Summary Overview
Continuing our transition from the broad, historical understanding of the rise of American authoritarianism to the more specific, targeted question of how we, as individuals, are called to show up in the face of our new version of fascism, this post reflects on core questions and principles we need to consider as we come to terms with how we choose to be present in the world today.
This post begins with a discussion of questions to consider ranging from Moral Clarity to an awareness of our Not Being Alone and is followed by highlights of how individuals made themselves present in opposition to the fascism of the Second World War.
I offer a more specific set of questions we must engage with as we move forward in our call to both build deeper in our current work and efforts—starting where we are and speaking from where we stand—and then positioning our work and voice in opposition to the powers arrayed against us.
And conclude with a reflection on inertia, competing priorities and the dilly dally dilemma as final consideration for taking action.
Introduction
In the Antidote to Autocracy series, we have now explored the larger context of how we might consider various aspects of engaging in a response to authoritarianism. And in coming posts, we will discuss potential ways purpose driven organizations and impact investing entities of various stripes might position themselves to more effectively respond to rising fascism and authoritarianism in our world.
It is key we recognize all responses to the current moment and its challenges are grounded in how individuals step up to confront growing authoritarianism in the course of their work, lives and communities. As has been said elsewhere, our goal is to be courageous but not stupid; to bring an alternative lens to the challenge, one must reflect on the ways individuals may show up ethically without being naïve.
As individuals we each have the opportunity to sit with the question of how best to be present as we seek to respond to the diverse and many developments of our time.
The following are key points we might consider:
Cultivate Moral Clarity and Inner Resilience
The first resistance is internal. We need to be clear about our personal values—our commitments to justice, equity, truth—and why they matter, even when they’re unpopular or risky. Practices such as journaling, meditation, or connecting with a spiritual or intellectual tradition may all help develop the emotional resilience to stand firm as individuals navigating tough times.
Being grounded in a moral or spiritual compass helps avoid being swept up in fear or disinformation.
Act Strategically, Not Recklessly
Being brave doesn’t mean being foolish. Acts of resistance can be public or quiet, symbolic or structural. Speaking out is one form; supporting journalists, organizing legally, protecting whistleblowers, or creating mutual aid networks are others.
Strategy allows us to act effectively even when power is stacked against us.
Build and Rely on Community
Authoritarianism isolates. We resist by building real communities—whether in neighborhoods, online spaces, or professional networks—where people can share resources, protect one another, and act in coordination.
Collective courage is stronger than individual bravado.
Tell the Truth, Even if Your Voice Shakes
Truth-telling is itself a radical act when lies dominate. Whether you’re a teacher, artist, lawyer, impact investor, entrepreneurial innovator or student, speaking truth within your sphere of influence chips away at the power of propaganda.
Silence may feel safe, but it often enables harm.
Support the Vulnerable and Marginalized
Authoritarian regimes often target those with the least protection—immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, people of color, the poor. Ethical living means standing in solidarity, redistributing privilege, and lifting up those voices most silenced. What this means for impact investors is to invest not simply in alignment with your fund strategy, but connecting the impact of those investments to the larger political context of our time.
This isn’t charity; it’s justice.
Understand the Long Game
Social change doesn’t happen overnight, and backlash is part of the cycle. Patience, persistence, and a historical perspective help us endure.
The arc of history may bend toward justice—but only if we keep pushing.
Know You’re Not Alone
In moments of fear, we can feel terribly isolated. But across the country and world, countless others are resisting in ways both large and small. Connect with them. Share stories.
Know your courage is part of a larger current moving toward freedom.
Being ethical in a hostile environment is not about being fearless—it is about acting even when fear is present. It’s about bearing witness, protecting the vulnerable, and refusing to normalize injustice.
And above all, it’s about remembering that no empire—no matter how dominant—lasts forever.
Send an email,
make a phone call,
take the time to actually show up to participate in local action—not just waiting for the “one big event” but be present for some number of smaller, local events,
get educated on specific impacts of current and proposed policies and actions of the present administration,
get trained in how to connect local action to national activism.
Yes, systems change begins at home, with each of us as individuals and the mindset we bring to our work, efforts and advocacy. All that said, we must also consider that how we show up and engage with others is almost as important as the fact of our showing up and being present with others.
In this way, we must seek to engage but not condemn the Other.
We need not shy away from challenging, but rather seek to bring strong compassion to how we connect and enter into discussion with the Other.
Reflecting Upon Individual Action During Our World’s Last Engagement Fighting Fascism
Throughout history, individuals have shown up in the face of fascism to fight for their freedom. This all—groups coming together, communities of interest sharing in the struggle—is a function of individual action and engagement. And of course, history is filled with stories of ordinary people—students, workers, farmers, teachers—who resisted fascism and authoritarianism, often with little recognition but enormous courage.
One recently published discussion from The New Yorker, in a piece titled, How to Endure Authoritarianism, profiled the Polish poet, Wisława Szymborska. The article is especially powerful, but I found this passage referencing the dissident worth special consideration for Americans in this time:
“One returns again and again, in Poland, to the wisdom of the great dissident—for whom, I admit, I have a phonetic fascination—Adam Michnik. His “Letters from Prison,” from 1986, opens with an introduction by The New Yorker’s own Jonathan Schell, who offered an apt summary of Michnik’s arguments:
“Start doing the things you think should be done, and . . . start being what you think society should become.
Do you believe in freedom of speech? Then speak freely.
Do you love the truth? Then tell it.
Do you believe in an open society? Then act in the open.
Do you believe in a decent and humane society? Then behave decently and humanely.”
Building upon that idea, here are some examples from a previous generation’s experience during the Second World War:
Pietro Pappagallo (Italy, 1940s). A Roman Catholic priest, Pappagallo quietly aided Jews, Allied soldiers, and anti-fascists during the Nazi occupation of Rome. He provided food, shelter, and false documents, working with underground networks. Arrested by the SS in 1944, he was executed at the Ardeatine Caves massacre. He remains a symbol of spiritual and moral resistance in the face of fascist cruelty.
Aristides de Sousa Mendes (Portugal, 1940s). A Portuguese diplomat in Nazi-occupied France, Sousa Mendes defied the orders of his own authoritarian regime (Salazar's Estado Novo) and issued thousands of visas to Jews and refugees fleeing the Holocaust. He lost his job, was blacklisted, and died in poverty. “I would rather stand with God against man than with man against God.”
Lucie Aubrac (France, 1940s) A schoolteacher and member of the French Resistance, Aubrac played a crucial role in organizing underground operations, hiding Jews, and rescuing her husband from Nazi custody. Her bravery helped destabilize the Vichy regime and inspire other women in resistance roles.
Marion Pritchard (Netherlands, 1940s) A young Dutch social work student, Pritchard rescued over 150 Jews during the Nazi occupation. She forged documents, found hiding places, and even killed a Nazi officer to protect a Jewish family. She kept silent about her actions for decades after the war: “There were times when you knew the only thing to do was something drastic.”
Witold Pilecki (Poland, 1940s)A Polish army officer who volunteered to be imprisoned in Auschwitz to gather intelligence and organize resistance from inside. He spent nearly three years in the camp, documenting atrocities and later escaping to report to the Allies. He was executed by the post-war communist regime in Poland in 1948. Called “the bravest man you’ve never heard of.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer became well known, in large because his background and circumstance were so “normal.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and anti-Nazi dissident who stood out as a voice of conscience during the rise of Hitler. A founder of the Confessing Church, he openly opposed the Nazi regime’s co-opting of Christianity and its persecution of Jews. Despite opportunities to remain safely abroad, Bonhoeffer returned to Germany to resist from within, becoming involved in the German resistance and a plot to assassinate Hitler. He was arrested in 1943 and executed by the Nazis in April 1945, just weeks before the end of the war. His writings, especially The Cost of Discipleship and Letters and Papers from Prison, continue to inspire moral courage and ethical resistance to injustice.
George Bonnell. I would venture to guess you’ve never heard of him. George Bonnell was my uncle. He went on to become a minister and later a therapist, but during his younger years fought in World War II, seeing action in Italy. In one final incident, George was part of an offensive that had him storm a machine gun nest, which he and others successfully attacked, but which left him seriously wounded. He literally showed up in the face of fascism by putting his life on the line to defend the values he believed in and those he loved. And he was just a normal, run of the mill guy—one among millions of other like-minded citizens who answered the call and did what he needed to do.
And this is the point:
Each of these individuals wasn’t a president, celebrity, CEO or global icon.
They were normal, everyday citizens who made moral decisions under extreme pressure—often without any guarantee of success or survival.
Their stories remind us that resistance to authoritarianism is not only waged in grand halls of power, but primarily in small meeting rooms, kitchens, classrooms, and refugee queues—where ordinary people refuse to accept tyranny as normal.
And of course, we have many current, modern day examples of individuals standing up in the face of today’s authoritarian regimes.
You do not have to go anywhere to make a stand to affirm your values and beliefs in opposition to tyranny and authoritarianism as it evolves and seeks to grow in our society today.
You just have to stand where you are and call out what you see, making your critique and perspective known. Regardless of whether you’re a Republican, a lawyer offering an alternative to what we’ve seen of late from the legal community, or a member of the tech community, as is the following case of Mike Masnick.
In his essay, “Take Back Our Digital Infrastructure To Save Democracy,” Mike Masnick asserts the real crisis facing democratic societies is the intertwining of concentrated tech power with political dominance. Masnick argues that tech oligarchs who supported Donald Trump leveraged centralized digital platforms to erode democratic norms, essentially building a “direct pipeline from concentrated technological power to concentrated political power.”
All impact investing has the potential to be positioned in opposition to the rise of American Autocracy. We must do more than simply join the practices of those operating within the quietude exuding from many of our “business as usual—hey, can you help me raise my next fund?” colleagues.
Raise your next fund—sure! It’s important that our innovations in capital and organization continue to challenge the dominant paradigm of what exists.
But business as usual is not enough! Actively connect the dots between your fund, its strategic elements of impact and how both (in your hands!) are tools to fight fascism!
For those looking to connect with others on individual actions against authoritarianism, there are various ways to participate in events, support and become part of a community of action.
For starters, do try How to Resist, which has various posts on a host of related topics to help individuals show up in a positive way.
Remember:
Stand up within your sector whatever that may be
and speak your truth!
Join with others to create the new mass movement, and execute on Garret Bucks’ 30 things you can do right now to stand up in this moment. He proposes a range of entry points:
Public Visibility/Protests: Go to Federal Buildings, Tesla dealerships, or stand on highway overpasses holding cardboard signs for an hour, then share photos widely on social media to show others that someone is taking action.
Attending Existing Protests: Stand up in Washington D.C., where many protests are already happening—but also know the importance of standing up in local communities across the nation, large and small. It matters!
Reframe the Message: Instead of saying general statements like “Trump and Musk are the worst,” research specific programs being cut and say concrete things like “Trump and Musk are sentencing millions of AIDS patients to death” or “Trump and Musk want credit card companies to rip us off” or mention specific cuts to mental health and tutoring resources.
Mutual Support: Ask people what political action they could take if you helped with childcare or errands, or if you have caregiving responsibilities, ask others for help so you can take action.
And finally: Work to Overcome the Dilly Dally Dilemma!
Alas, all this depends upon how each of us is positioned to act in our world. Accordingly, I have a public confession to make:
The bald fact is, I’m afraid we would all like to simply do what we are called to do in the world—our job, our calling, our family and community, whatever!—and hope for the best in terms of the swirl of authoritarianism we witness on a daily basis, but the reality is we are now called to step up in new ways for our values and beliefs.
In my case, I’d just like to read novels, hike in Norway, hang out with a dog and play guitar—in a word, I would just like to dilly dally, but find I can’t simply sit or stand by as everything (our values, norms and beliefs) gets trammeled beneath the feet of those marchers in Charlottesville, VA., chanting slogans to Unite the Right—which now seems like ages ago, but which today continues regularly without the torches and in broad daylight.
It’s a bit of a dilemma:
On the one hand, we are all called to act yet on the other hand, I don’t really want to act—I’m fundamentally lazy, life is already hard and my calendar over committed, and I’d just as soon lower my eyes to focus on what’s immediately in front of me.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, I guess, I kind of feel like this:
The Last Mile substack on September 13, 2025.
But then there you go. You can’t always get what you want…
We must each step up to and engage with this moment, however we’re called to do!
Personal Challenge
How does this section land for you? Does it resonate? Does it miss the mark and the whole point?
What is missing from these considerations? What resources or perspectives have you found to be helpful in understanding more in terms of how you’re called to show up today?
I’m curious to hear your reactions and thoughts, so please use the comments section of this post to reply and share your perspective.
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Author’s Note: While the final writing and analysis are my own, please know I did make use of various AI tools in research and drafts conducted for this project. For a fuller discussion, please see the closing Note in the first post of the Antidote to Autocracy series. Thanks!
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