This is very incomplete advice for the given threat scenario of "fearful of government persecution".

> Snagging a cheap or used device is a good option

Cheap devices may well phone home and a used device may be tampered with. I was surprised when reflashing a burner Xiaomi device to see the bootloader contained a nod to the CCP.

> Navigate to WordPress.com and setup a free account with that new email address.

Certainly Wordpress is not an ideal platform here from a security standpoint. You want a blogging platform that is overwhelmingly dumb - raw html files with minimal formatting would be perfect.

> Feel free to use a VPN

Don't use a VPN without knowing who it is owned by and seeing audit reports and even then be skeptical.