Month: November 2024

Recently a friend asked, in the wake of a church service that invited us to join the  “Resistance,” what this means.  What does ‘resistance’ to MAGA look like?

Three threats seem to me to matter above others: 

1. Moves to change the processes for taking or holding power, such as weakening or co-opting institutions like the courts, the press, the military, and the civil service, or altering voting rights.  This can also take the form of corruption and favoritism designed to buy support from businesses, billionaires, schools, media and other organizations.  If successful, these actions would permanently damage American institutions and make the US an ‘illiberal democracy,’ like Hungary—or worse.

2.   Using state power to attack vulnerable people and groups—immigrants, LGBTQ, women, environmentalists.  Especially damaging would be actions against ‘disloyal’ regions or organizations or individuals, as Trump has frequently promised. This can take the negative form of not using state power to stop local governments or ‘private’ groups from intimidating, threatening, or attacking the same targets.  The use of coercion and violence  takes away fundamental freedoms and destroys the conditions for self-government.

3. Big Lies, brazen denials of fact or of science and expertise; creating and amplifying false narratives and conspiracy theories.  These measures are designed to destroy the possibility of principled opposition to authoritarian rule and make it easy to mobilize supporters around an invented reality, whether the infallibility of the Leader or the unqualified evil of his opponents.

Here are some ways to make ‘resistance’ concrete.

Create Communication Capacity.  MAGA is going to move quickly on many fronts to consolidate power and attack its enemies.  We have to strengthen all our resources to collect and track information, to share it openly, to fight through the tremendous noise and confusion and distraction of today’s information systems.  Subscribe to reliable news sources.  Donate.  Build up strong local, independent platforms.  Speak up in the face of falsehoods.

But. Since the election I have been bombarded with demands for money from a dozen news organizations, all saying they are more important than ever.  I know they will help me and people like me understand what is going on.  But I do not see how any of them will do what we so desperately need, which is penetrate the iron information wall around MAGA supporters.  The most important initiative for true patriots, whether liberal or conservative, should be, as Jennifer Rubin recommends, a comprehensive effort to create new ways to reach the public, which is being blasted by disinformation and influencers.  I don’t know exactly what that looks like, but it doesn’t look like conventional journalism. It isn’t enough to interview and research and paint an accurate picture; the facts have to be delivered behind enemy lines. Pete Buttigieg is good at this.

Strengthen bastions of resistance.  These might include blue cities; liberal places of worship; colleges and universities and think tanks and local newspapers.  These are especially important in places that are very ‘red’.  I think it is a mistake to concede geographic regions or rural America or any other sector.  It is a MAGA goal to create a monolithic image of an irresistible force that takes over not just the commanding heights but state legislatures, school boards, county councils, all local units of self-governance.  But in every part of the country there are opposing voices and we have to raise them up. It’s lonely out there in MAGA country, but you should know you are not alone.

Fight like hell, but strategically.  Battles must be picked with care.  We will wear out quickly by reacting at full volume to every outrage.  Getting ahead of the curve is vital by identifying the most dangerous MAGA initiatives early and rallying political, legal, and popular opposition.  Particularly valuable will be to take advantage of actions and statements that contradict what MAGA supporters imagine Trump will do.  Many of those who voted for Trump have no idea what his actual policies are.  When tariffs and deportations and tax cuts cause inflation, when appeasing Putin produces more war, when MAGA zealots go after the ACA and Social Security, these are good opportunities to put forth different policies.  When Trump declines into un-hideable senility, this will also be an opportunity. 

Find some leadership.  The progressive eco-system is splintered and lacking in any recognizable co-ordinating or directing mechanism.  In part this is the result of decades of complacency and believing that the march of history is on our side.  Now that our butt has been kicked it is time for some discipline.  We need to encourage the emergence of a small number of leaders and spokespeople who can become the face of opposition and set strategy that prioritizes the three threats described above.  Part of this will be to say ‘no’ to grassroots demands to include Every Good Thing in the agenda.  Representative Wiley Nickel’s proposal for a Democratic ‘shadow cabinet,’ like in Great Britain, is a good start.  But work outside the Democratic Party is also needed.  There is an opening to build something new.

Practice civil disobedience.  Protests and marches do not have the power of even small, but consistent, acts where people are willing to go to jail or risk police violence.  The lunch-counter sit-ins and Freedom Riders during the Civil Rights Movement only involved a handful of people but had tremendous impact.  We need doctors and nurses who are willing to perform abortions in red states, and face the consequences.  We need churches willing to hide immigrants.  When Trump’s Justice Department tries to arrest political opponents, 1000 people should surround them.  When Trump pardons January 6 participants, 1000 people should lie down at the prison exits.  When tracts of public land are opened for drilling, environmentalists and tribes should get in the way.

Build the alternative.  Some hope that MAGA depends on Trump and once he dies or disappears, MAGA will fade.  Maybe.  But it has lasted eight years, and if it consolidates power during a Trump presidency, it may not go anywhere.  The world is full of movements that began with popular leaders and then morphed into coercive police states.  Chavezismo in Venezuela has outlasted Chavez, like Peronism in Argentina, and Castro’s communism in Cuba.  Iran is a theocracy long after Khomeini, and China a one-party state long after Mao. 

It’s hard to beat something with nothing.  What are we offering instead?  It can’t just be ‘not Trump,’ which failed badly in this election.

Americans are consumed by distrust towards existing institutions.  Among the G7 major industrialized countries the US has the least trust in the major organs of government.  On the right this has moved from distrust of government to distrust of science, business, schools, and democracy itself.  If liberals position themselves as the defenders of the status quo, but with a few tweaks, we will lose.  We must be ready to argue for fundamental change and identify where we are prepared to challenge accepted processes and institutions.  But the change we want must be constructive, not the political nihilism characteristic of MAGA.

Absolutely critical is an economic plan that speaks to working class anxieties.  The Biden  plan to build from the ‘middle out’ was I think sound, and he managed to put in place some of the key building blocks:  industrial policy, anti-trust, unions, consumer rights, higher taxes on the rich, limited protectionism. His approach was a radical rebuttal to the failed neo-liberal model of unrestricted globalization and financialization, which I think most Americans reject. 

What Biden never managed to do was convey that he was in fact radical.  He couldn’t overcome the trauma of inflation and reach a working class audience.  I do not think this means the basic approach is wrong, but it needs a new framework and a convincing spokesperson.

I believe a strategy to systematically reduce divisions and tensions in America and restore trust is a winning program that can gain traction over the next several years.  We must name and target the institutions and accepted ways of doing business that are tearing us apart.  Such a strategy should include programs to mix Americans together, such as a national service program; affordable housing and zoning changes so people of different classes live in the same neighborhoods; and re-invigorated public schools that bind communities together.  Even in this red wave, voters rejected initiatives to expand school vouchers and undermine public schools.

Voter disgust with institutions has manifested on the right with eagerness to elect outsiders and extremists who promise to just blow things up; lack of experience, contempt for decent behavior, and embrace of conspiracy theories are features, not bugs.  But throwing out the bums and replacing them with worse bums is not real change. Liberals should instead prioritize electoral reforms as the best way to really change the status quo:  open primaries, ranked-choice voting, independent redistricting commissions, people’s assemblies.  Maybe now that Republicans won the popular vote there can be bipartisan support for the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact to reform the Electoral College, so the electoral votes always line up with the winner of the popular vote.  An aggressive fight against Citizen’s United and big money in politics would, I believe, be a difficult but very popular campaign.  The Supreme Court is increasingly unpopular and a target ripe for criticism and reform. 

Avoid condescension. We must resolutely avoid the alienating puritanism that so many Americans find offensive.  Admirable efforts to fight racism and end discrimination against women and the LGBTQ community have too often led to efforts by activists to police pronouns and set impossible litmus tests for allies.  MAGA feeds off the view that extremists are in charge of our universities and cultural institutions and using them to impose their ideas on the rest of us.  Liberals should not be vulnerable to ads that seem to align Democrats with taxpayer funded sex change operations for convicts. 

If not this strategy, then something else.  But something. Something that addresses root causes, not symptoms.

Only two days to go and I am cautiously, very cautiously, optimistic about the election.  Trump continues to foul his own nest, and Kamala is steady if less than inspiring.  But it is deeply depressing to think that close to half of Americans are willing to play Russian roulette with our democracy and make a choice that is so dangerous for the country, so at odds with basic human decency, and, as far as I can tell, not in the interest even of his supporters.

Over the past eight years I, like many, have wrestled with the reasons for Trump’s popularity and his ability to take over an entire political party and retain unbridled enthusiasm among millions of Americans.  It is a challenge, because it is hard not to become angry, frustrated, and often deeply embarrassed at the beliefs of many of one’s fellow citizens.

I have encountered many, many explanations for Trump’s success.  Here are some of the most common:

·      Working class anger at de-industrialization and loss of jobs and opportunity

·      Resentment at ‘coastal elites’ and their disdain for the values and lifestyles of the less-educated

·      Shift of the Democratic Party from a working-class base to an educated professionals base, leaving a large class of Americans without a political home

·      Racism, nurtured over decades by Republicans and energized by Obama’s election

·      Sexism, energized by Hillary’s campaign and declining prospects for young non-college-educated men

·      Fear that traditional values and way of life associated with white, Christian dominance are disappearing

·      Dislike of political correctness or ‘wokism’ imposed by educated elites

·      Christian, especially evangelical, politicization and willingness to make politics an essential part of religious identity

·      Trump’s unique personality combining celebrity status and unfiltered language, saying what people ‘really think’

·      Right-wing media’s stranglehold on its audience and willingness to display rank partisanship

·      Social media’s ability to silo and magnify opinions

·      Outside intervention on Trump’s behalf by Russia and other foreign actors

·      Loss of trust in institutions accelerated by Iraq/Afghanistan, the financial crisis, the opioid crisis, failure to stem rising immigration

·      Vulnerability of traditional institutions—media, business, courts, parties—to bullying, the ‘big lie’ and constant norm violations

·      Big money in politics financing longterm efforts to enable minority-rule (via electoral system, control of courts, one-party primaries, gerrymandering, exploiting political veto points such as the filibuster).

I too would love to find the ‘one thing’ that explains the Trump phenomenon, but looking at this list makes it clear to me (even though these overlap to some extent) that there is no single cause.  So there probably isn’t any ‘silver bullet’ to counter it.  Instead we have a tangled ball of twine that needs to be carefully and systematically unwound. 

The closest we might have to a fix is if Trump himself is the necessary catalyst for the MAGA movement, and without him it will splinter and weaken.  This is possible, but more likely I think is that after some jockeying a new leader will emerge to take advantage of the same underlying factors.

Even if Harris wins there is a big job ahead to address these sources of dissatisfaction, and just as important, to be perceived as addressing them.  Biden has done wonders to boost American industry and create blue collar jobs, but has gotten little credit for it.  Some of these are bad things that need to be confronted.  Some are real problems that need to be solved.

Take immigration.  Trump has seized on this as his #1 issue and made it the source of all our problems.  Crime? Immigrants.  Drugs? Immigrants.  Rent too high? Immigrants.  Terrorism? Immigrants.  No job? Immigrants.  Pet disappeared?  Immigrants. Immigrants are ‘them’, dark-skinned outsiders changing your culture, your language, who your kids sit next to in school. 

And they’re here because the rich elites want them here.  Business wants cheap labor, at ‘your’ expense.  Liberals want more immigrants to vote Democratic.  Haven’t liberals said for decades that a larger minority population will produce a permanent Democratic majority?  Well, that’s their plan.

At a certain point any society—even one that is relatively open to immigration and is proud of its history of absorbing newcomers, like the US—will be uncomfortable with high levels of immigration that don’t seem to have any end; in fact seem to be increasing.  In the ‘golden age’ of immigration to the US, the post-Civil War period up to WWI, when we put up the Statue of Lady Liberty with Emma Lazarus’s great poem at her feet, the percentage of foreign-born population in the US peaked in 1890 at 14.8% and stayed there through 1910.  

In 2024 for the first time the foreign-born population exceeded those levels, reaching 15.6%.  In-between the US saw a huge backlash that produced tight restrictions on immigrant numbers beginning in the 1920s and continuing until the Immigration Acts of 1965 and 1990.  The foreign-born percentage in the US dropped to a low of 4.7% in 1970, meaning it has tripled in the last 54 years. 

The backlash after WWI was part of a nativist trend that saw the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, isolationism and refusal to join the League of Nations, and a sharp turn away from the progressive economic policies of the first decades of the 20th century.  The lesson here is not that slamming the door on immigration is good policy, but that when people perceive that there are no serious limits on immigration, they will react negatively and will be receptive to broader illiberal movements.  The prudent course is to preserve both a high level of immigration and support for liberal government via restrictions that are humane and broadly acceptable. 

Easier said than done, when immigration has become a political football and one side is not interested in compromise. But liberals I think failed to anticipate the need to defang this issue and its potential to fuel demagoguery.  Not just here, but also in Europe, where immigration has been the catalyst for the resurgence of far-right parties.  We could take a lesson from Denmark, a bastion of social democracy which has adopted a tough stance on immigration that is boosting support for its Social Democrat prime minister.

Let’s hope for the best on November 5.  And if we get it, the number one priority should be doing our best to reduce the polarization and distrust that has taken hold.  It will take deft leadership, constant communication, and strategic thinking.