SEE NO EVIL, HEAR NO EVIL: SPEAK NO FASCISM

Want to help? Then tuck in the outrage and learn the necessary art of *saying nothing*. We must protect communities by refusing to play along with oppression's most insidious tactic: OUR COMPLIANCE.

LISTEN UP AMERICAN LIBERALS AND PROGRESSIVES: I hear our cries to help, our daily outrage, our promises to resist Trump any way we can. But here’s all we need to know right now: Our performative outrage and polite compliance is a deadly combination that’s going to get people killed.

This week, as Trump overturned protections that kept ICE out of churches, schools, and hospitals, I watched my social media feed explode with the familiar cycle of shock, outrage, and helpless hand-wringing. And I realized: We’re already falling into the exactly the same fucking traps we did last time.

Remember those four years? The constant churn of headlines, the daily — sometimes hourly — outrages, the exhausting parade of “Did you see what he just tweeted?” The Muslim ban one day, kids in cages the next, *very fine people* the day after that. It was overwhelming by design. And now? It’s going to be so much worse.

Because here’s what we learned from last time: When fascists “flood the zone with shit”, it’s not chaos — it’s strategy.

Every inflammatory social post.
Every shocking media statement.
Every seemingly random policy announcement.

All strategy to serve one purpose . . . keep us so fucking busy with outrage that we miss them dismantling human rights in plain sight.

And let’s be brutally honest — white American liberals are the perfect audience for this fuckery. We’ve mastered performative outrage, even if we don’t have a complete monopoly on it. And non-white liberals with citizenship privilege? Folks, no one is entirely exempt. Watch how together we’ll all spend hours debating each new outrage on social media, crafting the perfect tweet to express our disapproval, congratulating ourselves for being *so very aware*, while actually doing nothing at all.

How do I know this? Because this was me. Even without citizenship privilege, I spent years perfecting this kind of useless outrage, cloaked in the self-righteousness that liberalism taught me to wear. Meanwhile, the actual work of fascism continued uninterrupted.

While we’re busy maintaining our cycle of shock and outrage at each new atrocity, the methodical destruction of human rights is happening right fucking now — in our neighborhoods, on our streets, to our neighbors. And we’re too busy crafting the perfect Instagram post to notice.

The mainstream media will breathlessly cover every Trump bathroom tweet, every inflammatory statement, every piece of outrage bait. And we’ll share, and comment, and convince ourselves we’re making a difference by being publicly appalled. And while we’re busy crafting the perfect dunking tweet, ICE agents are already in our communities, using tried-and-true tactics of deception that rely on one thing above all: Our compliance.

This isn’t new. ICE has been perfecting these tactics for years. They show up pretending to be local police. They stake out neighborhoods in unmarked cars. They pull over drivers using fake traffic stops. They trick people into “helpful” conversations that end in deportations. The only thing that’s new is the scale and brazenness — and our continued willingness to play along.

The ACLU’s cases tell the story: Alyssa Lazo, detained after ICE pretended to check her car registration. Margarito Castañon Nava, grabbed in a fake traffic stop. Mr. Lin, arrested at his own marriage interview and abandoned at an airport in Shanghai. These aren’t bugs in the system – they’re features. And they work because we, the polite liberals, let them work.

We can’t afford to chase every headline anymore. We can’t waste our energy being shocked by each new policy announcement. The fascism is here. It’s been here. And our job isn’t to document every new outrage — it’s to actively resist the system that makes these outrages possible.

That means learning a new language:

“Have you seen your neighbor lately?”
I work long hours.

“We just need to verify some information.”
I don’t keep track of other people’s business.

“This won’t take long, we just need your help.”
I really can’t help you.

“Things might be easier if you cooperate.”
I have nothing to say.

The best answers are short, simple, and final.

No explanations. No justifications. No helpful suggestions about who else they might ask. Just the calm certainty of someone who suddenly knows absolutely nothing about anything.

Yes, I know this is hard. Especially for we white women, who’ve been conditioned since childhood to be helpful, to explain, to apologize, to smooth things over. So start small, but start strong.

Re-do that workplace assertiveness training about not apologizing for every email. Practice saying “No” without following it with “I’m sorry”. Learn to sit in uncomfortable silence instead of filling it with nervous chatter. These aren’t just career skills anymore — they’re practice for when it really matters.

But more importantly, protecting our communities and defying fascist tactics means building sustained networks of mutual aid that don’t depend on social media outrage cycles or mainstream media attention.

It means recognizing that every time we get distracted by the latest Trump tweet, we’re not focusing on protecting our neighbors. Every ounce of energy spent crafting the perfect outrage post is energy diverted from building community defense. Every minute spent doomscrolling is time we could use strengthening local support networks.

The system doesn’t need our hot takes on Twitter. It doesn’t need our shocked Facebook posts. It needs our passive compliance. Our polite directions when we should play dumb. Our trust in *proper channels* when we should be building community defense networks.

We’re past the point where we can pretend this is just a series of unfortunate policy decisions. We’re past the point where sharing our outrage online counts as meaningful action.

The fascism is systematic, and our non-compliance must be equally systematic.

The next four years will be a constant barrage of *shocking* announcements designed to keep us off balance. Don’t fall for it. Keep your eyes on the real work: Protecting our communities through active non-cooperation, building strong networks of mutual aid, and refusing to be the polite liberals that fascism needs us to be.

The time for following each new outrage is over. The time for sustained, focused resistance is now. And if that means missing some Twitter outrages or being less “informed” about every new policy announcement? Good. Because our communities don’t need us to be well-informed spectators. They need us to be active resistors.

Just like the Palestinian solidarity networks who keep forgetting to report protest gatherings to authorities. Like the Underground Railroad conductors who never saw escaped enslaved people passing through their homes. Like the Danish citizens who couldn’t find Jewish folks when the Nazis came looking.

Our silence in the face of authority — and our refusal to be distracted by the daily outrage machine — these are our most powerful weapons.

USE THEM.