The Resistance Handbook: 45 Ways to Fight Trump

284 Pages·2017·1.11 MB·English

by  Markos Moulitsas

MARKOS MOULITSAS & MICHAEL HUTTNER
AUSTIN  NEW YORK
CONTENTS
Introduction
SECTION I: RESIST TRUMP AT ALL COSTS
1. Brand Trump as a Weak Loser
2. Impeach Trump!
3. Call Congress—Then Call Congress Again
4. Go to Town Hall Events
5. Protest
6. Join Indivisible
7. Join Daily Kos
8. Read Rules for Radicals
9. Meatspace Trumps Virtual Organizing
10. Protect Your Privacy
11. Put Your Money Where Your Values Are
SECTION II: PROTECT THE CULTURE
12. It’s Our Flag—Own It!
13. Acknowledge, Check, and Use Your Privilege
14. Join the #BLACKLIVESMATTER Movement
15. Help Refugees and Other Immigrants in Your Community
16. Fight Rape Culture and Sexual Harassment
17. Protect Real Religious Liberties
18. Fight Bullying in Schools
19. Create Art for the Resistance
20. Take Time Off and Recover
SECTION III: MINIMIZE DAMAGE, POLICY
21. Leak Like a Sieve
22. Obstruct, Delay, Stymie
23. Politicize Consumerism
24. Fight for Justice
25. Fight for LGBTQ Rights
26. Resist the GOP War on Women
27. Fight for the Courts
28. Fight for Education
29. Protect the Environment
30. Protect Our Social Safety Net
31. Protect Workers’ Rights
SECTION IV: BUILD ELECTORAL INFRASTRUCTURE
32. Register People to Vote
33. Help the Census Count Everyone
34. Donate to Campaigns
35. Talk to People
36. Volunteer on a Campaign
37. Invest in Democracy
38. Take Over Your Local Party
39. Fix Our Rigged System
40. Run for Office/Recruit Candidates
SECTION V: BUILD GRASSROOTS INFRASTRUCTURE
41. Be the Media
42. Organize Locally
43. Increase Our Visibility
44. Get a Job in Politics
45. Make Actions a Part of Your Life
Acknowledgments
About the Authors

INTRODUCTION
THERE IS A DIVIDE in the Democratic Party, but it’s not between supporters
of Hillary Clinton and those of Bernie Sanders. It’s also not “the establishment”
versus “outsiders.” Those who persist with that dichotomy aren’t just fostering
unnecessary enmity between natural allies but are clinging to a simplistic plot
line that has more in common with fake news than actual reality.
So what is this existing divide among Democrats? It’s between those who
oppose Trump and those who resist him and his regime. That may seem like
trivial semantics, but it’s actually a distinction with a huge difference.
In politics, the “opposition” assumes that the ruling powers are legitimate,
and that their group or faction represents a “democratic minority” of public
opinion. The loyal opposition acts as a check against the “tyranny of the
majority,” as John Adams once wrote, counterbalancing the powers of the ruling
regime. The opposition intentionally differentiates itself from the majority, with
the hope of building support for its values and objectives among the populace;
but it can also find strategic opportunities to work and compromise with the
majority in pursuit of the national good.
In normal times, that’s what the losing party does—oppose the legitimate,
democratically elected winner.
These are not normal times. Donald Trump is not the legitimate president of
the United States, thus opposition is insufficient. Relentless resistance—using
any lawful actions to stymie, harass, delay, and obstruct—is the only option.
DEMOCRACY FOR ME, BUT NOT FOR THEE
At this point, the electoral math has been well studied and combed over: Trump
received nearly three million fewer votes than the popular winner of the election,
Hillary Clinton. The Electoral College—an antiquated system designed to
protect the property rights of slave owners—elevated the loser to office. It is the
second time this century that this immoral, irrational, and undemocratic system
has crowned an unworthy ignoramus and undermined our democratic values as a
nation. And we clearly didn’t learn anything from the debacle that was George
W. Bush, since here we are again.
Of course, the deep flaws in our democracy aren’t limited to the White
House. In the Senate, the 48 Democrats in the “minority” have received,
collectively, 23 million more votes than the 52 Republicans in the supposed
“majority.” Why do the Dakotas, with their combined population of 1.6 million,
have four senators, while California, population 38.8 million, has two? Why
does Wyoming, with a population of 584,000, have two senators while
Washington, DC, population 659,000, has zero?
The situation is no better in the House of Representatives, which is so
heavily gerrymandered by Republicans that Democrats would have to win the
House national popular vote by over eight points just to have an even-odds
chance of retaking the chamber!
Our republican (lowercase “r”) form of government is entirely predicated on
the notion of proportional representation, but our current system is neither
proportional nor representative.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump repeatedly complained that the system
was rigged—and he was right! By any standards of democratic fairness, our
system for electing presidents and members of Congress is objectively rigged to
maintain Republican control of government. As our national demographics shift
to increasingly multicultural urban values—and away from rural white
conservative values—this rigging threatens to further undermine the legitimacy
of our democracy.
BLOCK THE VOTE
Those antiquated, built-in institutional advantages Republicans enjoy prove we
aren’t living in a legitimate democracy. But even with those undemocratic
structural flaws, Republicans still can’t win elections in a fair vote—and so they
engage in systematic voter suppression efforts, designed to reduce voting by
people of color, women, and young voters.
It’s no accident that Trump’s victory hinged on narrow margins in
Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. After GOP takeovers
in the 2010 Republican wave, all four states systematically weakened organized
labor—a key component of the Democratic electoral machine. They also made it
harder for urban voters—a key component of the Democratic electoral coalition
—to cast their votes through such mechanisms as strict voter ID laws and the
reduction of polling stations in communities of color and college towns. As
giddy Wisconsin Republican state senator Mary Lazich crowed after the passage
of that state’s voter ID law, “Hey, we’ve got to think about what this would
mean for the neighborhoods around Milwaukee and the college campuses.”
And yet, those institutional and electoral advantages were still not enough. In
the months leading up to the 2017 election, an entire ecosystem of fake news
sites sprang up to distribute a special brand of crazy. Meanwhile, Republican
officials reportedly met with the Russian intelligence agencies later accused of
causing damage to Democratic campaigns. As we write this, more than a handful
of high-level Trump administration officials and Republican operatives are
under investigation for colluding with Russia during the election. Meanwhile, as
if all this weren’t absurd enough, the FBI director leaked information on the
bogus Hillary Clinton email investigation, while keeping mum about the FBI’s
investigations into the Trump campaign’s Russian ties.
When the dust settled, after running the most hateful, xenophobic, racist,
sexist, and anti-Semitic campaign in American history, and despite losing by any
reasonable, democratic measure, we’re to accept that Donald Trump “won”?
Sorry, but no.
We cannot accept the results of an illegitimate election won by an
illegitimate candidate by illegitimate means. And as such, Democrats and
progressives cannot consider ourselves the ”opposition,” opposite the petty
progressives cannot consider ourselves the ”opposition,” opposite the petty
tyrants and pennyweight dictators who rule today’s GOP. Remember, opposition
lends legitimacy to their illegitimate gains. An opposition crafts
counterarguments in the hopes of gaining a seat at the negotiating table and
rallies its supporters behind the idea that “next time we’ll get more votes.”
We already got more votes—and would have won even more had it not been
for the Republican cheating. That makes us the majority. And yet, here we are,
ruled by a tyranny of the minority that cheated us out of our deserved democratic
victory.
We are not the opposition. We are the resistance.