Why they can't win unless we let them
We see many people dooming over the many happenings under Trump's Regime, saying the situation is hopeless and that we are all doomed. Saying that we should just give up. If you are someone who says that, then get yourself together! We aren't doomed, YOU just can't perceive a way out and assume one just doesn't exist. But we guarantee you, there is a path to victory, and you are not alone in this! Now, you may be asking "How?", or more accurately "How could there possibly be a way to fix this?" Well it's pretty simple when you get down to brass tacks, so how about we start with an in depth set of rebuttals for common doomer arguments.
"He's Just looking for an excuse to send in the military"
Well while we at Eudaimonia cannot read the mind of our oppressors, and this may very well be right, there's several hitches to this plan even if this assumption is correct. First of all, in order for this to mean certain doom as people seem to imply, based on how they speak of it, the military would have to be made of literal robots. The problem is for any aspiring tyrant is that the military of their nation aren't unfeeling automatons, they're people being foisted into an attack on their neighbors, kinsfolk, and countrymen. This notoriously failed the dictator of Libya Muammar Gaddafi. He got his military to fire on civilian protestors once. When the people didn't stand down, the military did, and let the mob storm his palace. Don't believe me? Well check this out.
There's also the secondary issue that our military is too small to effectively occupy the entire country at once if we all stand up. This is because our military consists of -2.8 million troops and our total population is above 300 million total. We massively outnumber them. And importantly, there's too much space in the US. The United states mainland is 3,119,885 square miles. If Trump or any would be successor wanted to establish absolute military rule, there wouldn't even be a soldier on every mile of land, and if we only narrow it down to towns and cities of which 19,495 incorporated towns according to worldpopulationreview.com, that'd be 144 soldiers per town. They would be too few in number to even stop us organizing, much less stopping us everywhere all at once. Plus there's that little elephant in the room that THERE ARE MORE GUNS THAN PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY. So not only do they not have the numbers, our military doesn't even have a true monopoly on force. This situation just isn't plausible unless we all throw our hands up and surrender after the first shots are fired. And to the people who would do that; not only are you cowards, but you are just guaranteeing that our efforts have less man power and prolong our nation's suffering.
"The system is hopelessly rigged"
If the democratic wins in special elections and smaller elections on the local level are to be believed, then no they aren't.
If the systems were actually hopelessly rigged, Republicans would be using the same tactics to win all local elections, not just get a majority in congress. If they were able to get overwhelming leadership positions in the states they most certainly would. This is because that would allow them to coordinate the normally burdensome task of passing constitutional amendments. This would allow them to rewrite the law of the land as they saw fit, completely dodging all legal battles and accountability. Since this would be the path of least resistance were they that good at baking the ballots, then this is what they would do.
This argument is also often heard in regard to the midterms being "hopelessly rigged". Which is a dumb assumption for a number of reasons. A: The midterm elections are held at a state leve which we have just established they do not have as much consolidation over as they'd like you to think. And mind you the tactics they've already been using to suppress votes have practically gone unopposed anyways yet they still aren't guaranteed wins. There's also the fact that voter suppression can be bypassed and subverted. Even if they make all votes require a passport or birth certificate, we can get around that by creating a public fund that helps as many people get passports as is possible. Or even do so with local organizations serving the same function. Just because our government is trying to be underhanded doesn't mean we have no answers.
We have also seen concerns of votes being changed, or democratic votes being purged en masse. The problem is, the parties can't see your political alignment when you vote, or who you voted for. Instead they target demographics who are likely to vote a certain way without knowing a thing about the people in question. This costs them a chunk of votes as well making the effectiveness of this tactic a bit blunted. This is actually one benefits of the ballot being anonymous. In fact, this anonymity of the ballot was put in place specifically to prevent vote rigging and intimidation tactics.
"The Republicans don't care and they keep winning, they're invincible, we're screwed!"
To anyone who says this, you clearly don't know how fascism works. The game they're playing here is intimidating and ignoring you so you think they can do whatever they want. In short they are attempting to normalize this. They act like this because, at it's core, fascism is a con artist's game. One where the weak tyrants in power attempt to convince you that your voice doesn't matter and that you should shut up, and die quietly.
In actuality, if they were actually so powerful and invincible, they wouldn't even bother trying to silence or intimidate you. If they're invincible, what damage could you possibly do by speaking out?
Well let us answer that for you. It's because they AREN'T INVINCIBLE, and they are still susceptible to the will of the people be it by being voted out or creating a culture of contempt and noncompliance that breaks their grasp on power completely. This is why they are trying to normalize their behavior by pretending you don't exist while they do as they please. They are playing out the benefits that come with invincibility to bluff you into thinking they are.
It's all a tactic to control herd mentality into compliance so they can eat faces like the leopards they are in uncontested peace. And because their rule is only cemented by fomenting hatred amongst their followers like they've done with the culture wars on immigrants, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community, it's only a matter of time before they change the target of their hate to a demographic YOU BELONG TO. YOU will be on the menu eventually.
The way you beat them isn't to cower in your own shadow and hope they don't find you. Instead, you MUST call their bluff. The key is to do so in greater and greater numbers until the outcry against them is deafening enough to change the culture into accepting that they CAN be removed, and because they CAN be removed then they MUST. At that point everything cascades out of their control. Starting with the things they have the least control over, such as people only attached out of weak fear, or parasitic ride-alongs, and ending with the military. Not because the military is always last to come around, sometimes they're one of the first. It's just that, once the military does turn, the power of the tyrant is effectively nullified. You can't have laws without willing enforcers.
“We’re too late”
This common doomer mentality is complete nonsense. This is because authoritarian states are fundamentally unstable things that are rather easily toppled from within.
This is because fascism is basically a societal level extinction burst. Its point is to try and pop up aspects of the society that fundamentally do not work. Because if the aspects they wanted to subsume everything else actually worked, then they wouldn’t need to use violence and oppression to hold them together. They’d just function.
In an attempt to force society into their perverse image, they run afoul of reality, and embark on a journey of inevitable self destruction. They all fail inherently, and will do so even if left to their own devices.
That isn’t to say that this is all going to go away without us doing anything, because when fascism eats itself, it takes all of the infrastructure, quality of life, and many many innocent people with it. That could include you dear reader. We are part of the state. When the state is the “self” on a path to destruction, we are all potential casualties, whether we keep our heads down or take to the streets. So we may as well take to the streets and weaken their grasp on the narrative and our lives!
Fascism is so fundamentally unstable it’s never too late to buck it, and it can’t stay here forever because of the very reason it exists. The only thing that changes is the ways you fight it, and the costs of doing so. The good news is, this is early on despite what castastrophizing doomers will tell you. And the cost to act is low. We are still a ways off from the government having the power to disappear it's own citizens unabated, and use unquestioning shock troops to put down protests. Even if we were, refer back to the link in our first rebuttal. Even though Gadafi had all of the force in the world, his state still failed to hold together. So when we hear someone say “it’s too late” we interpret that to mean, “I’m too cowardly to defend my rights.”
The uncharitable interpretation may seem harsh and uncalled for. But if after reading this far, you STILL aren't convinced this situation is solveable, and that we very much are not doomed. Then that tells us at EOE that you aren't willing to make even basic sacrifices while the cost of action is low, which reeks of cowardice, born of privelege and entitlement.
“Donald Trump Already has all of the branches of government in his pocket! We can't do anything to stop him”
**Slaps you**
If you are still dooming up to this point, then do us all a favor and slap yourself across the other side of your face. But if you just skipped to this one I am sincerely sorry for slapping you.
Okay so, whether the phrase in the header is true or not is irrelevant, so we're just going to get to the point.
This was never going to correct itself from the top down! And the fact that you thought it was speaks to an extreme naivete at best, or at worst a disgusting sense of entitlement.
Now, we're aware that this rebuttal is much harsher than the rest. But when you say this common doomer argument, it means one of two things, either you weren't paying attention and expected the government to operate well enough to ward off Trumps inevitable trespasses despite everyone in their mother during the election saying that the guardrails are gone and if he won he would act on his worst impulses.
Or worse yet, and this is the one that drives me (the head content editor), nuts, you thought the government would just magically fix itself, and you wouldn't have to do anything to secure your own rights from a man who has shown no trespass is too egregious. You hoped for a magical savior so you could go living your normal life and when it didn't happen you gave up.
Well, I've got to be the bearer of bad news here. Hoping for a savior is entitled plain and simple, because what this mentality boils down to is:
"I want someone to fix my problems for me, and if they don't I will let the world burn down so I don't have to leave my comfort zone."
This was always going to be a battle between the will of the people and a budding tyrant. It was obvious from the beginning that this was never going to be a simple fix. Even if we found out the election was stolen, and demanded a recount, these fascists will pull out all of the stops to prevent it or corrupt it.
You must be prepared to meet and intercept them at the level we know they will play at. You can't act surprised anymore when the system fails you, you need to be prepared to force it to work. Whether that be protest that shuts down the streets, or funding to overcome any monetary barriers they put in your way, you must have the tenacity to outlast them, and repeatedly call them on their shenanigans.
This is a battle we must fight ourselves, the impotence of our representatives proves they are not going to fix this for us. Join a local indivisible group. Make a local political circle. Run for office. Something. But don't sit around and do nothing condemning everyone to a hellish existence because the government didn't do your civic duty for you.