President-elect Donald Trump seemingly wants to become a dictator. He could do so by going after his opponents, politicizing the Department of Justice and using military force. Efforts appear to already be underway. It may be hard to stop him, but there is something states can do: secede from the union.

Our basic freedoms are at risk. Without proper checks and balances, Trump could do whatever he wants, even if it is unconstitutional. This includes cracking down on protests and jailing political opponents. If we secede, we can ensure no one has unchecked power and therefore no one can do anything that is too unpopular.

Trump meets at least five key elements of fascism:

• Appeal to a glorious past: Make America Great Again.

• Appeal to a common enemy: mainly illegal immigrants, also LGBTQ+, blacks and women.

• Authoritarianism: He has promised to crack down on protests and jail political opponents. Some think he will establish one-party rule, much like the right-wing dictatorship Estado Novo, which ruled Portugal from 1933-1974.

• Ultranationalism: Trump appears to be even worse than Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, who is an ultranationalist with his invasion of Ukraine.

• Ultraconservatism: Trump’s unofficial playbook, Project 2025, has proposed many ultraconservative ideas. It was written by the Heritage Foundation, an ultraconservative organization. His closest allies in Congress are the members of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus.

Trump has implied that some people will no longer need to vote after his win, which could be interpreted as his intent to end elections. It may be hard to believe he’ll do this, but historical evidence shows that what strongmen say, they do.

Given that Trump has these horrible ideologies, it would be unacceptable to have him rule our country. Therefore, states should secede from the union.

Project 2025 has proposed some horrible ideas that Trump is likely to enact. Here is a rundown of what Project 2025 is proposing and how we could avoid them by seceding from the union:

• Cut overtime pay, weaken child labor protections, raise prescription drug prices, remove protections for information on who gets abortions, reduce civil rights protections, reduce protections for women’s rights, enable discrimination against the LGBTQ+, eliminate environmental justice protections, and make it harder to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. We could maintain existing laws in our secession referendums.

• Eliminate job-creating programs and eliminate NOAA. Seceding states could maintain what they are doing at the state level and take over what the federal government was doing.

• Politicize the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Seceding states could create their own apolitical bureaus.

• Sabotage food assistance programs and eliminate Head Start. Seceding states could maintain these programs.

• Limit veterans’ disability benefits, remove safety nets for farmers and sabotage Medicare. Seceding states could take on what the federal government has been doing.

• Eliminate public transportation funding and the Inflation Reduction Act, cut student loan funding and eliminate the Department of Education. Although seceding states would lose federal funding, they wouldn’t have to pay federal taxes, either.

• Reduce abortion pill access, have their ideological beliefs taught in public schools, stop immigration, enact high tariffs and use local resources for deportation. Seceding states would be immune from federal laws.

• Allow for more oil drilling. Seceding states could pass laws prohibiting trading energy projects with the United States, similar to the 2022 executive order prohibiting trading energy products with Russia. Although we would not stop the drilling, we would make a difference by boycotting the oil.

• Replace bureaucrats with loyalists, relocate federal agencies, discriminate against federal employees, revoke security clearances, mess with the value of our currency and manipulate data. If the U.S. federal government messed up, seceding states would not be affected.

• Stop asylum, cancel immigrants’ status, and carry out mass deportations. Immigrants could come to seceding states.

(Sources for this article can be found here: democracyforward.org/the-peoples-guide-to-project-2025.)

It is important that we act now because once Trump is in power, he may be able to stop secession.

Please contact your state legislators and legislature-elects. You can find your legislators at leg.colorado.gov/FindMyLegislator.

Emerson Sturgis is a climate activist. He is a member of Citizens’ Climate Lobby and Sunrise. He is writing this as an individual. Sturgis lives in Lyons.