How To Save Democracy:
A Step By Step Guide

This Substack guide is a hands-on manual for anyone in the United States who wants to protect democracy but doesn’t know where to start. Inspired by actor and activist @johnleguizamo eight-point resistance plan, the guide breaks down each strategy—from forming oversight coalitions to securing encrypted communication channels—into plain, actionable steps. It includes contact scripts, resource links, digital security tools, and real-world case studies like South Korea’s 2016–2017 Candlelight Revolution. The goal isn’t to overwhelm readers with rhetoric but to move them into motion. Whether you’re hosting a local public hearing, filing a FOIA request, or organizing a rapid-response team, the guide is built to help you act with clarity and confidence.

What makes this piece different is its emphasis on habit-building and psychological ease. Using methods like the “jelly bean trick,” where participants move a bean from one jar to another for each action completed, the guide turns abstract political despair into visible progress. It draws on lessons from past movements—like the role Otpor! played in removing #SlobodanMilosevic in 2000 and how #CoryAquino’s peaceful uprising ended decades of dictatorship in the Philippines—to remind readers that erosion of democracy is a global pattern, but so is resistance. The editorial closes with a call to community: progress doesn’t happen alone, but when ordinary people move in coordination, one small step at a time.

Read it https://open.substack.com/.../how-to-save-democracy-a... or subscribe to our substack (link in bio)

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