We are on the eve of something consequential. With more than 2,600 events planned for tomorrow, this could be the biggest exercise of civil resistance in the country’s history.
The federal government is now animated by a mixture of incompetence, criminality, cruelty, and cowardice. All of this produces real harm which impacts countless individuals. It could be you or someone else.
When we sit quietly and passively in this morally contaminated environment, the toxicity is absorbed gradually into our systems. We are compromised in this manner even if we do not support the regime.
The #NoKings demonstrations set for tomorrow are one way of turning the tide and fighting against this contamination.
Navigating autocracy means constantly calculating the costs and risks of exercising your freedom and rights.
That’s by design. Intimidation, whether subtle or explicit, aims to instill and reproduce obedience and conformity.
Tim Snyder and others have written about “anticipatory obedience,” our tendency to come to the heel of power when resistance feels potentially dangerous. That’s driven by an instinct for self-preservation, so it’s understandable. But it also comes at a price. We are at a crossroads where the risks of resistance need to be weighed against the risks of compliance.
There are two modes of living: active and reactive.
An active life means being spontaneous, being autonomous, deciding for yourself how to be in the world. It depends on our ability to muster free will.
A reactive life means taking cues from others, behaving in the ways that authority expects or demands of us. A thoroughly reactive individual is like a marionette. Controlled by others. Pulled this way or that by external forces. An unfree performer running someone else’s script.
Besides questions of policy and governance, that’s what we’re standing for at tomorrow’s demonstrations. We’re in the fight to change the status quo, but also to push back against the moral degradation which this government subjects us to so relentlessly. The warrantless arrests. The racism. The public humiliation of allies and defenders of democracy. The bogus medical directives. The non-stop lying and gas-lighting and denial of facts. We’re fighting all of it.
I can’t wait to see your photos tomorrow and hear your stories of resistance.
Be prepared, be safe, and be happy in the company of others who share your values. We demonstrate not only to change the government, but to ensure the government doesn’t change us.
ALEXANDER KARN 
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