Prepare for Martial Law.

Near the end of the Cold War I read an editorial cartoon that depicted a group of people running away from the Kremlin towards the word DEMOCRACY and another group of people running away from the White House towards the words POLICE STATE. I don't recall what was going on at the time that led to the artist depicting that perspective in 1989, but thirty-seven years we're living that prediction.

Now, you might look around and nothing looks different but our there are Americans living under martial law-like conditions in pockets around the country. Watch the videos coming out of Minneapolis and Los Angeles—more cities to come—and tell me different.

The federal gestapo is going door-to-door looking for people to incarcerate without cause. The leader of our country who swore an oath to protect the Constitution is ignoring it and actively threatening to tear it apart. Meanwhile police are using data from cameras and data collection devices to charge people with crimes they did not commit. And let's not forget all of the other data mining and gleaning activities the government has been engaged in under the guise of national security since 9/11. Compounding the problem are the tech companies like Google and Meta that are monitoring all of our online activity to routinely update their profiles of us and who knows what they are sharing or the government is simply taking from those efforts.

Make no mistake, the United States is a police state. Somewhat manageable with the right people at the top but with a wannabe dictator in power, we are ideologically not much different from the Soviet Union we battled for so many decades to stop. And I don't see anyone talking about this but he's just as old as the old Soviet premiers that we used to mock back in the 70s and 80s. Honestly, what are we doing here? So many lives lost of seemingly no reason at all now. What was the point if we have just ended up becoming a different version of the enemy we sacficed hundreds of thousands of lives to depose?

As things are quickly escalating out of control, I started looking for ideas on how to prepare for the next level. I came across this response to a thread on Reddit on what we should do to prepare for living under martial law:

Martial law means military displaces civilian authorities and exercises jurisdiction over people in some place for some time.

Martial law in the US would be similar either to some of the more draconian lock downs or to some of the recent instances of national guards sent into cities or the Biden's securing of DC after his inauguration.

Hallmarks could include:

Military control of specific zones, potentially including ongoing aerial surveillance by drones and hard access controls like road closures and barricades.

Movement controls like curfews, random stops/searches, check points/travel permits and other road access controls.

Direct military policing, high visibility patrols/presence.

Limits on assembly and other civic activity including tightened restrictions on protests/gatherings and social media monitoring.

Replacement or sidelining of civilian institutions.

While I think it's highly unlikely, prepping for martial law is ultimately easier than prepping for civil unrest, because there will be systems, stated goals/rules, and order (rather than chaos at the whimsy of crowds).

Martial law doesn't want to shut down the economy or starve you, so life would continue largely as normal if you aren't breaking the law or being suspicious. Be prepared to follow the rules and minimize life outside your home.

A lot of the advice I found in the Reddit thread could be simplified as stockpile and shelter in place. But the fallacy of this advice is in this line:

"Life would continue largely as normal if you aren't breaking the law or being suspicious."

This is wrong. Dead wrong.

Tell that to the Jackson family who were hospitalized after ICE agents threw flashbang and tear gas grenades at their SUV as they tried to leave a protest zone in Minneapolis. They weren't protesters. They were driving home from their oldest child's basketball game. They didn't even know protests were happening. When ICE agents screamed at them to leave, they said they would—if the agents moved away from their car. The agents didn't move. Instead, they rolled a tear gas bomb under the vehicle. The blast set off all the airbags. Their 6-month-old baby stopped breathing. Community members had to pour milk on the children and coach Destiny through performing CPR on her infant while Shawn begged ICE agents to call an ambulance. 

The agents refused for five minutes! A baby was dying and the Nazis gave zero fucks. Three children were hospitalized. All this because the family was just trying to go home.

We are so far from normal. We aren't living in unprecedented times—as the press likes to remind us time and time again—we're living in absolutely fucked up times. And it's all going according to plan.

Project 2025—the Heritage Foundation's playbook currently being implemented—explicitly includes plans to invoke the Insurrection Act for domestic law enforcement. Within 90 days of last year's inauguration, the administration ordered reports on invoking it. Federal troops have been deployed to California. Washington DC is under federal control. The administration has weaponized the word "insurrection" itself, applying it to court rulings that block military deployments, protests against ICE raids, and Democratic politicians who resist federal overreach.

As you might know, Trump is threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act in Minneapolis, framing judicial oversight as obstruction and protests as terrorism. Read that again: the president has framed constitutional rights and judicial oversight as terrorism. The infrastructure for sustained military presence in civilian life is being normalized right now. If we let this keep going we're going to be living Red Dawn soon.

Organized citizens are the ultimate threat to authoritarian regimes, and that is what we should be preparing for. Now is not the time to horde and hide but to be out in the open. Whether that's marching in demonstration or making signs for demonstrators. Rallying groups by bullhorn or posting to a blog. There are many jobs to be done in a resistance effort that do not require wearing a gas mask or the potential for physical harm.

However, there is one common activity we all need to do and that is to know your neighbors now. The people living to the left, right, across, and behind you. Get to know one another as humans and learn how you might need support one another if and when our freedoms are further torn away for who knows how long. Remember, organized citizens are the ultimate weapon against authoritarian regimes

This might sound paranoid but we're only two weeks into this new year and, I don't know about you, but it feels like we're already in March. Too many things are happening too quickly and the chaos is happening by design. There are highly organized forces that are doing everything they can to keep us all dizzy and confused.

Get to know your neighbors. Plan routine check-ins with them and regular check-ins with your family, friends, colleagues. Should nothing further happen you and I will still benefit from being more connected, more human-centered. And maybe, just maybe, we can begin a return to democratic governance where actual freedoms are protected rather than systematically dismantled.

The preparation isn't stockpiles. It's refusing to isolate. It's happening now.