7 Actionable Ways You Can Fight Fascism (Without Burning Out)

We are living through a moment where staying present takes real effort. Most of us are carrying fear, fatigue, anger, and grief all at once. We’re watching hard-won rights get rolled back, day by day, escalating attacks on trans and queer communities, state violence that keeps being reframed as policy, and economic pressure that makes even rest feel risky. 

The news doesn’t end, and neither does the demand to respond. Staying informed is exhausting, but not being engaged feels unethical. The stakes are high, the urgency is constant, and it can feel like the ground keeps shifting before we’ve had a chance to stand.

Activist Lessons We’re Focusing on Right Now

We normally try to break up our political blogs with lighter content. But the last few weeks, we’ve really wanted to write stuff that’s useful and actionable. So we started with our foundation:

Blog 1: Rest is essential.

The strategy right now is to overwhelm and exhaust us, and it’s working. We’re watching people topple like dominoes into burnout. Rest is infrastructure, and you can’t help when you have nothing left. Make sure that you’re taking breaks, caring for yourself, and finding joy where you can. 

Blog 2: Organize locally.

We don’t stop at self-care; we need to organize as communities. We broke down “pod theory” by Mia Mingus to give you actionable steps to create local systems that will help you feel supported and safe. “Pods”, small and trusted networks of care and support, are how people endure long emergencies and come out the other side with their humanity intact.

Now we’re here. Because self-care and local connection are not the end goal. They are the foundation we build from.

This is usually where the question surfaces, quietly or out loud:
 Okay, but what do I actually do?

So here are some of the lessons we’ve been hearing from activists on the front lines about what’s working, and what we can all do to support. If you're seeing more functional ideas and solutions in your local communities, please leave them in the comments. This is the part where we need to be building those connections and moving together.

Solution 1: Mutual Aid Is the Backbone of Resistance

Mutual aid is often framed as something you do after the “real work” is done, a kind gesture reserved for moments of calm or surplus. It gets positioned as emotional labor, volunteerism, or goodwill, rather than a survival strategy. This framing makes it easier deprioritize, especially when things get hard. 

But in reality, mutual aid is what people turn to when institutions abandon or actively cause harm. Treating it as optional just obscures how much of our collective survival already depends on it. Because let’s be honest- our institutions fail us CONSTANTLY. But there are so many good people out there in the world who actually want to support their community.

What is Mutual Aid?

Charity flows one way and keeps power intact. Mutual aid moves sideways. It’s built on the understanding that we take care of each other because the systems we’re told to rely on were never designed to keep all of us safe. The goal of it is to give people immediate access to what they need to survive, without moral tests, paperwork, or waiting periods that cost lives.

Mutual aid is concrete action when and where it’s needed. Things like people organizing food, medication, and supplies when prices spike, or access is cut off. It looks like neighbors checking in on each other when it no longer feels safe to leave the house. It looks like rides to appointments, childcare during emergencies, housing support, and quiet cash transfers that fill the gaps no institution will touch.

It also looks like rapid-response support for people being targeted right now. Immigrants navigating heightened enforcement. Trans people facing healthcare barriers and public hostility. Queer youth who are being pushed out of homes and schools. Elders who are isolated, under-resourced, and often forgotten.

Ways You Can Participate in Mutual Aid

• Join or support a local mutual aid group that distributes food, medication, supplies, or emergency funds

• Check in on neighbors who are isolated, immunocompromised, elderly, or those afraid to leave their homes

• Share resources directly, rides, groceries, childcare, housing leads, or cash, without gatekeeping or conditions

• Volunteer skills you already have: organizing, admin help, translation, tech support, sewing, cooking, or logistics

• Help coordinate rapid-response support for people being targeted, including trans people, immigrants, queer youth, and undocumented community members

• Contribute to bail funds, medical funds, gender-affirming care funds, or community emergency funds

• Offer space, whether that’s a spare room, a meeting place, a storage closet, or a quiet place to land

• Help create or maintain safe spaces and resource hubs where people can access what they need without scrutiny

• Amplify calls for help and resource lists within your networks, so support moves faster

• Ask your community what they actually need, then listen and respond

Mutual aid matters because it responds to what’s happening now and meets people where they actually are, not where systems wish they were. It creates safety in real time, builds trust where institutions have failed, and reminds us that survival is something we do together. In moments like this, when harm moves faster than policy and relief is uneven at best, mutual aid is how people stay alive and connected.

If you want to find institutions in your area to support or receive aid from, please check our giant resource lists of trans and queer community groups.

Trans and Queer resources for the USA

Trans and Queer resources for Canada

Solution #2: Local and Direct Action Are Essential

When things feel this big, it’s easy to get stuck staring at the national picture. Executive orders. Court rulings. Elections that feel distant, opaque, and largely out of our control. The scale alone can be paralyzing.

But fascism doesn’t just move from the top down. It takes hold locally. And that means resistance can too. Local action matters because it’s tangible and it’s harder to erase. When you organize where you live instead of shouting into the void, you’re shaping the conditions of your own daily life and the lives of the people around you.

Why Local Action Is So Powerful

Local actions are harder to suppress because they’re decentralized. There’s no single leader to silence, no one switch to flip that makes it disappear. When people are acting across neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, and mutual aid networks, power becomes diffused, and that makes it resilient.

Local action is also easier to sustain. You don’t need constant adrenaline or viral momentum to show up for something that’s woven into your actual life. And maybe most importantly, local action directly affects people’s daily realities. It turns fear into movement and isolation into collective presence.

Concrete Ways to Take Local, Direct Action

Direct action doesn’t look the same everywhere, and it shouldn’t. What matters is choosing actions that align with your capacity, your safety, and your context.

Some examples include:

• Participating in strikes, walkouts, sit-ins, or boycotts when it is safe and strategic to do so
  

• Boycotting corporations and organizations that are actively funding, lobbying for, or enabling authoritarian and fascist harm
  

• Removing fascist or hate-based propaganda from public spaces and replacing it with messages of care, resistance, and solidarity
  

• Showing up to defend public spaces and affected individuals through rallies, vigils, protests, and community gatherings
  

• Supporting workers, students, or organizers in your area who are already leading actions, rather than reinventing the wheel
  

These actions don’t need to be flashy to be effective. They just need to be consistent and coordinated. 

Safety and Strategy Matter

None of this work is meant to be done alone. Direct action is safer and more effective when it’s done with your pods, and acting together allows you to share risk, look out for one another, and respond if things escalate.

Working together matters. So does organization. Knowing what you’re showing up for and how it will help, what roles people are taking on, and what the plan is if something goes wrong. There is no single “right” way to resist. But there are ways to resist that are sustainable, and local action gives us a way to move without burning ourselves out or disappearing into abstraction.

Solution #3: Political Pressure Still Matters (Especially Locally)

It’s understandable if the word politics makes you want to shut down right now. Many of our institutions have failed us. Many are actively causing harm. And too often, participation is framed as faith: be patient, wait your turn, “checks and balances,” blah blah blah.

That’s not what we’re talking about here. Political engagement isn’t about believing institutions are good. It’s about remembering that power still flows through them, and that pressure can change how that power gets used, especially at the local level.

Holding Leaders Accountable

Elected officials are not monarchs. They are employees. They work for the public, whether they act like it or not. Calling, emailing, showing up to town halls, signing collective letters, these are not meaningless gestures. They create records. They force positions into the open. They make it harder for harm to happen quietly.

Personal stories matter here. Data is easy to dismiss. Lived experience is harder to ignore. When officials hear directly from the people their decisions affect (like trans people, immigrants, parents, workers, elders, etc.), it becomes more difficult to pretend those harms are abstract or theoretical. Tell your elected officials exactly how their decisions are harming you and your community, with honesty, clarity, and REPETITION. Pressure works when it’s sustained.

Concrete Ways To Apply Political Pressure

Applying pressure doesn’t have to be dramatic. Small, consistent actions at the local level add up. Here are concrete ways you can hold power accountable right now:

• Call or email local, state, and federal representatives regularly, not just once
  

• Attend town halls, council meetings, and school board meetings to ask public, on‑record questions
  

• Submit written comments during public consultation periods and encourage others to do the same
  

• Share personal stories that show the real impact of policies on your life and community
  

• Sign and help circulate collective letters, petitions, and open statements
  

• Request meetings with representatives or their staff as a group, not alone
  

• Support or defend local officials, teachers, librarians, and healthcare workers facing harassment or retaliation
  

• Become a poll worker or provide material and emotional support to election workers
  

• Track how representatives vote and communicate that information within your networks
  

• Apply economic pressure through coordinated boycotts or divestment campaigns tied to specific demands
  

• Support local candidates and initiatives aligned with harm reduction and protection, with time, skills, or funds
  

• Document and publicly challenge misinformation, discriminatory proposals, or procedural abuses when they arise

Why Political Pressure Still Matters

Local political pressure is how sanctuary policies are passed. It’s how school boards are challenged. It’s how healthcare access is protected or expanded. These wins may seem small, but they create real, material safety for people who are already vulnerable.

Accountability doesn’t stop authoritarianism on its own. But it slows it down. It creates friction. It buys time. And in moments like this, time matters. When applied locally, collectively, and persistently, it remains one of the tools we have to protect each other while we keep building what comes next.

Solution #4: Counter Disinformation

We’re well aware that the fight right now isn’t just in the streets, it’s also with the giant propaganda machine. The digital space has become a battlefield, and how deal with information matters. It can feel overwhelming because we’re combating a trillion-dollar misinformation campaign.

Unfortunately, we don’t have trillions of dollars to help spread understanding and care, but what we can do is start in the spaces that are intertwined in our lives. Many of those closest to us, friends, family, or the people we work with, may believe some of the harmful rhetoric that encourages prejudice and harmful policy. 

How To Have a Conversation About Misinformation

Having open and caring conversations with the people around you (if it’s safe and you have the capacity to do it with compassion) is a great place to start. Here are some tips for how to have a conversation to combat misinformation:

1. Verify First- Before you start the conversation, first make sure how and why the info is false using fact-check sites.

2. Pick a Safe Space- Talk privately (and ideally in person) so your loved one feels safe, not cornered.

3. Listen and Ask Questions- Understand why they believe it before offering corrections.

4. Lead With Empathy- Say things like, “I see why this feels concerning,” or, “I understand where you’re coming from,” to build trust.

5. Share Credible Sources- Gently show why a source is reliable, how you thought critically about the issue, and what to watch for in any news.

6. Avoid Shaming- Focus on the info, not the person. Ridicule shuts down conversation.

7. Encourage Critical Thinking- Ask, “Who is the source? How can this be verified?” to help them evaluate for themselves.

8. Be Patient- Beliefs don’t change overnight. Keep the door open for future conversations.

Check Your Own Online Behaviour

It’s very easy to get caught up in fighting online. But not every lie needs to be discounted with a megaphone. Share verified information thoughtfully, in spaces where it will actually reach people who are listening. Correct falsehoods when it’s safe and constructive, like in conversations with friends, in trusted community channels, or through social media posts that focus on clarity over confrontation. The goal isn’t to win every argument; it’s to slow the spread of harm and keep truth in circulation.

Reacting to every provocation, every troll, and every propaganda push only feeds the machine. Outrage can be addictive, but it’s not a strategy. Instead, move deliberately, protect your energy, and focus on the actions that actually create clear conversations and propaganda resistance.

Solution #5: Don’t React- Organize

It’s easy to feel like every provocation, every hateful post, every outrageous news story demands an immediate response. But here’s the hard truth: reactivity feeds fascism. When we respond to every bait, we expend energy on chaos, amplify the very voices we oppose, and fragment the movements that could actually stop authoritarian power.

Reactivity is exactly what fascism counts on. Every outrage, every viral argument, every impulsive post becomes a tool for those who want to divide us. When we respond in anger or panic, we hand the narrative and our energy to the very systems we’re trying to resist. 

Reactivity splinters movements, distracts from strategic goals, and makes it easier for authoritarian forces to paint us as chaotic or unreasonable. The antidote isn’t ignoring injustice, it’s deliberate, coordinated action, rooted in community and purpose, that moves the needle without feeding the machine.

So here’s what that means for us now: focus on the single, essential goal- defeating authoritarianism. Disagreement on tactics, priorities, or messaging is inevitable. But letting those disagreements fragment your community is fatal.

The movement we need is broad, democratic, and includes people across race, class, and background, all working together to push back against authoritarianism. This is the kind of strategic discipline that transforms anger into action.

So what this means is we go back to our first actionable solutions when we start to splinter, infight, or yell at trolls on the internet:

• We make sure we’re caring for our mental health and physical safety

• We organize with our local pods and support each other in tangible ways

• We offer mutual aid in whatever ways are available to us

• We take local and direct action

• We apply political pressure

• We compassionately work to counter disinformation

• And we compassionately work to connect with people who have different strategies for resistance with understanding and care. 

Solution #6- Targeted Consistency is Key

History keeps showing us the same truth: victories are fragile if we don’t stay consistent. Throughout history, progress was won when people were motivated to fight for it, but then lost because attention wavered, divisions emerged, and programs meant to empower communities fizzled when allies stopped showing up. 

The United States has already had one civil war to fight racism and abolish the slavery of Black Americans. That war was “won,” and during Reconstruction, a broad coalition of Black communities, abolitionists, and Radical Republicans briefly reshaped society, with a massive push towards equality. 

But it collapsed when solidarity and commitment faltered. Shortly after a massive push, white Americans and northern politicians turned their attention elsewhere, considering the problem “solved.” And then freed Slaves experienced massive repercussions for the war with backlash and violence, which made many of their quality of life worse than before. 

Likewise, the Civil Rights Movement won historic victories, but it also left important lessons for us today. Legal segregation was dismantled, and voting rights expanded, but economic justice lagged behind, leaving deep inequities in housing, jobs, and wealth. 

Factional fights and strategy debates sometimes splintered the movement, showing us that disunity can be as dangerous as the opposition. And dwindling attention for the movement meant the many programs that could have empowered communities were short-lived, and as soon as attention lagged, they dropped off.  

We Need To Move Away From Activism For The Sake of Feeling Better

The takeaway for us today is that movements need to be organized, CONSISTENT, and not just take our attention during the moments that we’re riled up about it. We can’t just protest when we’re upset to make ourselves feel better about a systemic problem. 

Aesthetic or “fashionable” activism prioritizes visibility and social approval over strategy and results, turning political engagement into a performance rather than a tool for change. While broad participation can increase visibility, activism without clear goals, policy knowledge, or follow-through ultimately weakens movements by making demands vague, easy to dismiss, and simple for politicians to co-opt with hollow reforms. 

Ways to Create Meaningful Long-term Change

So here are some ways to achieve effective and actionable change:

• Define a specific goal
  Name the policy, practice, or material condition you are trying to change. If you can’t measure it, you can’t win it.
  

• Build power, not just awareness
  Awareness doesn’t move institutions. Organized people, money, votes, and sustained pressure do.
  

• Commit to consistency over intensity
  Small actions done weekly outperform big bursts done once. Show up even when it’s boring.
  

• Anchor work locally
  Local wins are faster, stickier, and easier to defend. Start where decisions are actually made.
  

• Create clear roles and pathways
  People stay when they know what to do next and feel effective. Avoid burnout by sharing responsibility.
  

• Invest in relationships
  Movements survive on trust. Talk to people more than you post. Build pods, teams, and mutual accountability.
  

• Pair political demands with material support
  Meet people’s real needs through mutual aid while fighting for structural change.
  

• Stay disciplined in messaging
  Say the same clear thing over and over. Don’t let outrage, infighting, or trends derail strategy. Let people with different strategies or focus points co-exist. All our views and ways of working are needed.
  

• Learn, adapt, and document
  Evaluate what works, adjust tactics, and pass knowledge forward so momentum isn’t lost.
  

• Protect organizers and sustain the work
  Normalize rest, safety, and mutual care. A burned-out movement can’t win.

You Don’t Have to Do Everything

If you’ve made it this far and you’re feeling overwhelmed, here’s the most important thing to know: This moment doesn’t require you to do everything. It asks you to do something, and to do it with others, however you are able. 

Choose one lane that fits your capacity right now: mutual aid, local and direct action, political pressure, or information defense. You don’t need to master all of them. Tag-team the work. Take breaks. Burnout is not a badge of honor; it’s what authoritarian systems rely on. 

Sustainable resistance looks like people sharing the load, stepping back when needed, and trusting that someone else will step forward. 

Thanks For Being Here

We know it’s scary times out there. We’re scared too. But at Origami Customs, we are rooted in a mutual aid framework because we believe we’re in this together, and we’re doing whatever we can to help. Hopefully, this blog was helpful to some of you, and again, if you have effective solutions that we didn’t mention, please continue the conversation in the comments.

If you’re looking for ways to help the gender diverse and trans community right now, our mutual aid community program could always use your support. Every dollar donated goes directly to giving free gender-affirming compression garments to people who have limited access.

However you choose to engage right now, know that you’re not alone. There are so many amazing people fighting for what is right. We’re in this together.