Democracy, But Make It a Horror Movie
A Halloween special where hunger stalks the suburbs and history repeats, again.
Monday Through Thursday.
What You Might Have Missed.
Monday: We published the survival guide no one should need, Depression-era recipes, food bank resources, bartering strategies. Because the USDA announced it won’t tap the $5 billion contingency fund to cover November SNAP benefits, citing “legal restrictions.”
Click Here to Read: 42 Million At Risk Your Survival Toolkit
Tuesday: We showed why everyone should care about SNAP cuts, not just recipients. For every $1 billion cut, the economy loses $1.54 billion and 13,560 jobs disappear. Grocery stores bleed revenue and small businesses close. This is economic warfare. Click Here to Read: The $40 Billion Choice Argentina vs. Your Economy
Wednesday: The Trump administration replaced 12 ICE field office directors and half the agency’s leadership with Border Patrol officials. ICE’s 900 daily arrests weren’t enough. They want 3,000. Border Patrol, with Black Hawk helicopters and tear gas, is now running domestic enforcement.
Read: They’re Turning Police Into a Paramilitary Force
Thursday: We asked you to consider setting up two bowls on Halloween. One for candy and one for pantry staples. Resistance looks like neighbors feeding neighbors when our government chooses to let people starve.
Read: When Candy Bowls Overflow but Pantries Run Empty
The Authoritarian Playbook
A Five-Act Tragedy We’ve Seen Before
This is a pattern. These are coordinated tactics from a playbook that’s worked in Argentina, Mexico, Peru, and dozens of other countries before democracy died.
Tactic 1: Manufacture Crisis
Refuse to use the contingency fund to create suffering.
Blame “legal restrictions.” Keep people too desperate to organize.
Tactic 2: Demonstrate Arbitrary Power
Show that rules don’t matter. $5 billion is “impossible” for Americans. $40 billion materializes for Argentina. The message they are sending us: power decides everything.
Tactic 3: Militarize Domestic Control
Replace career law enforcement with paramilitary forces loyal to the executive. Normalize aggressive tactics to make protests dangerous.
Tactic 4: Scapegoat the Vulnerable
Blame immigrants while creating conditions that hurt everyone. Keep citizens angry at “invaders” instead of oligarchs.
Tactic 5: Normalize the Unthinkable
This happens slowly. Slice democracy away one piece at a time, until people forget what democracy feels like.
Have something you’d like to say? Let us know in the comments!
When History Screams and No One Listens
Hannah Arendt called it “systematized arbitrariness”. This makes the rule so unpredictable that citizens become paralyzed, unable to resist because they never know what’s coming next.
1970s Argentina: Military crept into domestic policing to “fight subversion.” The Dirty War followed. 30,000 disappeared.
2006 Mexico: Military sent into cities for “war on drugs.” Every woman detained by soldiers reported sexual assault.
1990s Peru: Military took over enforcement. Thousands killed in the name of “public security.”
The pattern: Crisis → “Weak” civilian enforcement → Military deployment → Erosion of rights → Normalized violence → Democracy dies.
We’re not there yet but we see the patterns.
How We Fill the Gaps They Created
Authoritarian tactics work when people feel isolated and powerless. They fail when communities organize.
This Week:
✅ Share survival resources - Such as: Food bank resources
✅ Check on your neighbors - Elderly, single parents, disabled and veterans
✅ Document everything you see - Photograph store changes, food bank lines, enforcement activity
This Month:
Call your representatives
Script: “I’m calling to ask how we are supporting our community through the shutdown and what actions are we going to take? Thank you.”
Find your rep
Build mutual aid
Food swaps, skill exchanges, tool libraries, little Free Pantries and community fridges are all excellent ways to build mutual aid.
Start a Community Fridge
Join organized resistance
Find your 50501 chapter | Join Discord | Get Action Guide
Why We’ll Win (Eventually)
They have the institutions but we have each other.
This is the machinery of authoritarianism operating NOW. But it also showed us the power of community response. Survival guides being shared across social media, mutual aid in communities everywhere, and pattern recognition awareness through educational history.
Democracy is what we build in our neighborhoods.
When neighbors form human chains to protect each other during ICE raids, that’s democracy.
When porches have two bowls and food banks overflow with donations, that’s democracy.
When 80,000 people read these posts and refuse to give up, that’s also democracy.
Stop waiting for the government to save us, we have to save each other.
What Gives You Hope?
Tonight for Halloween, many of our 50501 activists will set up two bowls.
Some neighborhoods will overflow with candy and decorations. Others will look exactly the same but the parents handing out treats are doing math in their heads, to try to find out what November 1st will mean to them when SNAP benefits don’t arrive.
America in 2025: The same kids will trick-or-treat tonight. By next week, some of their parents will be choosing between rent and food.
Those of you learning about and getting involved in mutual aid, thank you. You’re building the safety net before people fall through it.
That’s the difference between reactive charity and organized mutual aid.
What’s one action you’re committing to this week?
Write it below, accountability helps us follow through.
The 50501 Movement Substack: 50 states, 50 protests, 1 movement.
We stand together in solidarity under a banner of Inclusivity, Non-Violence, and Collective Action. Thank you for reading!
THIS WEEK’S POSTS:
Although this is not a 50501 Hosted Event, please consider joining the Removal Coalition in going to DC on 11/22
RESOURCES:
50501 Chapters | Discord | Action Guide | Food Banks | Call 211
Last night I listened to a podcast about the dismantling of the federal reserve in 2026. Trump is planning to replace Powell with a Project 2025 economist, who is a loyal Trumpster ready and willing to throw our economy in total disarray. We should all pay close attention to his plan for our economy: tank it even more and leave the people with nothing. His name is Stephen Miran and he is a real creep, highly educated and another advocate of dismantling our government.
Excellent content!