Tag Archives: Trump

Organizing For Resistance

I spoke about Hoosiers’ post-election options to a group of volunteers at a Women 4 Change event a couple of days ago. Here’s what I told them. Much of it will sound familiar….

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I’ve done a lot of thinking since the election. Some of my conclusions are pretty obvious:

Americans don’t occupy a common reality, thanks to our information environment. It isn’t just the fragmentation and the ease with which we can all indulge our confirmation biases, although that’s a big part of it. It’s also the case that Rightwing propaganda sites are all pumping out and reinforcing the same talking points, misinformation and propaganda. The result is that many people occupy bubbles impervious to inconvenient facts.

We know that Americans are polarized between educated and uneducated, informed and uninformed people. In November, voters who reported following political news went for Harris by 8 points, while voters who reported seldom or never following the news went for Trump by 19 points.

During the campaign, we were repeatedly told that the election was a battle for American democracy. But we’ve already lost that battle. We lost it in 2010, when the Republican RedMap project was successful in gerrymandering across the country. W4C has been fighting Indiana’s extreme gerrymandering—thus far, without success—so you all understand how pernicious partisan redistricting is. Not only does it tilt the playing field, it suppresses turnout. Since 2010, Republicans have exercised power vastly in excess of their percentage of the vote, especially in the U.S. House and in statehouses around the country. That’s especially been the case in states like Indiana where we don’t have  access to mechanisms like referenda or initiatives.

The question, as always, is what can groups like W4C do? How do we counter the loss of democratic decision-making?

Here’s my preliminary “take” on that question:

  • We need to focus on Indiana. Our resources are limited, and the likelihood that we can have much of an effect elsewhere is minimal.
  • We need to communicate. Not just with each other—although that’s helpful too—but in ways calculated to break through to those who follow only Rightwing news sources or none at all. I’ve been working with Hoosiers 4 Democracy to plan a peaceful protest on Monument Circle, to take place on the day of the Inauguration. We will bring together people representing as many parts of the community as possible, to explain why we resist the profound anti-Americanism of the coming administration. It should be covered by Indiana media outlets.
  • What we need, however, goes far beyond such isolated events. We need a plan to take factual information into all parts of the state, to people who haven’t been paying attention, who haven’t been voting, who aren’t going to visit blogs and websites and credible media that don’t reinforce the misinformation that makes them comfortable.
  • Ideally, that plan should be produced by a “pro-democracy” coalition that includes as many partners as possible: the ACLU, faith leaders, Common Cause, W4C, H4D, etc. etc. The coalition should plan a two-pronged movement: one focused on penetrating the (largely rural) information bubble, and one focused on the General Assembly. With respect to the legislature, my own preference would be to lobby for a referendum. Indiana’s legislators will not abandon gerrymandering, because they benefit from it– most owe their seats to it. If we could at least generate support for a referendum, in the future we could use that process to overturn gerrymandering.

The next few years are going to be difficult—and pivotal. We have some assets: at the state level; extremist Christian Nationalists like Micah Beckwith offend a lot of people who typically vote Republican. At the national level, if Trump follows through with his promises (threats?), the negative effects will be pretty immediate and hard to ignore.

Our job should be to ensure that Hoosiers know what these people are doing, and why their actions are inconsistent with the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, basic ethics and common sense.

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Bread And Circuses

“Bread and circuses” is a phrase referring back to the Roman Empire. Rome’s rulers distracted the public from corrupt and/or autocratic rule by giving the population free food and violent entertainments. They distributed grain to the poor, and provided entertaining distractions– chariot races, gladiatorial combat, and wild animal hunts, among others–to keep the masses from getting bored and restless, and to divert them from engaging in political activity. 
That time-honored tactic is still being employed.
In yesterday’s post, I shared my  observation that Americans no longer occupy a democratic system–that  gerrymandering, the Electoral College, Citizens United and various other elements of our electoral system have allowed the cult that is now the GOP to assume control of our government, and to rule without concern for the opinions of the citizenry. (Indeed, rather than a citizenry, we “voters” have more in common with subjects than with those who wield the power originally reposed in “We the People.”)
As the Trump administration takes shape, we can see that those who have secured the right to rule are the plutocrats. Assuming most of his proposed nominees are confirmed, America will be ruled (not governed) by billionaires pursuing further tax cuts and privileges–appointees ranging from obviously corrupt to ethically challenged and rife with conflicts of interests.
We have come to this sorry end of the American Experiment thanks to our current version of “bread and circuses.”
There have always been distractions and methods of promoting disinformation, but the Internet and the ubiquity of devices with screens that constantly occupy us have massively multiplied the diversions. Most readers of this blog are all too aware of the wealth of political propaganda promoted by Fox, et al, but that is a relatively minor aspect of the overall environment. Fox and its clones merely misrepresent the political world we occupy; it’s the growth of the entertainment world, the so-called “influencers,” the proliferation of celebrities who are famous for being famous (Kardashians, anyone?), that truly provides the “circus” that prevents most of us from recognizing the degradation of our own influence as citizens charged with choosing people to administer the powers of our governments.
Most observers of America’s political landscape recognize the decline of democratic decision-making. On this platform, I have repeatedly pointed out the very negative consequences of our structural deficits–especially gerrymandering, which allows legislators to choose their voters rather than the other way around. But it was only with the 2024 election of Donald Trump that I fully recognized what should have been obvious to me previously: American government is no longer even remotely democratic, and America’s economy is no longer an example of functioning market capitalism.
We are a plutocracy and a kakistocracy, and our economy is corporatist, not capitalist.
A kakistocracy is defined as rule by those least competent or suitable; corporatism–sometimes called “crony capitalism” –is control of the state by special interests. Honest observers have chronicled the country’s descent into those unfortunate categories for several years, only to be ignored by a population diverted by its own varieties of bread and circuses.
I will admit to being one of the people who didn’t sufficiently appreciate that descent. In my case, I focused far too much attention on the largely positive cultural changes that have allowed civic participation by previously marginalized folks–women, LGBTQ+ citizens and people of color–and far too little attention on the steady erosion of democratic citizenship.
The only salutary outcome of the 2024 election is the consequent inability of any sentient American to ignore the extent of that erosion.
Thanks in part to voters’ constant diet of “circuses,” Republicans were able to conduct a pivotal and monumentally successful gerrymander in 2010.–an actual, victorious, bloodless coup. The REDMAP program radically altered America’s electoral map, insulating the GOP and its wealthy donors from popular democracy. The book Ratf**ked “pulled back the curtain on that coup,”  explaining in detail how a group of Republican operatives hijacked democracy.
The question now, as always, is “what can be done?” Can We the People regain control of our government?
I will readily confess that I don’t know. Gerrymandering will continue to work so long as there are an adequate number of voters to be deployed who support the racism, misogyny and plutocracy championed by today’s GOP. The only “fix” I can envision is a significant reduction in their number.
It is possible that the pain likely to be caused by Trump’s administration will shake some folks loose. Meanwhile, it will behoove those of us who understand the problem to figure out how to break through the pervasive misinformation and distractions that keep too many voters content with being subjects rather than citizens.
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Resisting

I have often opined that there is one question that dominates times like these. That question is: what do we do?

It’s one thing to understand the importance of resistance to Trump and his clear intention to implement the proposals in Project 2025–it’s another to figure out how, to answer the question: what can an individual do? I’ve wrestled with that question in previous posts, but it is obvious that a true resistance will require the emergence of a movement, the creation of a variety of organizations cooperating to restrain, delay and when possible, reverse the damage.

An article from the website “Waging Nonviolence” addressed that issue.

No analysis will change the fact that the election delivered a serious blow to America’s most vulnerable communities, and promises to deliver a devastating setback for economic and social justice. It’s understandable that many of us are taking this moment to grieve for what we have lost–very much including (at least in my case) a belief in the essential good sense of the American public.

But even amidst our feelings of sorrow or hopelessness, we can recognize that political conditions are not static. As we step out of our grieving and look ahead, there are reasons to believe that a new social movement cycle to confront Trumpism can emerge. And in making this happen, we can draw on lessons from what has worked in the past and what we know can be effective in confronting autocrats. Our job will be to take advantage of the moments of opportunity that arise in coming months to hold the line against Trump’s authoritarianism — and also link them to a vision for creating the transformative change we need in our world.

The article went on to explain why we can expect resistance movements to emerge, especially the fact that the election was in all probability a “trigger event,” defined as a moment when

issues of social and economic injustice are thrown into the spotlight by a dramatic or expected public event: A shocking scandal, a natural disaster, a geopolitical conflict or an investigative report revealing gross misconduct stokes widespread outrage and sends people into the streets.

In 2016, Trump’s election itself served as a trigger event. A wide range of groups, from the liberal ACLU to the more radical Democratic Socialists of America, saw membership and donations surge as concerned progressives braced for what was expected to come from his administration. New groups also emerged, such as Indivisible, which began as a viral Google Doc about how to confront elected officials and compel them to resist the Trump administration. It then quickly grew into an organization with more than 4,000 affiliated local groups by 2021. 

The article noted that two days after the election, a call that had been organized by a coalition of 200 groups — including the Working Families Party, MoveOn, United We Dream and Movement for Black Lives Action — drew well in excess of 100,000 people, and that thousands more signed up for follow-up gatherings.

There is a tendency by the “Chattering classes” (people like David Brooks of the New York Times) to minimize the importance and effects of mass protests. The author of the article conceded that marches and other mass protests cannot effect change merely by occuring. However, as he pointed out, they can and do motivate change and activate other efforts.

And they send the message that We the People have not abandoned hope and resolve.

If ever there was a time to allow ourselves a space for mourning as we contemplate the fate of our country, it is now. But ultimately, only we can save ourselves from despair. David Brooks intended to be dismissive in characterizing collective protest as “mass therapy,” but in one respect he is onto something: There is no better antidote to hopelessness than action in community. 

Our past experience tells us that coming months and years will offer moments that trigger public revulsion. Social movements provide a unique mechanism for responding, creating common identity and purpose between strangers and allowing genuine, collective participation in building a better democracy. If we are to make it together through Trump’s second presidency and emerge in its aftermath to create the world we need, this may be our greatest hope. Indeed, it may be our only one.

Our choices are stark. We can either abandon ship, or join our like-minded friends and neighbors in efforts to make the one we’re in seaworthy.

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Connecting The Dots…

So..how did we get to Never-Never Land?

As the increasingly surreal incoming administration rolls out its roster of incompetent-to-insane nominees, proposes to eliminate constitutional checks and balances and empower man-child Elon Musk to decimate the federal government, it may serve us well to take a step back and identify which elements of the American status quo brought us to this place.

I have posted a number of discrete analyses–some my own, some from others. Those separate observations, however useful or relevant, fail to point us to useful solutions, fail to suggest what we will need to do when the fever subsides.

The various elements that contributed to Trump’s receipt of (under) 50% of the vote (as the votes have been counted, the thinness of his margin has become more obvious) include the interaction of economic unfairness with the information/disinformation environment, and widespread civic ignorance.

Those elements, working together, fed the multiple bigotries still rampant in American society.

There really are no short-term fixes for the widespread lack of basic civic knowledge and engagement. Heather Cox Richardson recently noted a study showing that people who paid “a great deal” of attention to political news voted for Harris +6, while those who paid “none at all” went +19 for Trump. Many of those voters obtained what little news they did get from the right-wing propaganda network I’ve previously referenced.

It’s easy to sneer at people who make no effort to understand and engage with the world they live in, but those of us who are financially comfortable need to recognize how different life is for people struggling to put food on their tables. When every day is consumed by the effort to make an inadequate paycheck stretch, when a flat tire or sudden illness increases financial hardship, accessing the news–let alone trying to confirm its accuracy– becomes a luxury you can ill afford. That’s why the enormous gap between not just the rich but also the secure middle-class and the rest is at the very base of our other problems.

Stable democracies have large middle classes. Ours has continued to shrink.

There is a mountain of research confirming the importance of economic justice to political life (and another mountain confirming that economic justice produces more robust economies). Inadequate and underinclusive social safety nets exacerbate social tensions. Studies tell us that people in impoverished households experience cognitive stresses that affect IQ, and that children from impoverished families in poor neighborhoods lack access to nutrition and good schools.

Economic deprivation accounts for much civic and political disengagement, while America’s current corporatist economic system is deeply implicated in the proliferation of disinformation. The plutocrats who benefit from a rigged economy don’t just deploy lobbyists and buy influence with political donations. The business model of Fox News and its progeny is based upon delivering the propaganda that reinforces the plutocrats’ dominance by assuring their audience that poverty (especially of Black people) is the result of laziness and/or moral deficit and wealth is evidence of brilliance, hard work and God’s approval.

I am a huge proponent of market capitalism, but a working capitalism requires a level playing field, and a level playing field requires adequate regulation. A working market economy also requires an accurate assessment of the nature of the public goods that markets cannot provide. Properly regulated markets are marvelous mechanisms for producing all manner of consumer goods, but (as I have argued repeatedly) health care and education are not consumer goods.

We are about to experience extreme social and governmental upheavals. Much–indeed, most–of what Trump, Vance, Musk et al want to accomplish is immensely unpopular. In the linked Richardson Letter, she notes that one of the largest programs that would be cut by Trump’s new (and illegitimate) “Efficiency Department” proposal would be veterans’ medical care.

The arrogance of his ridiculous cabinet choices and his evident belief that he can ram those choices down the throats of the  spineless Republicans in the Senate may prove to be a miscalculation. (Some of them might actually grow a pair, although I’ll be the first to admit that the jury on that is out.)

All of this points to an important task of the resistance. While we are working to delay or stymie the most damaging goals of this administration–the intended concessions to Putin and other autocrats, the decimation of social programs, the assaults on immigrants, education and public health, the further enrichment of the already-rich–we need to forge a working consensus on what should come next. What systemic changes will be necessary to restore and advance the American Idea?

In coming posts, I intend to address that incredibly important question.

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Who We Are

Four days before election day, Dana Milbank wrote a column that said it all. 

His point was simple: unlike the election in 2016, no sentient American could fail to be aware of who and what Donald Trump is. As he said, in four days, we will look in the mirror and see who we are.

Have we become so coarse that we would choose as our head of state a man whose climactic campaign rally at Madison Square Garden was a grotesque collection of four-letter words, vulgar sexual references and explicitly racist attacks against Black people, Latinos, Jews and Palestinians?

Have we become so disoriented by disinformation that, even though the economy is booming, inflation and illegal border crossings are sharply down, and crime is below where it was when Trump left office, we accept as reality Trump’s preposterous inventions about America being “destroyed” and an “occupied country” under the control of immigrant criminals?

Have we lost so much of our democratic muscle memory and civic culture over 10 years that we no longer flinch at a presidential candidate who talks of suspending the Constitution and imprisoning political opponents?

Have we become so numb to brutality that we no longer notice his support for vigilante violence and for using the military to attack Americans?

And are we willing to risk everything on a man who has clearly become more erratic and dangerous with age?

That was the question on our ballots yesterday.

Milbank followed that question with a litany intended to remind readers of Trump’s actual threats and “promises”–to go after his personal enemies, to remake the Justice Department into an instrument of his personal vengeance, to jail his opponents, to free the “patriots” that have been convicted of insurrection…the list went on. He reminded readers of the neo-Nazi rhetoric: migrants are “poisoning the blood” of good White Christian Americans, immigrants are “animals.”

Milbank noted the unprecedented number of Republicans–not just from prior administrations, but from Trump’s own–who warned that he is a fascist who should never be allowed to exercise power. And he compared the candidates’ closing messages.

The warm-up acts for Harris included a woman who nearly died because she couldn’t get an abortion despite severe complications; a daughter of refugees; a woman who gets health care for her son through the Affordable Care Act; Republican farmers from Pennsylvania; and the brother of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who died from strokes the day after defending the Capitol on Jan. 6. “I’ve had enough of Trump’s politics of chaos, anger and hate. It has real and dangerous consequences for all of us,” Craig Sicknick said.

The warm-up acts for Trump? Tony Hinchcliffe, a supposed comedian, called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean” and said: “These Latinos, they love making babies. … There’s no pulling out; they don’t do that. They come inside, just like they did to our country.” He mocked a Black man’s do-rag in the audience (“What the hell is that, a lampshade?”) and spoke of Black people carving watermelons instead of pumpkins. He remarked: “Rock, paper, scissors. You know the Palestinians are going to throw rock every time. But you also know the Jews have a hard time throwing that paper,” referring to money.

Another speaker raised his middle finger to Democrats and called Trump “the greatest f—ing president.” Others called Harris “the Antichrist” who, with her “pimp handlers,” will destroy our country, and labeled Doug Emhoff “a crappy Jew,” Hillary Clinton a “sick son of a bitch” and Democrats “a bunch of degenerates.”

Bottom line: the choice between Trump and Harris amounts to a choice of who we are. The election result will tell us how many Americans cling to the aspirations of our constituent documents– and how many angry, resentful people cast votes for hate and division.

Yesterday’s election really boiled down to one question: are we better than this?

When I went to bed last night, I didn’t know the answer to that question–but one fact had become undeniable. Realizing that so many people cast votes for this truly despicable man–a man who threatens every American value, not to mention global stability– has plunged me into a very dark place. There’s no denying the bleak truth: millions of my fellow Americans rejected civility, logic, and simple humanity…..

I guess I know who we are…..and it isn’t pretty.

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