Tips to Survive 2025: for ENEMIES OF THE MAGA STATE

What women, minorities, students, educators, and the media can do to outlive the upcoming administration

In 1774, Benjamin Franklin represented four colonies in negotiations with London. After being berated and jeered at for an hour in front of the Privy Council, Franklin realized that the British would never consider an American as an equal.

The MAGA State will revive discrimination by pretending it doesn’t exist. They hope to force women and minorities back under their control. They plan to silence educators and media who encourage students to question their authority.

MAGA will end all current diversity policies. According to Project 2025, all references to gender, race or nationality should be expunged. In state, as well as federal, law. In federally funded corporations and nonprofits.

This will enable MAGA’s white supremacists, misogynists, and Christian Nationalists to promote discriminatory practices without metrics to reveal them.

In place of equity policy, Project 2025 recommends explicitly allowing religious discrimination in hiring and treatment.

Success is the best revenge against discrimination. For enemies of the MAGA State, that means continuing our roles: as leaders, as mentors, as learners. We can outlast MAGA tyranny!

Women, minorities, educators, students, and journalists must be vigilant and forceful against attempts to limit their civil rights. Women’s right to travel, to obtain medical treatment, and to buy safe, approved medications is already under attack in some states. Muslims or Jews, even Chinese, could find themselves under restrictions and surveillance. MAGA and their libertarian enablers are funneling billions into destroying public education and teacher unions. Students and educators have seen 1st Ammendment rights curtailed already.

In the long run, though, it won’t be MAGA who filters most job candidates, loan applications, and other paths to equity. It will be AI. This will happen because AI is so much faster and cheaper than humans, we can no more stop it than halt a waterfall.

So far, most chatbots are being taught to overcome historical bias baked into their training set data. You can encourage that to continue. Follow these suggestions to test Chat GPT, Gemini or whichever LLM you choose. Be sure to give feedback on any answers that reveal bias or misinformation. The bot and its human supervisors will often incorporate such feedback into AI algorithms.

We must reinforce chatbots’ positive behaviors while we can.

In 1776, as the colonies’ ambassador to France, Franklin expressed surprise that women were as educated as men. Yet, although he supported their education, he did not press for their rights in the US Constitution.

ALL TARGETED BY MAGA

·    Building networks of trust is one of the strongest bulwarks against oppression.

·    Monitor relevant state bills and court cases, especially in “red” and “purple” states. Out and shame all legislators that vote for bad bills. Boycott companies that support them.

·    Video victims’ stories. Insist that news channels report them. Monitor media for misinformation about discrimination. Report it to social media providers.

·    Be professional, repetitive, and unyielding. However, once the MAGA state is in power, do not congregate in public. Armed MAGA could claim they needed to “quell” an insurrection. In addition, it could subject previously unknown group members to harassment.

WOMEN

Trump prefers to ignore contentious issues he doesn’t consider important. Given the failure of anti-abortionists in state ballots, Trump is likely to leave women’s healthcare, travel restrictions, and other women’s rights to states to decide.

RECOMMENDATIONS

·     Military women know they’re in trouble. Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth wants to be rid of most female generals and colonels. He also intends to remove women from combat. Network with any such women you can to strengthen resistance to loss of rights.

·      Younger women may want to stockpile "morning after" pills. One supplier reported 10,000 requests for medication within 24 hours of Trump’s win.

· Meanwhile, call out state legislators who try to limit women’s rights. Remember to keep it simple. Remind people that before 1974, such mothers and sisters could not get a credit card. Most of the public does not support restrictions specific to women. Make 2026 the year misogynists are expelled from office, once and for all.

MINORITIES

Discrimination by race, nationality, sexual orientation, and non-Christian religion will likely be revived at the federal level and in some states. Roundups of undocumented immigrants could bleed into surveillance and imprisonment of larger populations.

Tom Homan is Trump's choice for "border czar.” He plans to reinstate separation of families at the border. Homan claims that there will be no door-to-door searches for immigrants. Instead, he says arrests will target known violators. For instance, refugees who've waited more than 2 years for a court review can be deported. About a quarter million people fall in this category. ICE might also target the half million DACA youths awaiting decision.

But the roundup is unlikely to end there. Trump's former acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection said the success of Trump’s plan depends on local law enforcement doing immigration work. This probably means traffic stops targeted at minorities, at minimum.

Texas hopes to be the model for maximum federal-state cooperation. If legislators agree to Governor Abbot’s proposal, the state will foot $2.88 billion of the deportation bill. Lucky immigrants may be bussed to immigrant-friendly states. Gerry-rigged shelters would house more during the roundup. Private prisons are readying facilities for others.

Trump picked private prison lobbyist Pam Bondi for Attorney General. The industry has been lobbying to electronically surveil millions of immigrants. Now the bill will likely pass. The for-profit prison industry is salivating at the possibility of doubling revenues. Inmates who may be forced to labor for nearly nothing.

In New Hampshire, Governor-elect Kelly Ayotte seems to be setting up for immigrant roundup. She just named Hillsborough County Sheriff Chris Connelly as her Chief of Staff. He’s served as state point person for first responders and Homeland Security. Ayotte also named a “Public Safety Task Force” in the state typically chosen as one of the safest in the nation. A state with zero persons captured illegally crossing the border from Canada.

RECOMMENDATIONS

· Urge legislators and town officials to ban state and local law enforcement funding from aiding federal agents rounding up immigrants. Nor should these resources be used against peaceful domestic protestors. Bills for both of these surfaced in New Hampshire and other states in past years. Don’t let them pass without a fight; fiscal conservatives should ally with progressives against such bills.

· Report hate crimes. The Human Rights Campaign provides guidance. In New Hampshire, report discrimination and abuse to the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Unit.

·      Communities largely control the day-to-day treatment of minorities. Continue to work to make your community a minority-friendly one.

· Write and share personal immigrant stories. Talk about “hard-working parents” and “families working toward a better life.” Compare current immigrants’ struggle with those faced by ancestors who immigrated a century or more ago.

·      Expect “don’t ask, don’t tell”, or outright exclusion of gays in the armed forces if Hegseth becomes Defense Secretary. Indications of his racism and anti-gay sentiment are many.

·      Expect the end of automatic citizenship for babies born in the US to noncitizen mothers. And the end of Family-Based Immigration.

·      Some means to become a legal resident are listed here. Immigrants can seek help and more information from the National Immigration Law Center.

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest." — Benjamin Franklin, founder of the University of Pennsylvania. Although he signed the Constitution denying racial equality, Franklin petitioned Congress to end slavery in 1790.

STUDENTS, RESEARCHERS, AND EDUCATORS

Just as Mao did during the Communist Revolution in China, the radicals here in America have worked to discredit the educated class. They want to deny them influence on rising generations. This includes replacing public education with religious and conservative private schools. It includes diverting support from the world-class universities that have fueled American entrepreneurship and governance. By reserving comprehensive education for the most elite, MAGA and their billionaire enablers retain privilege for their own. Ending the American dream of opportunity for all.

I’ll investigate options for public education in an upcoming post. Educators know that they’re being attacked: through misinformation, defunding, parent groups, and bureaucratic demands. Kudos to all who remain dedicated to the goal of preparing students regardless. Here are some suggestions for both students and educators:

RECOMMENDATIONS

 ·      Look to historically Black colleges for funding and positions. MacKenzie Scott and Michael Bloomberg have funneled over $1 billion to these and to programs that give a leg up to hispanics. Expect other funding and acceptances tied to race or gender to disappear. Forget about any student loan forgiveness.

·      As in communist countries, the MAGA State will choose which industries to promote. One bright spot will be funding for internships, vocational, and technical training. Students and professors will also find opportunity in Aerospace programs and other government-subsidized industries owned by Trump’s crony capitalists.

·     Be sure to understand the political and religious affiliation of any institution you apply to. Also, the laws, safety, and comity of its state or nation. Talk to those already there to gain a feel for what life is like, or is expected to be like, before committing.

·      Meanwhile, embrace the vast opportunity AI provides. Why fight the use of chatbots on written assignments? Both educators and students can:

• compare the value of various prompts and responses. In Gemini, for instance, click the circular “regenerate” icon in Gemini 2.0 Flash Experimental at the end of an answer. This will create an alternate response. Arrows let students compare responses. It amplifies the probabilistic nature of LLMs probable-next-word algorithms for text generation.

• consider whether they agree with the bot’s choices and conclusions.

• identify misinformation, errors, dangerous, and ethical issues; some bots supply links to source material.

• practice crafting feedback and comments that help AI designers direct AI toward a future society that they want to live in.

·      Also, AI tools such as Magic School can help educators and students alike to de-stress. Applications include:

• Summarize long communications.

• Meet administrative requirements, format texts, convert data into spreadsheets.

• Draft presentations, lesson activities, and test preparation.

• Provide tutoring in a specific learning style.

• Gain immediate, detailed tech support for problems with apps or hardware.

Once convinced that reconciliation was impossible, Franklin printed many revolutionary pamphlets justifying separation from Britain.

MEDIA PRODUCERS & CONSUMERS

Trump has threatened to shut down media whose reporting he doesn’t like. He might use the FCC. More likely he will use financial pressures. We’ve already seen the impact on the Washington Post. Apple’s need for tariff exclusions will keep Apple News under his thumb.

Media manipulation is happening in states, too. The conservative Union Leader just received a $1 million grant from the state finance authority to “pay down debt.”

But Trump also attacks individual reporters, even bloggers, celebrities, and influencers. Journalists’ sources could be at risk.

RECOMMENDATIONS

·      Urge your senators to pass H.R. 4250 the PRESS Act, already passed by the House. The bill protects any information identifying a source, as well as any records, contents of a communication, documents, or information obtained or created by journalists in the course of their work.

·      Clearly and repeatedly report what the MAGA administration is doing and how it is impacting the public. Do not allow blaming the previous administration for what is clearly the fault of the current one.

·      Call out perpetrators of purposeful misinformation, but do not reinforce it in social media. Repeating or sharing misinformation posts increases their traction.

·      When using AI, make sure to give “thumbs down” and specific feedback to any misinformation it reports. Likewise with any deepfake videos. Report in feedback that pretending to be someone it is not is wrong. Just interacting with the chatbot typically will not affect its future behavior. Most queries are private. Employees do use user comment feedback to guide future AI behavior.

·      Fund independent news. This substack is free, but many need support. Courier Newsroom funds left-leaning statewide news, in eleven states so far. Most of them, such as New Hampshire’s Granite Post, are in “purple” states.

Up Next— Tips to Survive 2025 for BUSINESSES