Government works by -you- investing your time and energy in it. That can be done indirectly, by you giving something like your money to it or directly through your labor and attention. Or, others extract it from you through implied or direct reward, but always with the threat of violence.
It’s not enough for you to simply remove your time and energy. You need to find a place to invest it. That’s the key to long-term resilience in the face of a threat.
Remember that presidents and governments only have the legitimacy that the -people- give them. Other than that, it’s a dude with a fancy title. Watch this:
Bill Maxwell, Autarch of the West Coast, Prime Minister of the First Church of Low Key, and Penultimate Hereditary Druid.
I’m a psychopomp as well, so if you live on the West Coast of the New World, I’m both your sovereign leader-by-example and in control of where you go after you die.
See that? Basically, I just gave myself a title. Betcha I could get people to follow me. Maybe a lot of people to follow me. It doesn’t matter is a person has an army, if the troops won’t pull the trigger.
It doesn’t matter if they have all the money if their people won’t write the checks. Every step we take that lets people return power -to- the people is a step in the right direction.
Sometimes the greatest hope emerges after everything you think would save you is gone.