Won't it feel good when we win?

But in the meantime...

One blessing in this scary time is clarity. It seems very clear what the issues are and what strategies might work and which are doomed to fail. But to keep things as simple as possible, let’s imagine that Trump and Dutton and Murdoch are the thugs who picked on the small kid in Year 8 Art. They called him names, isolated him and broke his art work. I sat there and did nothing while the teacher put her head out the window and wept.

What are the lessons for today?

We can safely use the words “fascist” and “bully” interchangeably. No doubt some would say that fascism is more complicated than that. Others might say that bullying is more complicated than that. They may be right, but I’m sure that if we use the same strategy against the fascists as we ought to use against bullies, we’ll make some progress.

So, that poor kid in Year 8 Art was all alone. Not one ally in that whole class. With good reason - who wanted to be picked on as well? But if just one of us had stood up we would have encouraged others to stand up too. Soon the whole class would have been on their feet and the thugs would have sat down and shut up. Or something like that.

So, let’s find allies and friends and let’s stand by the persecuted and let them know that they are not alone. Let’s not throw anyone under the bus to buy ourselves a little precious security.

Secondly, fascists want us to to panic and to feel overwhelmed. Steve Bannon spoke years ago about “flooding the zone with shit”. So many terrible things, so many lies, we don’t know where to begin. So, let’s not be overwhelmed. Don’t read the news ten times a day and don’t read it on your phone. Get up to date once a day or less and spend the rest of your time being productive.

Thirdly, fascism seems to be thriving in this age of social media. I’m blessed by never having been addicted to the scroll. Well, hardly ever. No doubt we need to use social media better than they do (or at least as effectively as they do) but our natural advantage is that we want to do good things for the world. We don’t want to destroy people and make them feel anxious and alone. So, organising face-to-face, in the old-fashioned way, should be our strength.