You Can’t Hide from a Dictator: Why Silence is Complicity in Trump’s America
By Janet Kira Lessin with Minerva
A friend recently told me she’s just going to ignore what’s happening in the country—live quietly, stay out of politics, and hope the storm passes. I couldn’t stay silent. I told her what I now believe to my core: you cannot hide from a dictator. You cannot outrun this.
Trump is not running for office. He’s back—actively wielding power. And this time, it’s not about policy, not even about winning. It’s revenge. He’s calling the shots, gutting programs that served millions, dismantling democratic institutions, and surrounding himself with loyalists who will stop at nothing to help him finish what he started. This isn’t speculation. It’s happening now.
Every day is another dump of chaos, cruelty, and calculated destruction. And it’s not random. It’s strategic. Trump is burying the country under so much political excrement that people are too overwhelmed to fight back. It’s not just noise—it’s weaponized exhaustion. His tactic is simple: flood the system with so much shit, no one can dig out. Drown the people in filth until they give up, stop paying attention, and turn their eyes away.
And the scariest part? He knows who you are. He knows who voted against him. He knows who stayed home. With allies like Elon Musk—controlling massive data pipelines through X (formerly Twitter), Starlink, AI tools, and Tesla infrastructure—Trump doesn’t just have a megaphone. He has a surveillance empire. The fusion of authoritarian ambition with tech oligarchy is already here. This is not a hypothetical future. It’s our present.
If you think you’ll be safe by staying quiet, think again.
Trump is not a traditional president. He’s not even a traditional fascist. He’s an authoritarian celebrity demagogue driven by vengeance and paranoia, playing out a revenge tour against everyone who challenged him. The press. The courts. Immigrants. Women. Black and brown communities. LGBTQ+ folks. Teachers. Librarians. Blue states. Scientists. Even the military.
And it won’t stop there. Like Hitler, he’ll keep expanding the list of enemies—until the walls close in around every independent thinker, every kind soul, every decent American who once believed democracy could never die here.
So no, this is not the time to check out. This is the time to rise up. Loudly. Clearly. Relentlessly. Because when you stay silent in the face of authoritarianism, you’re not choosing peace—you’re surrendering freedom.
The truth is hard. The fight is harder. But if we all dig together, we can get out from under this mountain of shit. We can still vote. Speak. Write. Organize. Defend. Expose. Create. Resist.
Because if we don’t, the next turd ball might be aimed at you.
📌 References:
- Trump’s Week 1 revenge tour rips through Washington Axios+1US News+1
- Project 2025: The ‘Yellow Brick Road’ to Authoritarianism The Authoritarian Playbook for 2025+6Amazon Brasil+6Amazon+6
- Three-quarters of Republicans back Trump being ‘dictator for a day’ The Washington Post
- Historian of Fascism Claims Trump Is Speeding Towards Dictatorship Faster Than Putin The Daily Beast
- Project 2025 Would Destroy the U.S. System of Checks and Balances and Create an Imperial Presidency Center for American Progress
- The Authoritarian Playbook for 2025 The Authoritarian Playbook for 2025
Tags:
Trump, authoritarianism, dictatorship, MAGA, Trump revenge tour, Elon Musk, Project 2025, surveillance state, voter suppression, political apathy, democracy in crisis, fascism in America, resistance, political activism, 2025 election, Trump second term, American democracy, tech oligarchy, government overreach, silence is complicity
