We’re shocked we’re writing this — but here we are…

We are bringing the Choose Democracy band back together.

Four years ago, we prepared and trained tens of thousands about the possibility of a Trump coup. Now we find ourselves wrestling with the question, “What if our country uses the democratic process to pick an autocratic President Trump?”

Like many of you, it’s clear to us that Trump plans to further unwind democratic processes and norms. He’s vowed to radically reinterpret presidential powers so that, like a king, he can direct all cabinets and departments, such as ordering investigations by the Justice Department or stripping the EPA of its authority. This is consistent with the right-wing Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 — the wide-ranging and norm-busting plan with wild policies, like using Schedule F to fire 150,000 nonpartisan government jobs on day 1 and replace them with vetted Trump loyalists.

(If you’re looking for more on this, there are detailed analyses from the American Autocracy Threat Tracker or — our personal favorite — The Authoritarian Playbook for 2025.)

But these days it doesn’t take much vision to see problems — it’s seeing meaningful ways to act that’s the greater challenge. Nobody sensibly prepares for a fire by just reading about how bad fires are.

We saw The Atlantic devote a whole (and largely helpful) issue to Trump’s second term — plenty to worry about. But missing were articles about how people have stymied autocracies or overthrown them when they’ve taken hold. Nothing about strategy for a resistance movement.

The result: it’s easy to feel stuck in denial, overwhelm, or fatalism. That’s when Choose Democracy team found a role we could play to move from that stuckness towards preparation.

Let’s be very clear: the best way to avoid the worst case is by avoiding the worst case. By all means, the first priority is to do what you can to keep Trump from being voted in.

What we’re offering are resources we hope will help us collectively create “break glass in case of emergency” backup plans.

Our Offerings: Coming Soon!

Currently, we are working on three sets of resources (we’ll email them out when they’re ready!):

1. Scenario-planning tools for organizations

We’ve run several scenario exercises. We’re turning these into tools for groups to help them think through, “How will we respond if Trump does get elected?”

Primarily, we’re thinking about small and mid-sized groups who want to help move their group out of denial (a wise idea) and out of being stuck in reactionary mode (another wise idea) — to get us more psychologically prepared for what’s ahead.

2. Story-telling from people who have fought dictators

If we end up with an autocrat in office, that’s not the end of US history. The work continues. We must continue protesting and change work.

But we have to adapt how we protest and make change in our practices. The goals and strategy shift under an autocratic regime.

We’re preparing interviews and articles about lessons learned for all of us from people in other parts of the globe.

3. “What if Trump Wins”: a choose-your-own-journey style of book and website

As you read the story of 2025 and beyond, you get to choose how you think things might play out — and we’ll walk through some different scenarios for how your choices might impact the way things unfold. Unlike other resources we’ve seen, our focus is on different paths of resistance — different strategies that have proven to work against autocracies and their ilk.

We’re going to release this on our website in a couple of weeks. But if you want to help us out with the cost of production, we’d sure appreciate it. You can pre-order books and get early access by donating to our IndieGoGo campaign.

An Honest Admission

We are tired. Most of the team has personal drama: children to take care of, deaths in our circles, sickness, getting older… To some degree, it’s life stages (parenting! aging!). But we’re well aware that it’s also a theme of these times.

Our little team is not operating with an attitude of “let’s throw ourselves all in — do it all — push through at all costs.” That’s a sprint attitude.

This big-D democracy task — whether Trump or Biden or whoever — is a marathon. It requires us to be honest with what’s in our tank, move in a way that protects our motivation, and align our work with our capacity so we aren’t forcing our bodies into contortions every day “because it’s the right thing to do.” There is plenty of work to be done — so we encourage everyone to find what matches their energy, strengths, and good strategy.

We are a tiny group of just a few souls. We’re putting out these offerings hoping they can get picked up and used — knowing others have to play their parts, too. We’re looking for organizers to play connective tissue and social media gurus to help promote the materials (if you have that energy, please let us know!).

We hope this finds you well and well-supported in these times. Because as always, the future isn’t written. We get to co-create it together.

Warmly,

– Daniel Hunter, George Lakey, Sam Caldwell, Jennifer Marienau, Katey Lauer, and Elizabeth Baier (The Choose Democracy Team)