What Should Americans Do Now?

[pat_k]

The Atlantic
What Should Americans Do Now?
We need a mass movement for basic decency.
By George Packer

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/minneapolis-ice-protests-democracy/685778/?gift=5J-TeZBIGQI5_AumHv3QZy7v5lRBkZhYBSV-bnpzEyI&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

...
The federal government has never declared itself immune to the law and the Constitution while explicitly denying protection to peaceful opponents, until now. Many Americans who thought they were living under the rule of law feel paralyzed. The vague exhortation to “do something while you still can” creates a sense of urgency but doesn’t provide a plan. Rather than inspiring action, the question of what to do more likely leaves you feeling depressed and alone. Not even the prospect of waiting out the year until the midterms provides much reassurance. Trump has made it clear that he will try to undermine any election that might cost him some of his power.

Without a constructive answer, the danger is that Americans who find themselves without legal remedies will turn to illegal and violent ones. That would be a catastrophic mistake, both strategically and morally...

Minneapolis is setting an example for the rest of the country: a nameless, leaderless, self-organized movement. Self-organization is a term I heard from almost everyone I met in Ukraine shortly after the Russian invasion. It’s an inherently hard form of activism, requiring high levels of motivation and trust. These obviously exist in the neighborhoods of South Minneapolis, where civic spirit and personal connections run deep. But replicating them on a wider scale—essentially, creating a mass movement for basic decency—raises obvious problems. That movement’s energy might depend on the arrival of conspicuous federal oppression in other blue cities and states (which Trump has promised). It would have to remain decentralized and maintain its local integrity while creating a capacity for nationwide coordination...

Beyond neighbor-to-neighbor support in a moment of crisis lies a wide range of means to withhold cooperation from an illegitimate government. The late theorist Gene Sharp laid them out, along with ideas for strategic planning, in books such as From Dictatorship to Democracy and Waging Nonviolent Struggle. Sharp’s work has been used as an essential guide for democracy activists under dictatorial regimes in countries such as Serbia, Burma, and Iran. Americans should pick up these books and absorb their lessons.

Sharp analyzed various “methods of noncooperation”—political, economic, and social—that stop short of more aggressive disruptions. They include boycotts and strikes (such as the widely observed general strike in Minneapolis last Friday); refusal to participate in administration-supported organizations and events; “quasi-legal evasions and delays” and “reluctant and slow compliance” with government edicts; and finally, nonviolent civil disobedience. Anti-ICE actions that try to thwart the brutal and indiscriminate enforcement of immigration laws can become a form of civil disobedience....

Nonviolent struggle carries serious risks. It can lead to social ostracism, legal harassment, state intimidation, prison, injury, and, as we’ve seen in Minneapolis, death. One sign of the authoritarian depth to which the U.S. has sunk under Trump is that none of these risks is hard to imagine. Examples accumulate every day. A movement of resistance against an illegitimate regime has a chance of succeeding only if it remains strictly nonviolent and avoids the familiar trap of sectarianism. It has to be democratic, patriotic, and animated by a sense of basic decency that can attract ordinary people—your TV-watching mother, your apathetic teen, your child’s teacher, the retiree next door, the local grocer.

Such self-organized resistance is one critical piece. But there is another: Citizen action to force leaders and electeds who claim to believe in the core values of decency to step up in coordinated action.

This crisis demands more that individual statements from those in positions of public trust. It demands coordinated action from the "top" too.

There are many ways. Imagine Mayors and Governors of the the free cities and states appearing together in solidarity and opposition to the lawlessness of this regime.

At a minimum, we must work to disabuse those who are committed to the insane notion that limiting themselves to proposals that focus on "kitchen table issues" are sufficient to meet this moment.

But we must be ambitious in demanding much more.

Imagine coordinated action across Democratic state legislatures to simultaneously pass resolutions of condemnation that list the usurpations and violations being committed. We need spectacles of solidarity. Imagine the Governors of the free states all signing those resolutions on July 4. Imagine the impact when the news and social media are swamped by the unprecedented scale of opposition from courageous leaders.

Perhaps making such visions a reality is impossible, but one thing is for sure. The sort of coordinated acts of opposition we need from decent electeds and leaders will certainly never happen unless we get in their faces and demand it of them.

[usonian]

1. Is this a non-answer?

The first obligation for each of us is to see it and name it. The next is to figure out what to do about it.

I think it's more likely, given the circumstances, that

• The people lead, with powerful demonstrations and actions (like shutting it all down), and then
• Unifying leaders will step up to marshal forces.

The political system is designed around leaders, as in business and armed forces and even sports. There is no "pure democracy" but here is (there must be) coordination.

Alternatively: Independent groups uncover the Trump-Epstein sex, blackmail and money-laundering empire, the worst in recorded history, especially now, the money trail as Senator Wyden is doing. It may fall to foreign nations (give or take their own leaders being implicated) and the criminal empire and all its enablers, Johns, and guardians (This means you, Mike) fall down.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220810679

[snot]

2. A few general observations:

1. Many observers believe that the most effective forms of action involve prolonged general strikes, hitting oligarchs in their pocketbooks.

The poorer we are (due to income/wealth gaps, etc.), the more difficult that becomes. And the more thoroughly surveilled and censored we are, the more difficult almost any form of resistance becomes.

2. Effective action will require not only that we try to elect people who will truly represent us, but also that that we organize – preferably from the grassroots up rather than relying on action or resources from oligarchs perceived as less-odious than their peers, at least re- particular issues.

"There’s always a tendency to look for the most charismatic person, because that,
in a way, solves your leadership problem – but only in the short term…. You can’t counter institutional power with good intentions, or charisma alone…. You have to build your own institutional power."
– Mike Gecan, as recorded by Studs Terkel and published in Terkel's Hope Dies Last.

"[W]e forgot that the question is NOT, how do we get good people into power. The question is, how do we limit the damage the powerful can do to us?"
– Chris Hedges, "The Failure of the Liberal Class in the United States," address to the Poverty Scholars Program, April 10, 2010.

3. Imho, we will not be able to achieve any lasting improvement in our situtuation without a much deeper and more complex understanding than most of us have of the causes of our problems and their possible solutions.

Most of the incremental measures through which oligarchs have increased their power and wealth at our expense have been achieved gradually and often with little media coverage or public understanding, but cumulatively they've been devastating, and their most pervasively harmful effects can't be reversed with band-aid solutions such as banning guns or censoring views we consider heinous.

I believe, e.g., that the factors that have significantly contributed to our current problems include lots of kinds of deregulation, etc., that have legalized Wall St. looting and media ownership consolidation; weakened antitrust and labor laws; diminished social safety nets, public goods & services, and environmental protections; and an array of other changes that have generally empowered oligarchs in whole or part to control the economy, the news, elections, foreign policy, education, and even the arts. Indirect effects of the foregoing that have in themselves been deployed as tactics include dire economic stress and divisions among the 90 - 98%, who'd be much better off uniting and organizing around their common ground (much of which is economic, although I think there's also coming to be more overlap w.r.t. free speech, surveillance, and other matters).

An effective plan to restore a republic of, by, and for the people must address all of these factors and more.

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."
.– Frédéric Bastiat, Economic Sophisms, 2nd series (1848), Ch. 1 "Physiology of Plunder."

We must also understand what kinds of structures (e.g., a division of powers & responsibilities and checks and balances among the executive, legislative, and judicial functions), laws, and procedures (e.g., due process) must be prescribed in order to re-institute, strengthen, and maintain the kind of republic we want to live in.

"Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing."
– Joseph Heller, Catch 22, Ch. 39, P. 407 (Simon & Schuster, 50th Anniversary Ed., 2011).

This is the work that James Madison and some of the other Founders understook in drafting the Constitution: Madison spent considerable time and effort surveying the various forms of government throughout the world and history, to try to understand and codify the complex structures, procedures, and laws that have worked best to sustain a free and prosperous people.

The lack of this kind of preparation is a huge part of why so many "Arab Spring" and other attempted revolutions have failed to produce the hoped-for results. Nature abhors a vacuum. We can't just object, and we can't just look for a charismatic leader; we must propose comprehensive solutions.*** Because as we've all seen in the successes of ALEC and the failures such as in Iraq after Saddam Hussein's removal or New Orleans after Katrina, even if an existing regime, the oligarchs will step in and pre-empt our hopes with their own, ready-on-the shelf programmes designed to further their interests at our expense.

All this may sound super-daunting; but I refuse to believe it's impossible (c.f. the work done by groups formed back in 2011 in the Occupy Wall St. camps, such as Occupy the SEC, the Alternative Banking Group, Strike Debt, and Occupy Sandy; see also Represent.Us {at https://represent.us }).

"Nothing is inevitable, except defeat for those who give up without a fight."
– "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" (1961), script by Irwin Allen & Charles Bennett.

"Let's do something, while we have the chance! It's not every day that we are needed.... Let us make the most of it before it is too late!"
– Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (1949).

________________

***Fwiw, imho, the Constitution, Wall St. regulation, and many other areas of US law back in the '70s were much closer to ideal than what we have now – i.e., before the Wall St. & related regulations that were passed after the 1929 Crash were repealed, before the restrictions on media consolidation were repealed, before labor law was weakened, etc. That said, I'd favor a few tweaks, such as passing the ERA and demoting corporations from "citizenship." )