Post-Election Thoughts: What Does ‘Resistance’ Look Like?

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.