A Counter-Campaign for Democracy from Below

President Donald Trump is done pretending. In the past few weeks, the administration has made its intentions plain: Critics will be punished, media will be silenced, and the left will be targeted as an enemy to be crushed.

The pattern is crystal clear. As of this writing, at least 145 people have been fired or suspended across K-12, universities, corporations, and nonprofits for exercising freedom of speech related to Charlie Kirk’s death. In one of the highest profile examples, The Jimmy Kimmel Show was briefly suspended after a tame joke.

Trump has openly threatened to strip licenses from broadcasters that dare criticize him. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Brendan Carr, a longtime opponent of net neutrality and author of the telecommunications section of Project 2025, is saying coercive things such as, “These companies can find ways to change conduct to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” He has stated that reporting that critiques him is illegal, demonstrating a clear opposition to the First Amendment.

These moves come as he has run over university students for exercising free speech such as Mahmoud Khalil, invaded majority Black cities like DC and Chicago with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other law enforcement agents connected to a massive deportation machine, and directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute his political rivals despite a lack of evidence.

The Authoritarian Playbook

Trump’s crackdown isn’t just about silencing dissent—it’s about shoring up his base through racism. The administration has turned Charlie Kirk into a martyr of white grievance, celebrated openly by white supremacists. It is attacking immigrants and poor people to justify ICE raids and threats to Medicaid and SNAP. This is the oldest trick in the authoritarian playbook: Use racism to divide, then use division to dismantle democracy. Groups like Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) organize the white working and middle class because we are clear that we have more to gain by rejecting this politics of scapegoating and joining a multiracial fight for freedom.

How do we build a mass movement that isn’t just symbolic protest but concretely defends and expands democracy to fully meet the needs of the multiracial working class and shift the conditions that led us here?

The Trump administration has been signaling escalation: using RICO charges, injunctions, and going after unions, nonprofits, and movement organizations. This isn’t “cancel culture.” It’s not the “culture of consequences.” It’s authoritarianism. What’s happening now isn’t just an attack on a late-night comedian or a few unlucky workers. It’s a campaign to dismantle the infrastructure of dissent itself.

We’ve seen this before. Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s blacklist destroyed the livelihoods of radicals and artists. COINTELPRO infiltrated and dismantled Black freedom organizations. Each time, repression worked best when the left was fragmented and unprepared. Each time, resistance gained ground when people refused to be isolated by organizing and fighting back together.

So what the hell do we do about it now? How do we build a mass movement that isn’t just symbolic protest but concretely defends and expands democracy to fully meet the needs of the multiracial working class and shift the conditions that led us here?

South Africa: Democracy from Below

For historical inspiration, let’s look to South Africa under apartheid. In 1955, the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies—including socialists, trade unionists, and township organizations—convened the Congress of the People and adopted the Freedom Charter. The Freedom Charter was based on the demands of millions of South Africans, collected by the ANC and allies.

The charter declared, “The people shall govern!” It demanded not just the right to vote, but to publish freely, live without racial segregation, the right to organize unions, and share in the wealth of the land. This was a vision of radical multiracial democracy written under conditions where simply handing out a leaflet could land you in prison.

The South African Communist Party played a central role in pushing the liberation struggle to link democratic rights with economic justice. Despite repression, arrests, and bannings, they built underground newspapers, coordinated legal defense, and organized international solidarity. Their insistence on a mass, united front strategy meant that democracy was never reduced to just elections, but tied to social and economic transformation. The front pushed for inclusion of working people’s demands in the charter.

Even as the apartheid state criminalized dissent through surveillance and treason trials, the Freedom Charter kept alive a positive vision of democracy worth fighting for. And when the system finally cracked in the 1990s, it was that vision that helped shape South Africa’s transition.

What the US Left Must Do

The South African lesson is both simple in concept and hard in making: Repression can be survived if the left insists on turning defense into a broader offense. It means looking beyond this crushing moment to the horizon.

1. Make Freedom a Mass Issue. We can’t let Trump define this as a spat among elites. The left should hammer home that attacks on free speech and association aren’t abstract: They mean workers losing jobs for speaking their mind, neighborhoods losing organizations that fight evictions, and entire communities being silenced. Defending these rights is defending bread-and-butter survival.
2. Defend the Infrastructure of the Left. The administration is betting that nonprofits, unions, and grassroots groups will fold under pressure. Instead, we need to treat their survival as a collective responsibility. That means legal defense funds, rapid response networks, solidarity actions, and mutual aid across organizations. An injury to one really must be an injury to all.
3. Use Elected Allies Aggressively. Progressive elected officials have a role to play beyond issuing statements. They can pass city and state resolutions protecting targeted organizations, refuse cooperation with federal crackdowns, and put the administration on notice that repression will be met with political consequences.
4. Escalate and Broaden the Fight. Every authoritarian move should be met with resistance that is both robust and expansive when red lines are crossed. If workers are fired, organize walkouts. If nonprofits are hit with injunctions, mount solidarity strikes and mass protests. The goal is not just to defend ourselves, but to show millions that democracy itself is under attack.
5. Build Cross-Movement Solidarity. Democratic Socialists of America, unions, immigrant rights groups, racial justice campaigns—we can’t afford siloed struggles. What we need is a Defend Democracy united front that can mobilize thousands at short notice: rallies outside TV stations, pickets at workplaces where critics are fired, coordinated campaigns against companies that kowtow to White House threats.
6. Build a Mass Multiracial Working Class Base. We must organize working class people who have the most to gain from ending authoritarianism into a self-conscious bloc that can drive deep change. This will require confronting white supremacy in order to inoculate against the right’s attempts to divide the working class, and building a shared interest in winning a world where we all live full lives.

Beyond Defense: A Democratic Offensive

For years, SURJ has organized white communities to recognize our collective shared interest in rejecting racism and authoritarian populism. The white working class has more to gain by defending a multiracial democracy that centers tangible public goods than it does by clinging to the false promises of MAGA strongmen. One of the strongest tools the right uses against us is white supremacy to divide the working class and convince white people we have more in common with billionaires than with neighbors. Authoritarianism offers division, scapegoating, and declining standards of living. Multiracial democracy offers solidarity, higher wages, and genuine freedom.

Trump’s strategy is clear: Isolate the left, silence its organizations, and terrify people into submission. Our response must be just as clear: Unite, defend one another, and broaden the fight for real democracy. It can start in the here and now: organizing in cities, counties, and states politically and in the streets.

That means not only resisting repression but demanding more democracy. Public funding and democratic guarantees for independent media. Expanded protections for whistleblowers. Real rights for workers to organize unions without retaliation like the PRO Act.

The choice is between authoritarianism and a revitalized democracy rooted in working-class power. We cannot wait this out. We must have a counter-campaign now —not just to survive, but to fight for the kind of freedom that can’t be canceled.