We’ve all heard it: “Just vote.”

And yes, we absolutely should. But as the regime tightens its grip through courts, corporations, and coordinated disinformation, voting alone feels like lighting a candle in a hurricane. The truth is, democracy doesn’t end at the ballot box. It begins in our neighborhoods, our wallets, our workplaces, and our shared refusal to cooperate with injustice.

So, if you’re already voting, the next question is: now what?

1. Economic Blackouts: Starving the Machine

Nonviolent resistance should consist of more than holding a sign. With corporations pouring millions and billions into attempts to take away our rights and quality of life, nonviolent resistance needs to include withdrawing our consent and our dollars from systems that oppress. Every time we buy, bank, or invest, we either reinforce the regime’s power or weaken it.

Practical actions:

• Boycott. There are two ways to approach this. Many argue that we should not scatter our energy. People who take this route will choose one or two corporations directly complicit in political manipulation, union busting, or climate destruction and follow organized campaigns like those coordinated by Public Citizen or Move to Amend. Others advocate for a broader approach, such as no-buy movements and economic blackouts. Personally, I choose a mixture of these two approaches. I participate in organized boycotts but I am also trying to starve the beast by buying less overall and finding alternatives to the endless buy/discard cycle.
• Move your money. If your money is in a savings or investment account, it is being used to earn more money for corporations actively working toward the downfall of democracy. This can be complicated because we do still need to save, especially with Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block. Personally I have been moving loans such as mortgages and car loans to credit unions and looking for alternatives to traditional banking.
• Buy less, buy local, share more. Every dollar you keep circulating within your community is a quiet act of defiance against corporate control. Every dollar you keep in your pocket is savings against an uncertain future. But more than just avoiding spending, find new ways of procuring what you need. Bartering, foraging, and trading kept our pre-capitalist ancestors fed and clothed. Rebuilding those networks creates a new world where capitalist exploitation is not a necessity.
• Stop creating surplus value for corporations. I realize this is easier said than done. After all, we all have to make a living and keep a roof over our family; at the current time, some engagement with capitalism is necessary for most people to accomplish this. However, many of us do have choices. A year ago I quit my job at a typical hospital-affiliated clinic to take a similar role at a local grassroots clinic serving the needy in our community. I am doing the same basic work but the only people who profit are my neighbors and community.

This isn’t about purity; it’s about power. Our money and labor are the fuel tank that keep capitalism chugging along.

2. Community Organizing: Building Parallel Power

The regime wants isolation. Authoritarian systems depend on people feeling helpless and disconnected. That’s why the most radical act you can commit right now is to build community.

Start small, but start.

• Host a kitchen-table meeting, not to vent, but to plan. Invite five people you trust. Ask: What do we rely on the system for, and how can we replace it locally?
• Create or join mutual aid networks. Food shares, childcare swaps, transportation co-ops are the backbone of resilience when systems fail or turn hostile.
• Support workers organizing in your area. Even showing up to a strike line with coffee and solidarity makes a difference. The right to organize is under attack because it works.
• Gather. Americans have been divided and told that other Americans are the problem. Every time we come together in a productive manner, to clean up a park or create music, we build community and the sense that we can solve problems together.

As long as we recognize and respect capitalist power, it will continue to oppress us. When people realize they can meet each other’s needs without intermediaries, they become ungovernable and indivisible.

3. Information Resistance: Breaking the Spell

Propaganda thrives on passivity. One of the most powerful things you can do is to interrupt the narrative.

Concrete steps:

• Flood the local level with truth. Write op-eds, blogs, and social media posts. Call into radio shows. Share credible sources in community groups. Most people aren’t unreachable; they’re uninformed.
• Boost small independent media. Subscribe, donate, or even start your own local outlet.
• Train yourself in digital defense. Learn to identify deepfakes, phishing, and psychological manipulation campaigns. Teach others to do the same.

Every conversation that resists apathy or confusion is a brick in the wall of collective clarity.

4. Cultural Resistance: Keeping the Soul Alive

Resistance isn’t only what we stop doing; it’s what we build. Fascism thrives on fear and despair; culture keeps us human.

• Organize art nights, teach-ins, zine swaps, song circles, whatever keeps people gathering and creating.
• Celebrate local victories, no matter how small. Each success story refuels the movement.
• Refuse to let the regime define the narrative of who we are.
• Take time to be creative. Creativity helps to build more resilient brains and also can be therapeutic in a traumatic world.

Culture is the soil from which cooperation grows.

Sustained Defiance: The Long Game

This is not a sprint. Nonviolent resistance is a marathon of moral stamina. We must practice care as fiercely as we practice protest.

• Rest is resistance.
• Joy is resistance.
• Refusing to give up on each other is resistance.

So yes, vote. Please, vote. Then act like democracy depends on everything else you do, because it does.

Voting is the floor, not the ceiling.

I’m already voting. Now what?

Now, we organize.
Now, we withhold.
Now, we build the world that will replace the one crumbling around us.