​If you’ve seen some of my posts on Twitter this morning, you’ll know that I discount the idea of a totalitarian state apparatus squeezing us all to death as average Americans all knuckle down under the fear of being marginalized. I fear this too, however, I do not see this as an end state. (Please note I don’t entirely disagree, but I don’t think we’re headed for this perpetually as a 1984 style world or forever).
 
Why? First of all because Americans are too independent and we have a culture rooted in resistance against this kind of thing. Our culture actively celebrates and prepares for rebellion against tyranny. Even with leftward shifts among city folks and the third world immigrants who would do anything to eat, there are too many people in this country who won’t comply, even if it means death.
 
There are enough willing resistors who would break our already fragile system if true tyranny tried to squeeze. What I see is an already brittle and polarized society becoming dysfunctional. I don’t see much capacity for our system to become much more totalitarian without breaking. We cannot assume that because the average American now is soft and weak that they will gladly allow this shitshow to get worse because they love Netflix so much.
 
For resistance in modern times, I point to the unarmed farmers in the Netherlands pushing back. The trucker protest in Canada. Average French people rioting Antifa-style over welfare. And we haven’t even seen freezing Europeans this winter flip out on their governments for virtue signaling over Ukraine!
 
The resistance becomes a duel of who can outlast the other and what damage is done in the process. If the trucks and food stops coming, cities riot. You can’t train truck drivers and reap idle fields overnight. The carrot and stick approach of “just give us the guns and let the teachers brainwash & rape your children and you can have some food and Netflix” only works if you can carry it out.
 
The idea that Soviet style tyranny will just gradually happen one day is predicated on the idea that we all go blindly into the cattle chute. We won’t. The ones that push back will, God willing, break the system. In short, there aren’t enough dedicated cops who will stick around and defend that kind of thing or make it possible. Once our complex modern system (government, logistics, and financial) breaks, so do the bonds of red flag orders, no credit, no welfare, etc.
 
Pockets of tyranny and freedom will exist. There will be plenty of people who will go along with the government at any cost, even if betrays how they feel, to east, just like there will be someone shit posting a comment about how most people are cowards and will comply, etc.
 
 If New York can keep its cops fed and compliant (the stick) it can dangle the carrot of Netflix, heating in the winter, and open food stores to the public who goes along with it all. In much of America, resistance to tyranny will be active or impossible.
 
These nightmarish fantasies of living in a perpetual state of gun confiscations, cut-off credit cards, and your child being taken away to live with tranny foster parents because they drew a gun at school can’t exist forever. Americans aren’t going to sit and take it, even if stopping it means a self-destructive end in the process.
 
What scares me is the phase I believe we currently entered; when repression is manageable. We’re comfortable enough not to resist to not desperate enough to make the necessary sacrifices. Thomas Jefferson called this bit of human nature perfectly. We are in the gaslighting stage where the normies, the brainwashed leftists/liberals, and the stupid FoxNews boomers thing everything is nothing more than just 1970s weird.
 
I see a period of manageable tyranny where they CAN do the things predicted in some of the tweets, like gun confiscation and financial un-personing. Weak people will surrender to this but those people are not going to make it when the SHTF. This is the scary part, like being a Jew during Hitler’s rise to power. They can repress you at will and going weapons free is not a plausible defense yet.
 
This is the period where we suffer in silence, keep our heads down, and wait for things to break. It’ll be some psycho, probably, that gets the ball rolling on whatever beast is slouching in our direction. This is the dangerous part when the state is functionally normally enough to be weaponized against us. This is when we must be most wary. I just don’t see this phase lasting for long or forever.
 
My predictions: things continue to get gradually worse until after the 2024 election.  In 2025, the Democrats are in control and go full retard. The glove starts to really squeeze at that point, but the economy and national mood is so poor that people aren’t having it. The dam breaks, we have a Fort Sumter moment, and it’s on. A short period of tyranny to get control, but that worsens the problem, and then suddenly you’ve got your SHTF wish.
 
I see a “do as we say or starve” situation coming as the solution to SHTF. A powerful guy promises safety and food in exchange for peace and obedience. Then all the scary stuff can happen when people are so tired of war, but unwilling to fix stuff themselves, that they cave. And they turn on anyone who wants freedom. Some of you heathens see this as an American Caesar, but I see this as the Antichrist who can bring his end-times religion (Islam) together with what he promises to smother everybody. But it all has to break first.
 
So the bad times are just beginning, but tyranny will go away, but only as the really bad times of SHTF/collapse happen. And if I’m wrong?
 
PS: I see Dems winning 2024 (not honestly) because of massive fraud or an 1860 election situation occurs where Republicans basically sit it out because the system is illegitimate at that point and essentially cede the election to the left. If Trump gets arrested in October 2024, you really think people are going to vote for the emergency Mitt Romney GOP ringer candidate? The left then sees their “win” and the conservative non-participation as a victorious mandate rather than a big caution flag. They go hard and stupid and as a result the system breaks as above.
 
PPS: In 1860, there was a four-way split ballot. Lincoln wasn’t even on the ballot in many Southern states. Much of the South did not consider Lincoln to be legitimately elected.

​Jack Lawson’s Civil Defense Manual
 
I had a chance to peruse Mr. Lawson’s book this weekend at a friend’s house. This is a comprehensive and universal disaster survival manual. This reminds me of the big go-to cookbooks that everybody used to have that tells you how to cook anything. No exhaustive details on a particular cuisine, but enough for you to pull off a big dinner with great results.
 
The CDM covers pretty much every emergency scenario you could imagine happening in reality. This is the book that you keep around for when the low probability emergency (that you didn’t prepare for) which suddenly becomes high probability. I would highly recommend it as a gift to less apocalyptically inclined family members. Yes, on Christmas morning they’ll probably flip through it with some mild curiosity and then shelve it, but when SHTF they are going to go straight to it.
 
Now we can’t help people who won’t read this stuff beforehand and prepare proactively, but the way Lawson wrote is book could help people who are ready to listen. He serves everything up to the willing ear with a persuasive argument. I call this “why you should care.” The chapters are written in a friendly and relatable manner. Historical and personal anecdotes are includes which personalize the danger, the need for concern, and that preparation can be achievable.
 
You can see this from the excepts published on American Partisan. Lawson doesn’t overwhelm people, which may scare them, nor does he bash people over the head with an info dump. The tone is positive, i.e. making someone want to survive instead of becoming frightened, apathetic, and hopeless.
 
So keep a copy around for when “I didn’t think that could happen here” happens and give a copy to your clueless friends and relatives.
 
Joe Dolio’s Tactical Wisdom series (TW-#)
 
These series of books are essentially field manuals for the civilian who expects a need to operate in a tactical or combat manner. In other words, how to move and fight like a soldier or Marine. The way this information is presented is easily relatable and clear. It literally is like an instruction manual. Editions cover both urban and rural combat.
 
What I enjoyed most is the manuals were not oriented towards prior combat arms and seem to have come from a line infantry vs. special forces perspective. Even a green civilian with little tactical sense could be well educated in the principles of not dying and making the other guy die. If you want to know how to patrol in a military fashion after SHTF, these are the manuals.
 
Third, there is no fluff. Actual field manuals are often less instruction books than they are definitions of policy and doctrine. If you want a “how to” book, this series is it. If you enjoyed the Ranger manual because it covers everything and gets to the point, you’ll enjoy Dolio’s series. I particularly liked his interactions with Antifa while undercover. In future editions of my own urban combat non-fiction works, I will be including a reference to these books for those who need tactical instruction.
 
Fernando "Ferfal" Aguirre: The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse & Street Survival Skills: Tips, Tricks and Tactics for Modern Survival
 
For those who haven’t been following “Ferfal” since he was online only posting his advice in forums, etc. you’ve been missing a great resource. He’s actually lived through an economic collapse in Argentina. His experience is the one that scares me the most; enough to make conditions dangerous and day-to-day living difficult, but not bad enough to where you get to quit your job and can shoot bad guys.
 
Imagine living in a world where food is expensive, hard to come by, and you still have to commute to a terrible job but you get carjacked and robbed along the way. That was Fernando’s world. I would suspect that America will begin to look like his Argentina for a while until a total collapse comes and the rule of law disappears.
 
Both books go through the day-to-day of living in sudden poverty. Most of us have family memories of the Great Depression, except for all intents and purposes that was another America. The fractured, polarized, and multicultural society we now live in resembles Argentina more and I highly suspect an economic breakdown here will necessitate Fernando’s skills more than our grandparents’ “make do with poverty” grit of the Thirties.
 
Specifically, his books look at things like navigating black or gray markets and establishing trust with local merchants. The stark reality of self and home defense in violent and dangerous world, but still with the nominal rule of law, are included. Fernando’s books are part instructional and part a reality check of how SHTF won’t be all “just shoot everybody.”
 
Check out his videos and weekly podcast with Matt Bracken (below): The Modern Survivalist.
 
Anything by Matt Bracken
 
Matt Bracken is a ex-Navy SEAL who penned the increasingly prophetic Enemies Foreign and Domestic trilogy. In short, a false flag mass shooting occurs and a rogue ATF unit creates the “perfect” conditions for national gun confiscation. Matt prophesies a radical constitutional convention, a leftist, totalitarian government, and radical government oppression. Basically he predicted the way the world is moving today…in 2003.
 
Today, we know that they don’t need a false flag. The crazies do it for them all on their own. Originally that put me off but keep reading because it gets into a scary portrait of today and is a great actions story. The national disaster gets even worse in the sequels and they are probably accurate predictors of the path we are headed on. Most of you should be aware of Matt’s writings, if you aren’t already, so I won’t waste too much time here.
 
I will say that everything Matt said in his podcasts and interviews about the Left and the elections especially have all come true. He is an excellent source of information, his fiction is utterly fantastic, and he is a great guide to navigating and understanding the perilous waters ahead. Check out his weekly podcast with Fernando Aguirre/FerFal (above): The Modern Survivalist.
 
Miscellaneous
 
DanMorgan76’s “The Patrol” (online short story)
Dan Morgan is a Special Forces veteran and this patrol is those skills in action. It details a small group of SHTF survivors moving through rural Appalachia in contested territory under harrowing circumstances. The horror of the situation is subtle but deep. On the practical side, he explains through “show not tell” most excellently the use of radio in tactical situations as well as how a low-profile paramilitary unit should move and setup camp. I highly recommend it.
 
Lionel Shriver: The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047. This novel is a look at a leftist America in an economic collapse. I think this scenario is highly plausible and what we will face. It is also kind of funny and there is a lot of schadenfreude at “feel good” liberals living in a blue hellhole city reaping the rewards of what they’ve sewn.
 
Dean Ing: Pulling Through. Simply the best nuclear war survival novel I’ve ever read. Realistic and full of practical advice. A third of the book is actual articles on how to survive a nuclear war. It is out of print and the copies are hard to find, but I will let you have my copy in exchange for an attractive daughter or sister (21-30, must be in the “unicorn” zone). Archive.org copy available here.
 
Gordon Hutchinson and Todd Masson: The Great New Orleans Gun Grab. Yes, the book is about gun control and confiscation. Besides that, it 1. provides an excellent look at what self-defense and crime during a semi-WROL (without rule of law) situation would be like and 2. gives you an insight to cop’s mentality during the near-end of the world.
 
Anything Selco Begovic has written. Selco is a survivor of the horrific Siege of Sarajevo. A total WROL collapse will not be a picnic. Anyone expecting the end of the world to be a walk in the park needs to read this for a dose of reality. I mean, women are selling themselves for a can of spam to feed their kids. Do you want that to be your wife?