← autostimulus· A Coloring Book
2000 — 2026

Patriotic
Times.

A coloring book of US democratic state failures and the emergence of fascism. Four chapters. Sixty-three plates. Twenty-six years.

A line-art plate depicting the gallows erected on the National Mall on January 6, 2021

Opening Epigraph — Plate 34: The Gallows. Washington, D.C., 2021. The image the book ends at.

→ Color this plate

— Editor's Note

The events in this book are real. The format is a coloring book. The friction between those two facts is the project.

Each plate is drawn in clean black ink against unworked paper. The reader is invited to color the page. The reader is also invited to refuse. Either response is a position on the material. The book's structural claim is that there is no neutral encounter with what it depicts.

What follows is the contents. The plates themselves circulate separately — in print, in exhibition, in classroom — but the timeline is its own document. Read it that way.

Chapter I · 2000—2009

The Architecture of Fear

The rapid, post-9/11 expansion of the security state; the loss of civil liberties; the early privatization of force.

The Brooks Brothers Riot
The Brooks Brothers Riot
Fig. I.i — Miami-Dade canvassing board, November 2000. Corporate intimidation halts the count.
  1. 2000
    The Brooks Brothers Riot
    Corporate intimidation disrupts the vote.
    color →
  2. 2001
    The USA PATRIOT Act
    The death of privacy.
    color →
  3. 2002
    Creation of DHS & ICE
    The domestic security apparatus is born.
    color →
  4. 2004
    Guantanamo on the Hudson
    Preemptive mass arrests at the RNC.
    color →
  5. 2004
    The Abu Ghraib Photographs
    Unchecked executive cruelty.
    color →
  6. 2005
    Blackwater in New Orleans
    Private mercenaries patrol American streets.
    color →
  7. 2006
    The Military Commissions Act
    The stripping of habeas corpus.
    color →
  8. 2008
    St. Paul RNC Preemptive Raids
    Domestic activists as terror threats.
  9. 2009
    Portsmouth Town Hall
    Armed intimidation enters mainstream politics.
    color →
Chapter II · 2010—2016

Corporate Camouflage

The state protecting corporate power, the militarization of local police, the asymmetric response to grassroots protests versus right-wing militias.

MRAP on a residential street
MRAP on a residential street
Fig. II.iv — A military vehicle deploys against the citizens it was sold to as protection.
  1. 2010
    Citizens United v. FEC
    Dark money floods the system.
    color →
  2. 2011color →
  3. 2011
    NDAA Indefinite Detention Clause
    Military jurisdiction expands.
    color →
  4. 2012
    H.R. 347
    Criminalization of protest near political figures.
    color →
  5. 2013
    The Snowden Revelations
    The physical footprint of the Panopticon.
    color →
  6. 2013
    Shelby County v. Holder
    Gutting the Voting Rights Act.
    color →
  7. 2013
    The Watertown Siege
    A suburb under military lockdown.
    color →
  8. 2014
    The Bundy Ranch Standoff
    Paramilitaries face down the feds.
    color →
  9. 2014
    Ferguson, Missouri
    Main Street becomes a war zone.
    color →
  10. 2015
    Baltimore, Maryland
    The National Guard locks down a city.
    color →
  11. 2016
    Malheur Wildlife Refuge
    An armed right-wing occupation goes unchecked.
    color →
  12. 2016
    Standing Rock
    Water cannons in the freezing cold for corporate oil.
    color →
Chapter III · 2017—2020

The Theater of Force

Federal forces deployed against citizens; state-sponsored cruelty as policy; right-wing mobilization into the streets.

Lafayette Square, June 1, 2020
Lafayette Square, June 1, 2020
Fig. III.v — Tear-gassed protesters cleared from a park for the Bible photo-op at St. John's.
  1. 2017
    J20 Mass Arrests
    Felony riot charges to chill public dissent.
    color →
  2. 2017
    Charlottesville Unite the Right
    The torchlit march of ethno-nationalism.
    color →
  3. 2018
    Zero Tolerance at the Border
    Family separation as a weapon.
    color →
  4. 2020
    Michigan State Capitol
    Armed militias scream at state police.
    color →
  5. 2020
    Lafayette Square
    Violently clearing a park for a Bible photo-op.
    color →
  6. 2020
    Operation Diligent Valor in Portland
    Unidentified federal agents in unmarked vans.
    color →
  7. 2020
    The Plot to Kidnap Governor Whitmer
    Escalation to domestic terror plots.
    color →
Chapter IV · 2021—2026

Shattered Glass & Blank Checks

The breaking of democratic institutions; the consolidation of absolute executive power; the dawn of mass domestic enforcement.

January 6, 2021 — the breach of the Capitol
January 6, 2021 — the breach of the Capitol
Fig. IV.i — Plate 33: The Insurrection. Rioters meet riot police at the arched entrance.
  1. 2021
    The January 6th Insurrection
    The violent breach of the transfer of power.
    color →
  2. 2023
    Expulsion of the Tennessee Three
    Partisan purges of elected officials.
    color →
  3. 2024
    Columbia University Hamilton Hall Raid
    Militarized crackdowns on student speech.
    color →
  4. 2024
    Trump v. United States
    The Supreme Court grants presidential immunity.
  5. 2025
    Blanket Clemency for January 6th
    Pardoning political violence.
    color →
  6. 2025
    Mass Deportation Apparatus
    The explosion of ICE detention camps.
    color →
  7. 2025
    Army Parade & 'No Kings' Protests
    Dictatorial aesthetics met with millions in the streets.
    color →

Open any plate to color it in the browser. Print your version when you're done — or print the blank line art and color it by hand. The act is the project.

→ The plates (63)→ Project colophon
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