
We don’t just resist fascism. We remember who the hell we are.
– Queen Nefe