On Saturday, we were one of 1.2 Million people at the Women's March in DC (numbers estimated by the DC Metro Police).  The energy and focus, as well as the general peacefulness and civility, moved us in what was really a day of outrage.  It was matched by marches in 600 communities across the USA -- as well as in cities and places on ALL 7 continents worldwide, including Antarctica!   Unofficial estimates placed the total participation at 2-3 Million.

So, now, our peaceful but determined Resistance begins.  What can we remember to stay focused after the March and two days after Trump evoked darkness in his inauguration?  Here are some suggestions:

1. For years, Trump may have kept a copy of Mein Kampf by his nightstand.  His admiration may tell us how much this book guides him (http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trumps-ex-wife-once-said-he-kept-a-book-of-hitlers-speeches-by-his-bed-2015-8).
2. While it's unlikely that Trump, who speaks like a 4th grade school-yard bully, has ever heard of, much less read, Friedrich Nietzsche, the Ubermensch is his metaphor.  It's his avatar or self-appointed role as the "Great White Father" to save the nation.
3. Building up this myth is his Minister of Propaganda, Steve Bannon, as White House senior counselor for strategy; Breitbart News; and, of course, the Fox Network.
4. To surround this role, Trump has co-opted the Republican Party, the Tea Party (his storm troopers?), large segments of evangelical religion, and displaced workers often in declining industries, like coal, whose fate can be blamed on menacing "others."  Steven Moore, the economist who advises and admires Trump, says Trump has turned the Republicans from Reagan conservatism into a workers party.  Remember:  "National Socialism" (aka Nazism) was originally a right-wing workers party, also built on blaming others.
5. David Brooks, on the other hand, says equating Trumpism with fascism "gets things exactly backward."   Trumpism, in his view, is clownish incompetence (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/opinion/the-internal-invasion.html?_r=0).  But, Brooks has got it wrong.  Trumpism is both.  Whether or not Trump's followers ever march in brown shirts (and we'll see about that), in our "it can't happen here" world, the response will be uniquely America.  But, it's the outlines of fascism and anti-intellectual incompetence, not the forms, which will guide this administration.
6. Finally, there's that other icon of 20th-century authoritarianism, Leon Trotsky.  Trotsky, later assassinated by one of Stalin's henchmen, was a leader of the Russian Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.  But, he is remembered here for coining the phrase "salami tactics" to describe a slow but steady slicing away of the established order, piece by piece, until it's gone; maybe, expunged from memory; and replaced with something new and shiny.  Call it "Make America Great Again."   And, that's why the Resistance must begin now, today, when the cuts seem small before they become normal.

So, choose your cause and dedicate yourself.  One is "Indivisible" (https://www.indivisibleguide.com).  There are others.  But, if we want to "take back our republic" for ourselves, our children, or grandchildren, this has to be our commitment now for the next 4 years.  We know there are at least 1.2 Million of us out there who can join in.