I just wrapped an incredible Substack Live with Anat Shenker-Osorio. She’s a political messaging guru, author, and host of the Words to Win By podcast. If you’ve ever wondered how I shape the videos, articles, and calls to action you see on MeidasTouch, Anat is one of the voices I turn to. She doesn’t just talk about words. She dissects them, tests them, and wields them like a scalpel to cut through the noise of Trump’s disinformation machine.
We got right to it: Trump’s fascist power grab. What Trump is doing in Washington, D.C., federalizing police, undermining protest rights, isn’t just a local issue. It’s a calculated attack on speech itself. Authoritarian regimes that take over a nation’s capital tend to last a decade longer than those that don’t, and Trump knows it. When he’s not ripping out Jackie O’s Rose Garden to slap on some Mar-a-Lago-style concrete, he’s building a 90,000-square-foot ballroom in the People’s House, paid for by oligarchs, for oligarchs, while Americans struggle to pay rent and afford basic necessities.
Anat broke it down into three essential strategies for confronting this regime: resistance, refusal, and ridicule.
Resistance is the baseline—protests, calls, speaking out.
Refusal is higher stakes—noncompliance, physical and political roadblocks to Trump’s agenda.
And ridicule? That’s the kryptonite for the strongman’s ego. Chop him down to size, show the world he’s not invincible. That’s why Gavin Newsom’s trolling memes and all-caps posts work. They puncture Trump’s bluster and make it clear he can be beaten.
One of my favorite parts of our conversation was Anat’s reminder that we are the majority. Research shows people systematically underestimate how many of their neighbors share their values, and the MAGA crowd deliberately overplays their numbers. That’s why visible dissent, whether it’s a protest, a highway banner, or just the shirt on your back, matters so much.
We also talked about what’s missing in the media: journey stories. We need to show real people changing their minds; Republicans realizing they’ve been conned by a “regime of the bullies for the billionaires,” and everyday folks stepping into activism for the first time. These stories give others permission to take that same journey.
Trump’s destruction of our institutions isn’t “decay.” It’s deliberate demolition. And if we want to rebuild, we need to fight on every front: in the streets, in our language, in our symbols, and in the stories we tell. That’s how we win. Not just against Trump, but for a government truly of, by, and for the people.
You can watch the full conversation above and get more from Anat by subscribing to her Words to Win By podcast. And of course, subscribe to our MeidasTouch Substack so we can keep growing our independent, people-powered movement.
