The Angry Grandmas and Moms Club, or, How to Save a Democracy From Fascism

I’ve been back in the little town where I grew up. Just outside DC. In the belly of the beast, as my friends joke with me. Just a few minutes down Route 66 is Trump’s ballroom. Berlin by way of Versailles.

Here’s the astonishing thing. In the teeth of a fascist collapse, my little town’s seen something remarkable happen to it. It’s a shining example of a functional, nice, tolerant, and vibrant place to be. It has excellent infrastructure, business is booming, people are happy, and much to the shock of my teenage self, because it used to be nowheresville, there’s even a downtown full of nice cafes that a snob like me who’s spent half his life in Paris and London likes hanging out at.

Amazing. That’s because it’s well run. As in, good governance, the real thing. The town council made a slogan of it, go ahead and chuckle. So well run is it—get this—they just put up a gigantic ten foot tall “Love” sign in front of the town hall. Minutes away from the White House. In a gigantic middle finger to you know who. It’s pretty incredible. We all take pictures in front of it. Go ahead and chuckle.

How did this happen?

The Angry Grandmas and Moms club is what happened. It’s not a formal club. What I mean is that the grandmas and moms in my town are angry. They do not want to live in a dysfunctional, mean, cruel, bitter place. An authoritarian fascist one. And so they’ve taken matters into their own hands. They’ve made this little town…awesome.

In my parlance, they’ve created a Haven. I’m in awe of them for doing so, in the middle of a fascist collapse.

When I go to the little cafes, I see them. It happened slowly. A grandma would walk by, with a T-shirt saying “Fascism Sucks.” Great T-shirt, I’d say. She’d take me in. Is this guy for real…or is he…MAGA? They’d see Snowy. And laugh and say thanks. I’d think to myself: I’d bet they’ve read my posts. Good for them. Then it’d happen again. A mom carrying an “I Hate Trump” bag. Forget Louis Vuitton. My town knows what cool actually is. I’d say, nice bag. Rinse, repeat.

And after this happened about fifty times, I cottoned on to what had really happened here, in my little former nowheresville, that’s now practically Paris on the Potomac. The Angry Grandmas and Moms club got mad.

Why am I telling you this story? For many reasons.

Women get short shrift in a society as misogynistic and cruel and patriarchal as America. We often speak about emotional labor going under-recognized and undervalued. Social labor, cultural labor, the soft stuff.

What have the Angry Grandmas and Moms really done? They’ve done the work, the labor, of turning this little town into a Haven, while much of America descends into a nightmare. They’re not recognized for it much. But I see them at the cafes. Sitting, talking, resisting, taking governance into their own hands. Creating pressure. Changing norms and attitudes. This is not OK.

Often, they’re surrounded by young women. They’re teaching the younger generations. Not explicitly, but in the way of true leadership. This is how things should be. This is how we make it happen. We create an atmosphere in which civilized values still prevail. We’re angry for a reason.

And the young women? They’re far more interested in hanging out with the Angry Grandmas and Moms than they are in the man-children who try to date them. I observe this, too, the dates, from the cafe. They don’t go well. Because men these days feel useless, because men these days tune out “politics.” They like bragging about their jobs or cars or vacations.

Men have become dullards. Hello, the world is on fire, dude. Don’t you have anything interesting to say? Women don’t want dullards like this in their lives. They never have, but now it’s acute. They roll their eyes for a reason. Because this isn’t “politics” anymore, is it? It’s survival. It’s existence. It’s the future, if America’s to have one. What good is partner who’s frozen, turning a dull shade of grey, becoming mental and emotional slush, in a world that needs you to be alert, aware, and agile, if you want to stay alive?

What good is a man if all he’s going to do is stare at you blankly while the world unravels, tell you things will be OK, and not do a damned thing to make sure they are? The Angry Grandmas and Moms, on the other hand, are acting fast, hard, and seriously, precisely because everything is very much not OK.

Hence, all this stuff about women tuning out men. That’s because the men have tuned out…everything that matters. The world, money, politics, reality, fascism, the list goes on. No, “not all men,” but I’m sure you understand my feeling. Do you want to be in a relationship with another human being who doesn’t care about how where we’re going? Whether we have a democracy? What it’s going to do to money and wealth? That life is to become this dystopian hellscape? We just sort of sit around and tune it all out with AI or crypto or bread and circuses? Go ahead, just ask a woman.

The Angry Grandmas and Moms Club are more powerful than they know. I’m telling you all this because this is one of the best hopes for America coming back to being something like a democracy again. Don’t get me wrong, the path there will be brutal and difficult.

But if it’s going to happen, my bet is that women are going to make it happen. The men…it’s remarkable to me how checked out they are. They don’t get it, by and large. Women, on the other hand, are incredibly attuned to how dangerous, serious, and historic all this is. And the further up the generations you do, the more that’s true. Hence, this sort of beautiful and touching ritual I see at the cafe: the Grandmas and the Moms teaching the younger women the art of creating civilized places, of creating Havens, in ways that might seem inconsequential, but are the most crucial of all.

My wife came striding out of the cafe the other week. I’d popped out to have a quick ciggie. She was sitting inside, and the plan was her to work for an hour or two. I was surprised. What happened, I said, frowning. These guys…they’re sitting in there…just saying all this disgusting stuff. Like what, I asked, but I already knew. How women are objects, how minorities took their jobs, how anyone apart from them is basically a subhuman. Let me go in and have a word with them, I said. I love putting guys like this in their place. I’m very good at it.

I won't tell you how that story ended, alright, I will, it ended with them scurrying out of the cafe, because who wants to mess with a bona fide vampire (yes, the sunlight can kill me, so I wear leather jackets and giant boots everywhere, so I look pretty scary, go ahead and chuckle.) The point, though, is to illustrate the dynamics above. The Angry Grandmas and Moms never have ugly, disgusting conversations like that. They are working. On trying to make things better for everyone.

Now. What I am trying to say? That every town, city, hamlet, village should have a chapter of the Angry Grandmas and Moms club.

In my town, it’s formal and informal both. It works through all kinds of organizations, book clubs, knitting circles, meet-ups, they all come to the cafe, and that’s where the real work of creating a Haven happens. It’s not called Havens Central, but that’s what it is.

So you can think of it in formal or informal ways. Think about the far right. What is it good at doing? How has it been so successful at destabilizing societies? It excels at creating leagues, societies, networks, communities. There are all kinds of them, and many are so formal you know their names. The Society That Destroyed the Supreme Court. The Guys Who Wrote Project 2025. The League of Fucking Crackpot Lunatics.

They have political power because they excel at forming structural power. Structural power and be formal or informal. The Angry Grandmas and Moms club can work through book clubs or Moms Groups, and that’s OK, because beneath that surface lies a structure. Or it can be even more formal: The Town Democracy League. The Society for Civilized Values. The Let’s Not Be Fucking Pariahs of the World Club.

Structures are how we begin to wield true power. This is what the Angry Grandmas and Moms in my town understood. And they understood, too, that it could work quietly. If the book club didn’t like this town councillor, bang, game over. If the friends of the town league didn’t like this policy, forget it. And so on.

So let me say it again.

Every town, city, village, and hamlet should have a chapter of the Angry Grandmas and Moms Club, so that structural power can form and grow. Structural power is what restrains, boundaries, and disrupts authoritarian power.

When we reach this stage of fascist collapse, resistance doesn’t come from protests alone. In fact, rarely do they accomplish enough, precisely because when you have Gestapos, it’s too late. It becomes a cycle of provocation that leads to further hardening of authoritarianism. Instead, structural power is what works better. It is more powerful. In the form of force, concentration, action, and focus. That is because it creates Havens, and if there are enough Havens, then there is a dilution and lessening of authoritarian power.

Imagine if every Angry Grandma and Mom came together tomorrow, and gained structural power. Guess who’d be out of a job shortly? How long do you think the Orange Fuhrer would really last? Do you think the Gestapo can kill all those Angry Grandmas? Sorry, that was a bit too blunt, but perhaps you see my point.

Now. The Angry Grandmas and Moms are awesome in another way, too. They’re excellent at finance. So much so that even I’m in awe. Those of you who’ve done sessions with me and are in the club have already heard me compliment you. LOL, they’re so good at it that they’re at the cutting edge of what’s in Havens, which is beating hedge funds. That’s remarkable, because, yes, I’m one of the world’s best economists, and I made Havens to be something powerful and special. Meanwhile, there are the Angry Grandmas and Moms, going with their instincts, letting their sense of righteous fury guide them, and just crushing it. Go ahead and chuckle, it’s hilariously cool.

We’ll talk about that more. Women are so much better at finance these days than men it’s becoming something special and remarkable. Maybe they always have been, but I think there’s a real gender divide now. Men are tuned out of politics, which is also making them very bad at finance. Meanwhile, women, because they’re attuned to risk, are just killing it with investments. But the men resist them, and so this becomes a point of contention in relationships. I digress, it’s something I thought I’d mention.

For now, I want to say. Angry Grandmas and Moms, I salute you. I’m so deeply proud of you and I have immense respect for you. You are doing the work that can save a society. Not politicians, not lobbyists, not anyone else. You. We should all recognize and value it. It’s the bravest and hardest labor of all. It’s a labor of love. The real thing, of the highest form. For that I’m in awe, and before that, I kneel humbled.

I send you all my courage and strength. You teach us all what it is.

Love,

Umair (and Snowy!)