YOU NEED GOOD SECURITY CULTURE. The USA has one of the most powerful anti-radical police states in the world, and they WILL clamp down hard on any opposition, peaceful or otherwise.
Here’s some resources which might help:
privacytools, which should help teach you a bit about encryption and provide you with good starting points for making your communications that little bit harder to detect and read.
Download Tor, a browser which, with a little bit of extra caution will help keep a lot of what you do online secret.
Start using an encrypted messenger app on your phone. Telegram is the most popular, but its encryption is not the best. Personally I recommend using Wire (which also works as a desktop messenger app), or even WhatsApp functions acceptably.
Learn how to use and set up Proxies and a VPN
Start using an encrypted and independent email service. Many radical groups use riseup.net but they are very well known to security services and are monitored more closely than most. Their server ownership is also in question. I use Proton Mail but there are other services too.
The Los Angeles Times confirmed on Friday night that “The emails were not to or from Clinton, and contained information that appeared to be more of what agents had already uncovered.” In other words, James Comey just got caught lying in his attempt at rigging a Presidential election. And yes, that’s a severe violation of a specific federal law.
After tonight, I’m even more firmly convinced that simply existing and surviving as a marginalized person in the United States is a radical act. Just living every day in a country that so clearly wishes you weren’t, is brave, rebellious, gorgeous, beautiful, a work of art… and if you actively had a great and happy day, it would probably piss off Donald Trump.
I know it’s terrifying. And painful. But what they want the most is for you to give up. If they want you to disappear, stay. You resist a world that wants you to hate yourself and die, just by showing up. Just by breathing. As long as you’re here, you’re winning.
Treat yourself with love… And treat yourself. I’m entirely serious about this. If you’ve been shaken tonight, give yourself all the time, kindness and time to heal that you can. Self-care and self-love is active resistance, now more than ever. You are worth so much more than their hate. Stay with us.
Hi, all; here’s a list of things you can do to help people and to minimize harm in this time.
Find protests:
Check out left wing/progressive/socialist meet spaces on https://www.meetup.com. Many of them will have a protest or get you in contact with people who might know when or where protests are. Show up to them. Be seen.
Donate food or clothes to foodbanks and local charities, and volunteer there too if you can. Poor people are going to suffer after this, and will need support.
Vote: vote locally, vote left, vote in the smallest elections. See if people are even running for seats– city council, school council, board comptrollers. A town in Virginia had almost nobody run this year. You can run for these positions, and if not you, find a friend who might do it. This is where tides turn. Maybe. Vote in 2017, 2018.
Write your Representatives: This is probably not the strongest option seeing as many of these guys know that they didn’t get fucking voted out this time. But hopefully knowing they have eyes on their backs will make them pause before they vote through bigoted stuff.
It’s best, if you can, to write actual, physical letters. They are more of a pain in the ass to political staff– you have to open them, read them, and digitize them, rather than emails which can generally be clicked and saved and ignored. Write a ton of letters. Organize a write in if you can. Flood offices.
Here’s a sample letter:
Dear [name];
I’m calling on you, as a voter and a citizen, to do all in your power to block anti-immigration, anti-LGBT, racist, sexist, and xenophobic laws that might be put into pass by our future government. President Elect Donald J Trump did not win my vote, and did not win the popular vote: he was not voted in by a majority of Americans. My friends and my family will be directly affected by the results of this election and it is up to you to ensure that America remains diverse and accepting. Know that we will be watching your actions in these coming years and we will take action.
This presidency will have ramifications that will last 30 years, and I ask you consider that, as you consider the sway of the electorate in the next four years as well.
Sincerely,
[Name]
You can use a similar script if you call. Make sure you know that your representative knows that this was a fluke, not an outcome to expect again. Even if it’s not true, putting pressure on representatives might influence future decisions.
you’ll never catch me standing for the national anthem or pledge of allegiance ever again
I wish I could do that without being yelled at by my own teacher like I just killed three of my classmates….
In Highschool i refused to stand for the pledge and was sent to the principles office when it first happened. But there is no rule, or law that states you have to. Know your rights. Sit down to stand up.
The electoral college does not vote until December 19th. We have 40 days.
What does this mean?
Right now, the presidential election results are only a PROJECTION of the election outcome. They are PRELIMINARY RESULTS. A candidate still needs to earn 270 electoral votes to win. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, which means that more than 50% of the voters wanted her for president. The electoral college shouldn’t guarantee an override of the public’s opinion– and it doesn’t have to.
There are 21 states that do NOT restrict which candidate the electors vote for. Out of these 21, Hillary lost the following:
As you can see, these states are worth 166 electoral votes. As it currently stands, Hillary Clinton is projected to receive 232 votes. Trump is projected to win 306. This means that 37 votes need to be taken away from Trump to bring him down to 269. Hillary Clinton needs 38 votes ADDED to win 270. These electoral voters can also abstain, which means that they can refuse to vote for either candidate. If 37 of the voters within these states abstain then no candidate will have reached the required 270. In this case, the vote would be taken to the House.
Trump won Pennsylvania, a state that typically votes blue, by less than 100,000 votes. While it is highly unlikely to get all 20 electoral voters to cross party lines and vote democrat, it also isn’t impossible to convince a few of them to be “faithless electors.” We only need to convince 38 out of the 166. That is 23%. There are SIXTEEN states we need to focus our attention on.
A move like this would be unprecedented. However, as we all saw on November 8th, odds don’t guarantee reality. Trump had a less than 20% winning, yet given the circumstances, enough people came together and made it happen. We can make this happen.
Ask yourself this: What do we have left to lose?We can stay complacent and accept that this country will be run by a racist, sexist, islamophobic, homophobic, ablest bigot, or we can at least try.
How?
SPREAD THE WORD. Trend #NotMyPresident to let people know that we do not accept being led by a man who does not care about our wellbeing. Email your professors, email the dean of your colleges. The last thing a university wants is negative press. Millenials can take a stand, but that doesn’t mean we have to be the only ones. Church-led events helped bring a lot of disillusioned voters to the polls. Spread the word in any way possible, whether it be on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or even in person. Stage a peaceful protest. Hand out flyers. Let the people around you know that you don’t accept this man as your leader when he won’t even accept you as a citizen with your designated rights.
These 166 people need to face the consequences of electing this man.
Do this for the people who couldn’t vote. Do this for the people who live in the very real fear of being deported. Do this for the people who will have to face the rise in hate crimes. Do this for the people who have a very real possibility of losing their rights. Do this for the people who will no longer afford necessities.
They don’t vote until December. And while 29 states and DC have laws requiring electors to vote along state lines, the rest don’t.
Donald Trump only got a few votes (nine) into the majority.
If a handful of electors swing or even abstain and become faithless electors, the entire system would get thrown into crisis.
These are the states that require electors to vote according to state popular vote. That leaves:
Arizona
Arkansas
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Lousiana
Minnesota
Missouri
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York
North Dakota
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Dakota
Texas
West Virginia
All states where electors can do whatever the hell they want. In fact, even in the other states electors are only subject to a small fine.
So, in summary, until December you can harass the hell out of your electors (list found here). Remind them who won the popular vote. Remind them of their duty to protect the nation. Tell them how the presidency will affect you directly. A faithless elector is a pretty big deal, and even one of two would make a big impact in terms of showing how awful our presumptive president elect is.
This fight isn’t over yet.
Someone tell me this is true!
she conceded. this is over
She def conceded, I don’t even think she could win if she hadn’t, but the point now is to make as much trouble as possible. Kick up a fuss. Make sure our voices are heard, and maybe hammer home how fucked up the electoral system is. We need to start thinking about the future, and for many of us that relies on making sure Trump has as little actual power as possible, hopefully by convincing members of Congress that the general population is not happy. Being good little voters didn’t work, the electoral system screwed us over, now it’s time to start screaming and never stop.
A Middleground 