Republicans Are an Invading Force: What Are Our Options?

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I originally published this article several weeks ago. Since then, Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have openly discussed deploying federal forces to invade American cities. The threats outlined are now being stated explicitly by the administration. I’ve updated and republished this piece because the urgency has shifted. If you’ve read the original, I’ve tightened the focus on actionable resistance strategies with a more clear call to action. If you’re new here, this is the moment these tools matter most.

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In 1933, German conservatives thought they could control Hitler. Two years later, they were being executed in their own homes. I spent weeks researching this question, desperately looking for counter-examples, for hope, for any time in history where people successfully stopped fascists after they started winning elections.

Here’s what I found: Once fascists win power democratically, they have never been removed democratically. Not once. Ever.

Let’s start with Germany because everyone thinks they know this story. Franz von Papen, the conservative politician who convinced President Hindenburg to make Hitler Chancellor, said “We’ve hired him” in January 1933. Within 18 months, the Nazis were machine-gunning von Papen’s allies in their homes during the Night of Long Knives. Every single conservative who thought they could “control” or “moderate” Hitler was either dead, in exile, or groveling for survival by 1934.

Italy handed Mussolini power when they could have crushed him. The King had martial law papers drawn up, the military ready. Instead, he invited Mussolini to form a government. Spain let Franco take over while democracies declared neutrality and watched. Hungary’s Orbán won democratically in 2010, rewrote the constitution by 2011, controlled the media by 2012, and still rules today. The EU has been “very concerned” for fourteen years.

The pattern repeats across decades and continents. Conservatives panic about socialism or progressives, ally with fascists as the “lesser evil,” fascists take power, then immediately purge the conservatives who helped them. Germany, Italy, Spain, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Greece, Portugal, Croatia, Romania, Hungary. Every single time.

The facts are clear. Fascist takeovers prevented after winning power democratically: zero. Average length of fascist rule once established: 31 years. Fascist regimes removed by voting: zero. Most were removed by war or military coups, and tens of millions died in the process.

Based on the historical record, there are exactly three ways this goes: Stop them before they take power. War. Or wait for them to die of old age.

But here’s the thing: we already missed option one. The Supreme Court declared Trump above the law. He’s threatening to arrest political opponents. He’s already sent the FBI after elected officials. Congress is his. Most state governments are his. The window slammed shut.

So let’s stop pretending we’re in the “prevention” phase and start talking about what you do when fascists already control federal institutions but haven’t fully consolidated power yet. Because historically, nobody’s been here before, not like this.

No wealthy democracy with nuclear weapons has ever fallen to fascism. The 1930s examples everyone cites were broken countries. Weimar Germany was weakened by World War I and hyperinflation. Italy was barely industrialized. Spain was largely agrarian. They didn’t have the world’s reserve currency or thousands of nukes or surveillance technology that would make the Stasi weep with envy.

America has all of that. Plus geographic isolation that makes external intervention impossible. Plus a population where 30-40% genuinely wants authoritarian rule as long as it hurts the “right people.” The historical playbook is useless here. We’re in unprecedented territory.

But that also means the old rules about what’s possible might not apply.

Option 1: The Blue State Coalition and Soft Secession

California’s economy is bigger than the UK’s. New York controls global finance. The blue states collectively represent over 60% of America’s GDP. They could, theoretically, make the federal government irrelevant.

Imagine if California, Oregon, Washington, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, and others started coordinating directly. Not symbolic gestures but binding interstate compacts with enforcement mechanisms. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact already exists as a template. These agreements could cover climate policy, civil rights protections, healthcare systems, immigration enforcement. Everything.

Consider state banking systems. North Dakota has operated a state-owned bank since 1919. It weathered the 2008 crisis better than any private bank. Blue states could create their own banking infrastructure, issue state bonds, even explore state-backed digital currencies. Every dollar that doesn’t flow through federal systems is a dollar the federal government can’t control.

The federal government cannot enforce immigration law without state and local police cooperation. Printz v. United States established this in 1997. States can’t be commandeered to enforce federal law. If California, New York, and Illinois simply stop cooperating with ICE, the federal government would need to build entirely new enforcement infrastructure in hostile territory. Make them enforce every single policy themselves.

Blue states could negotiate directly with foreign governments on trade missions, create regional supply chains, bypass federal systems entirely. The EU started as a coal and steel agreement between France and Germany. Why route everything through a compromised federal government?

The precedent exists. Northern states nullified fugitive slave laws in the 1850s. States are currently ignoring federal marijuana prohibition. But this would be coordinated and comprehensive, not piecemeal resistance.

Contact your governor and state legislators. Demand they join or form interstate resistance compacts. Demand state banking systems. Make this politically viable by creating pressure they can’t ignore.

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Option 2: Selective Compliance and Irish Democracy

The Irish called it “Irish Democracy” when they were under British rule: the silent, dogged resistance of millions who simply ignored laws they found illegitimate. Don’t protest. Don’t riot. Just don’t comply.

Red states need blue state money. Blue state taxes fund red state governments. What if millions of people in blue states simultaneously decided to claim maximum exemptions on their W-4s and simply stopped paying federal taxes? Not as protest but as coordinated “forgetting.” The IRS has 83,000 employees for 150 million taxpayers. They can’t audit everyone. Overwhelm the system. Make enforcement impossible.

Doctors in blue states could ignore abortion restrictions through patient confidentiality. Teachers could ignore curriculum mandates by simply not covering certain topics. State DMVs suddenly can’t access their databases when ICE calls. System’s down, try next week. Not sabotage, just overwhelming incompetence.

Every fascist order requires state-level enforcement. State employees can make that impossible without overtly refusing. Paperwork gets lost. Requests take months to process. Databases have technical issues. Emails end up in spam folders. Make every single act of authoritarian control require physical enforcement, then make that enforcement impossibly expensive and difficult.

Blue states control the ports, airports, and rail hubs. Federal orders need state cooperation to work. What if that cooperation became painfully, mysteriously slow? Port inspectors on leave. Rail maintenance crews dealing with emergencies. Not refusal, just friction.

If you work in state or local government, you have power. Use your position to slow, confuse, and frustrate federal overreach. If you’re a taxpayer, organize tax resistance networks. Safety and power come from numbers.

Option 3: Credible Secession Threat

We already have two incompatible visions of what America should be. One side wants a multi-ethnic democracy with a social safety net. The other wants a white Christian ethnostate with unlimited corporate power. These cannot coexist indefinitely.

What if blue states started seriously discussing secession? Not threatened as political theater but actually planned. Constitutional conventions. Referendums. Negotiations for national debt division. Military base transfers. Currency agreements. Task forces studying every detail. Make it real enough that financial markets react. At a minimum it would shift the Overton Window.

Red states need blue state money. Texas gets more from the federal government than they send. California sends billions more than it receives back. What happens when blue states threaten to keep their money? Markets care. Investors care. That creates leverage.

Yes, the last time states tried to leave it caused a civil war. But that was over slavery, with clearly defined geographic boundaries and two relatively equal economic systems. This would be the economic powerhouses leaving the welfare states. What would the red states do, invade California? With what money? California has the world’s fifth-largest economy.

The mere serious threat might be enough to force structural changes. Quebec nearly left Canada twice and got massive concessions both times just from credible threats. Scotland held a legitimate independence referendum. When secession becomes a serious political movement, it forces negotiation.

Demand your state legislature establish a task force on state sovereignty. Demand referendums on interstate cooperation agreements. Make secession discussion mainstream, not fringe. The threat alone creates leverage.

Option 4: International Intervention and Exposure

This has never happened to a nuclear power, but there’s a first time for everything. Blue states could request UN election monitoring. Not symbolically. Formally invite European election security experts. Make America’s democratic collapse visible to the world.

California already negotiates climate agreements with the EU. New York could establish direct diplomatic channels for financial regulation. Why route everything through a compromised federal government? States could sign their own climate agreements, create alternate diplomatic channels, make the federal government look increasingly irrelevant on the world stage.

No, the UN can’t invade America. But they can isolate it. Economic sanctions work, just ask Russia. International humiliation also works, ask South Africa under apartheid. If blue states ally with the international community against the federal government, that creates pressure. When global markets react to instability, options narrow.

Make every authoritarian act an international scandal. Livestream everything. Get foreign press involved. When the world is watching, when investors are nervous, when allies are choosing sides, pressure builds.

Pressure your state to invite international observers for elections. Support state-level diplomatic missions that bypass the federal government. Make noise about international pressure campaigns.

The fascists already won round one. They control the federal institutions. They have their judges. They have their media ecosystem. They have their army of true believers who will excuse anything.

But they don’t have the money. They don’t have the cities. They don’t have the educated workforce. They don’t have the young. And most importantly, they don’t have legitimacy in the eyes of the majority.

The historical record says once fascists gain power, they stay for 30-50 years. But the historical record doesn’t have examples of fascists taking over a country where their opposition controls most of the economy, technology, and cultural production. We’re in uncharted territory, which means we need unprecedented responses.

The question isn’t whether these options are extreme. They are. The question is whether we’re ready to admit that normal is already gone. The window to prevent fascism closed. But the opportunity for something else, something unprecedented, might just be opening.

Call your governor this week. Contact your state legislators. Organize your workplace or community. If you’re in state or local government, form networks of resistance. If you’re not, form taxpayer advocacy groups. Support state-level political movements that take these options seriously. Build sustainable resistance networks for years, not months.

The German conservatives who said “we can control him” were all dead or fled within two years. We’re just months into our version of this story. The question is: are we going to be the first generation that finds a new way out, or are we going to be another cautionary tale future historians write about?

History is watching. Let’s learn from the past because bending the knee has never stopped fascists.

UPDATE: Since originally publishing this article, several readers raised important historical counterexamples to some claims made here. I wrote a follow-up piece addressing these cases and refining the historical argument: On Democratic Removal of Authoritarians

If you found this article worthwhile, check out my book

America’s Personality Disorder

https://a.co/d/dc0MDA5

References

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Bermeo, N. (2016). On democratic backsliding. Journal of Democracy, 27(1), 5-19. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2016.0012

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Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997).

Preston, P. (1994). Franco: A biography. BasicBooks.

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Thomas, H. (2001). The Spanish Civil War (Rev. ed.). Modern Library.

World Bank. (n.d.). GDP rankings. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD