D.C. is the Test, America is the Target
Here's how you can prepare to resist
This piece is co-written with two nationally-recognized public health experts, Pari & Eve, co-creators of Repro Ready. Subscribe to their newsletter to advance science-based health policy.
Across the country, Americans have been watching the news with horror these last few weeks during Trump’s invasion of the nation’s capital, Washington D.C. The common, nonstop refrain from onlookers has been: why isn’t anyone in D.C. pushing back? Why, in the capital of ‘the free world,’ are people standing by while D.C.’s streets are militarized? WHY ISN’T SOMEONE DOING SOMETHING?
Part of the answer is simple: because it’s terrifying here.
Residents are watching in real time as their Uber Eats drivers are torn off their mopeds, tasered and slammed to the pavement while trying to deliver orders. Neighbors are hauled off for smoking weed on their own stoops—de-criminalized under city law, though laws don’t seem to matter anymore. DHS officials are prowling the Metro during rush hour, stopping commuters at random as if this were East Berlin in 1961.
And now, under Pete Hegseth’s order, the National Guard openly patrols D.C. with loaded weapons, their boots echoing off streets that once staged marches for peace and justice.
It’s not as if this city hasn’t faced moments like this before.
In 1968, after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, D.C. burned; federal troops occupied neighborhoods where the grief was hottest, telling residents their cries for dignity were threats to order.
And in 2020, peaceful demonstrators were gassed and beaten in Lafayette Square so that Trump could wave a Bible upside down for the cameras.
D.C. has always been both symbol and stage, a place where suppressing opposition movements is often disguised by law enforcement as “restoring the peace.”
So when people ask why Mayor Muriel Bowser and the council aren’t shoulder-to-shoulder with their constituents in fighting this takeover, the answer is this: look at history. Local officials have too often bent with the federal wind. And when those closest to power cower, ordinary people feel unprotected, too exposed to risk stepping forward themselves. Exhaustion does the rest.
In a functioning democracy, parents and caretakers, the chronically ill, and the overworked could still gather in protest knowing the risk would not be ruin. That freedom has been stripped away. Trump counts on the fact that threats of arrest, injury, and/or deportation are enough to keep people quiet and his strategy reflects that. He escalates to spread fear and then uses that fear as pretext for a deeper grip.
The stories mount. A man arrested for the simple act of filming police despite the Constitution’s plain promise that this is legal. A trans woman ripped from her car at a checkpoint, disappeared into a Virginia holding cell, her asylum status now dangling by a thread. These both happened in the DMV last weekend and these both are the signals and rehearsals of a slow normalization into the unacceptable.
And if there’s one lesson history teaches, it’s this: what happens in D.C. never stays in D.C.
Just as the Reichstag fire gave cover for Hitler to roll his tactics out across Germany, just as Franco tested his brutality on Madrid before consolidating Spain, this occupation is a pilot program. Trump has already said he will extend it to 19 more states.
What you can do right now
Washington D.C., for all its marble and monuments, is just another city. But cities are where fascism takes root—and where it can be defeated. Paris fell, and Paris was liberated. Warsaw was choked by Nazis, and Warsaw rose. If you are outside D.C., you have the advantage our neighbors here no longer do: you know what’s coming. You can prepare. Here’s how:
Start asking your local and state leaders now how they plan to protect your rights if federal forces show up. You can find your representatives here.
Find out what local organizers are preparing, and how your community plans to mobilize safely. A good place to start is your local ACLU or mutual aid chapter.
Keep an eye out for local resources. Mutual aid organizations, especially those focused on immigration, will set up notification hotlines so that community members can call in check points or highly monitored areas that people should avoid.
Build networks of support so people don’t feel alone when intimidation tactics begin. Are you part of a book club? A church? A running club? The PTA? Deepen your relationships in these existing communities so that you have local folks to lift you up (or bail you out!) when needed. Start a secured, encrypted group chat or call list for emergencies.
Consider your risk tolerance. Local volunteer needs will range from pro bono legal support to tracking ICE check points and literally showing up ahead of the checkpoints with signs warning folks to turnaround. Think about where your skills are best placed to help and what level of risk you’re willing to take on in you support so that you’re ready when the time calls for it.
The militarized takeover of Washington D.C. caught the city by surprise. Don't wait until it's too late to prepare for when it arrives at your doorstep. History is speaking whether we choose to listen is up to us.
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Rebekah Jones is an award-winning and internationally celebrated scientist turned whistleblower currently serving as the lead Climate and Ocean Science Advisor to Project Zero, a UN-backed NGO, and on the advisory board to the Maryland Clean Energy Center. Rebekah studied earth science with a dual major in journalism at Syracuse University for her undergraduate degree, as well as her Master of Science degree at Louisiana State University, and her doctoral studies at Florida State University. Rebekah’s work tracking COVID-19 in Florida earned international praise, and her advocacy for data access and transparency won her Forbes’ Technology Person of the Year and a nomination for Nature’s John Maddox Prize. Rebekah now heads Mesoscale News, an independent science newsletter covering international crises, climate change, natural disasters, politics, and whistleblowing. You can find her on Substack and all the other social media apps, where she’s amassed nearly one million followers and consistently reaches more than 10 million people each month.
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This is excellent info, thanks Rebekah! It's so easy to feel helpless but people should follow your advice so we can build strength in numbers, while that is still possible!