Nobody is Coming to Save You

So how do you plan to save yourself?

@scragolaFBI directed the arrest of a federal judge. #judge #fbi #arrest

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On April 26

Gerry Moylan

released the video above, informing us that Donald Trump is in SERIOUS TROUBLE over the FBI arrest of Milwaukee County judge Heather Dugan. On the 17th he informed us “MAGA is History”" and on March 16 crowed that “Tesla will Go Under in Weeks and Bankrupt Elon Musk. TIMMAY!”

But he’s not content to simply wait for things to collapse. In “When are you Going to do Something About This Regime That is Destroying Us?” Gerry challenges his audience:

Are you making videos like me? Are you going out marching like them and like me. Are you protesting what’s happening right now, or do you just go on with your life and go to work every day and punch the clock, drive home, have your dinner, and you don’t give a crap about what Trump and this administration are doing to you and to me and everyone else?

His idea of “doing something” is making videos and marching in protests. He contrasts his noble acts against the cowardice of those who can’t be bothered to engage in political performance art. Like many of his fellow #resisters, Gerry believes that we can overthrow a tyrant simply by convincing enough people that they live under tyranny. Enlighten the masses and they will change the world for you.

But does the arc of history really bend toward justice? And will the Constitution protect us from a wannabe dictator?

On March 20, 2025 Politico ran an article entitled “If Trump Defies the Courts, Here’s What a Judge Can Do.” In that article Shira Scheindlin, a retired federal judge with over 22 years on the Manhattan bench, discussed the options available should the President ignore a court order. As she bluntly put it:

That’s when authoritarians become dictators and really tear down the temple by just ignoring the Constitution, ignoring the judiciary.

That would be the shocking end to our 250-year experiment.

Arresting Trump for criminal contempt is not an option. The US Marshals Service answers to the Attorney General. The Secret Service answers to the Secretary of Homeland Security. Both are Trump appointees, and would almost certainly refuse to serve an arrest warrant on the President. And should a judge attempt to arrest Trump, he could simply pardon himself.

If the House changes hands in 2026, impeachment might be an option. But while the House can bring impeachment charges with a simple majority, it takes support from 2/3 of the Senate to impeach a President. That’s a high hurdle to clear, and so far Republican legislators and Republican voters are strongly behind Donald Trump. Until that changes and if it changes, impeachment is off the table.

Scheindlin suggests a civil contempt order might stick. Civil contempt of court can lead to hefty fines and even jail time. And while there’s abundant case law supporting the President’s right to pardon federal crimes, Trump has no power to pardon federal civil cases. A civil contempt case would certainly land in the Supreme Court, but there’s no guarantee as to how the Supremes would react. If they rejected it, that route would be closed. If they upheld it, it would be up to Trump to accept it.

Andrew Jackson’s famous quote, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!”, is probably apocryphal. But what’s certain is that Jackson ignored the Supreme Court ruling in Worcester v. Georgia (1832). Trump would almost certainly provide lots of soundbites explaining why he rejected the WORST DECISION IN JUDICIAL HISTORY from the CORRUPT court system. This would produce lots of screaming. But if Trump ignores that screaming, what happens next?

The President is also the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Many tyrants have fallen when the military turns against them. But in 2024 61% of veterans and active-duty voters cast their ballots for Donald Trump. And everyone from 5-star generals to buck privates know very well the consequences an unsuccessful coup.

Let us assume that Trump seizes control of all three government branches. Let us also assume that the military supports Trump in the face of rising civil unrest. Where do we go from there? More to the point, where do you go from there?

Flying to January 2017 Women’s March. Ted Eytan, Photographer

Marching in protests and sit-ins makes for sympathetic media coverage, but only if the media is sympathetic. Otherwise, your protest simply becomes an excuse for your tyrant to restore law and order. If Trump calls out the military, many of his supporters will cheer him on. And while there will certainly be a few soldiers who refuse to participate and maybe even an Aaron Bushnell or two, most will reluctantly or gleefully follow orders.

There will be lots of shouting from the usual sources at first. But 90% of American media is controlled by six media conglomerates. Those big media companies are hemorrhaging cash and losing eyeballs to independent and social media. They are vulnerable to antitrust actions and massive fines should the government get offended. And since American trust in mainstream media is at its lowest point in five decades, few will listen to anything journalists say anyway.

Social media personalities obscure and famous will certainly chime in with their thoughts. But unpersoning has become an accepted way to silence wrongthinkers. We can expect to see the loudest dissidents losing jobs, licenses, child custody, and bank accounts as the conflict heats up. And while the Left has had a well-funded support network for decades, that can be cut off easily enough. A few fines or forfeitures against the biggest donors and you’ll hear wallets slamming shut across America.

Don’t get me wrong, there will still be dissidents of all stripes on social media and street corners. We may well see Gerry Moylan calling out those who won’t wear 2027’s version of the pink pussy hat. By tolerating toothless dissidence, tyrants show their magnanimity and benevolence.

Dissidents who might threaten the social order will be dealt with ruthlessly. Those that pose no threat will serve as social safety valves and, when it becomes necessary, as informants. It will become abundantly clear what you can say and what will get you in trouble, and most will internalize those borders and act accordingly.

Some of us remember when “Free Tibet” was on the lips of every A-lister. Today celebrities have grown silent about Tibet, and turned a blind eye to China’s oppression of the Uyghurs. Chinese screenings account for a significant share of movie revenues, and China will ban any film with actors who criticize the People’s Republic too loudly.

Soon after Trump came to power, Facebook and Amazon made nice with Trump. The Never Trumpers frothed and stomped their feet, but their threats and insults were ignored. Amazon depends on government contracts for its cloud computing services, and on sweetheart shipping deals with the USPS. Facebook is in the midst of an antitrust trial. Whatever feelings the rich and famous may have about political questions, they’re most concerned with holding onto their wealth and fame.

Few who supported your beliefs for years will follow you in a real war against tyranny. Many who participated enthusiastically in DOXXing fascists will happily relive their glory days exposing seditionists like you. Others will do whatever they must to avoid the consequences of their beliefs.

In such a climate, most will put aside their political beliefs and focus on less dangerous hobbies. Those with families to feed will generally choose bread over freedom. Those with nothing to lose but their lives will frequently decide to keep their chains. There’s no shame in making an honest assessment of risks vs rewards or in finding causes that you don’t have to die for. In fact, that’s exactly what the overwhelming majority of people living under tyranny do.

For several years the #resistance has basked in an illusion of consensus. Celebrities and multinational corporations retweeted their slogans. Social media algorithms amplified their message and shadowbanned their critics. They got the idea that every decent person supported them and only hateful bigots and deplorables supported the other guys. That illusion no longer exists.

If you wish to be a dissident against real tyranny, you cannot expect upvotes and asspats for your work. Nor will anyone be interested in your performative outrage or your self-aggrandizement. You will be fighting against long odds, in a game with no respawning stations and no guarantee that the good guy wins.

So what will that resistance look like? Let’s start with what it won’t look like.

Eternal springtime for Hitler

It’s an old truism that every big war is fought using the tools and techniques of the previous big war. Our last big war was in 1941-45, and we haven’t yet moved on. Hitler has become our Sauron, and his goose-stepping Black Riders have become the blueprint for all our cliches of tyranny.

“Make America Great Again” is not a euphemism for “Blood and Soil” and “Close the Borders” is not a kinder, gentler “Lebensraum.” We are not going to be overrun by Nazis in any meaningful sense of the word “Nazi.” The time we spend fighting Nazis could be just as productively spent hunting dinosaurs or burning witches. There will be no death camps, no yellow stars, no Zyklon B. And while many of our loudest Nazi-hunters own Fleshlights, they’re not going to die on their masturbation machines.

Neither will the American collapse resemble the Civil War (or, if you will, the War for State’s Rights). In 1860 the American army was made up of state militias who took care of affairs within their borders and only entered other states in times of emergency. Today we have a national army which is designed, trained, and maintained for foreign combat. Getting them to fight an extended war with American citizens would be as difficult as talking them into overthrowing a sitting President.

It is likely that as our economy crumbles our states will become increasingly self-reliant. At some point California and/or Texas are likely to ignore direct federal orders. When they do that, there will be lots of outrage and pearl-clutching. But the federal government will realize soon enough, as John Marshall did, that making a law and enforcing it are two very different things.

Like the Soviet Union, the United States will go out with a whimper rather than a bang. Instead of a protracted war we will get slow disintegration with sporadic violence. As America breaks apart, so will national trade and supply lines. While there’s little chance of the military taking back California or Texas by force, the states that remain United will certainly launch boycotts and tariffs to pressure seceding states back into the Union.

This will cause shortages that make Trump’s tariff wars look like a kiss on the cheek. California supplies one-third of U.S. vegetables, three-quarters of its fruit and nuts, and nearly 20 percent of its milk. A third of America’s oil refineries are in Texas. And the stock and bond market chaos you saw after Liberation Day was but a pale shadow of what state secession would cost.

Amidst that decline, we will see a rise in black markets and the people who profit from them. They will fight for their territory as ardently as street gangs and cartels fight for theirs. Those who rise to the top will be our next generation of rulers. They may choose crowns or they may content themselves with being the power that controls the throne.

In 2019 the Mississippi River carried more than 500 million short tons of imports, exports, and domestic freight. That freight relies on 25 aging locks, and the farmers living near the river rely on levees to protect them against floodwaters. Sabotaging those locks or breaching those levees requires little in the way of manpower or materiel. A few dedicated men with a couple cases of dynamite could shut down traffic or cause billions in flood damage.

On the night of April 16, 2013, several gunmen opened fire on the high voltage transformers at the Metcalf Power substation in Coyote, California . For 20 minutes they shot at the cooling pins. When they were finished 17 out of 21 large transformers had overheated. It cost over $15 million to bring the substation back online.

The shooters (who were never caught) hoped to break the power grid that feeds Silicon Valley. While they, a larger group that synchronized its attacks across a wider geographical area could do catastrophic damage. A few months before the attack, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairman commissioned a study that found that the national electrical grid could go down in a domino effect if some group shut down less than 20 of the 55,000 operating substations.

We live in a crumbling civilization that lies waiting to be broken. Those who knock it down will gain some measure of power for a time. The ones who will ultimately rule are those who rebuild what they have just wrecked. Both will take what they can, and those who follow neither path will endure what they must.

Nobody is coming to save you. To quote John Michael Greer, Harry Potter will not be dropping the One Ring into a Death Star cooling vent. There’s no cavalry over the horizon coming in to save you, no breakthrough that will give us energy too cheap to meter, no magic spell that will save our crumbling culture. All we have are our strength and our wits and our will to survive and to protect that which we love.

That’s all we have. But it is enough.