From the moment Trump’s raids began, it became clear that the U.S. regime has declared war against California.

It’s hard to accept this truth. Because we Californians have done nothing — not one thing — to justify the national government sending secret police and thousands of military personnel to attack us.

Trump is offering no conditions and proposing no negotiations to end this war. That’s because the war itself is Trump’s goal, a realization of his violent delusions and desire for unchecked power. He invades California for the same reason Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine — because the Golden State is a sovereign entity that won’t accept dictatorship. Our existence threatens his tyranny.

Trump is following Putin’s playbook. Both lie the same way, blaming imaginary invaders for wars they themselves started. Trump, like Putin, has disguised his soldiers. In 2014, Russia sent its soldiers into Crimea with their faces masked, wearing unmarked uniforms, and without identification, creating confusion about who they were. Trump’s Homeland Security agents are also masked, favor unmarked vehicles, and refuse to identify themselves.

Trump, like Putin, is targeting regional and local elected leaders with arrest, and removal from office. Trump also seeks to destroy our economy — he disappears vital workers, cuts off funding for disaster, and imposes illegal tariffs. And, just as Putin systematically takes Ukrainian children from families and sends them to Russia, Trump separates children from parents.

Californians are underdogs in Trump’s war, just as Ukrainians are in Russia’s war. We face the world’s largest military, and we have no army. While judges rule in California’s favor in some cases, Trump ignores some orders and delays response to others. Trump’s secret police assaulted our U.S. Senator, and Trump-aligned colleagues falsely blamed the victim.

The good news is that you and I can win this war. We are already winning; Trump has sent his secret police and his troops, and still we are not conquered.

Winning will be more challenging than anything our state has ever done. As Albert Camus wrote: “the moment despair is alone, pure, sure of itself, pitiless in its consequences, it has a merciless power.” We Californians must channel our despair at being attacked into winning a war not of our choosing.

Collectively, we ought to, must, muster our discipline to remain non-violent. We will need to, must, answer federal punches and tear gas with songs and prayers, even when the reward for our non-violence will be more lies and violence from the Trump regime. We must play defense until this invading enemy loses heart and begins to retreat.

Then we must do more: we must seize ground.

We should march upon any federal facility where we expect our fellow Californians are being held in conditions that may constitute torture. We are Americans, and taxpayers. Those buildings belong to us and those detained are our neighbors. And when federal officials threaten us and tell us to go home, let us protest more, insist more, demand more. These are our rights., and no one can take them away.

In this fight, we will need allies. Trump is alienating most of the world, so we should send emissaries abroad to ask for help. We need money and trade to blunt the effects of Trump’s economic war. We need tech and intelligence to monitor federal forces. We must convince other countries to exert economic, diplomatic and even military pressure until the secret police and troops are out of California.

Californians must use seduction, too. While we loathe the regime, we must befriend individual federal agents and soldiers. When safe, we should invite them to our parties, barbecues, ballgames. Trump tells them lies about Californians, so let these federal occupiers get to know us. Some may join our side.

We shall defend our California, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the freeways and the surface streets. We shall fight in the car washes and the Home Depot parking lots. We shall fight at food trucks and on farms, in bars, restaurants, and dispensaries. We shall never surrender.

This may be the most dangerous time in California history. Let us bear ourselves so that, if our Golden State lasts another thousand years, future Californians will look back and say, “That was our finest hour.”

Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square.