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civil society
What Other Countries Can Teach Us About Defending a Democracy in Crisis
In recent years, autocrats have been defeated in Brazil, Poland, and South Korea. What can we learn from the brave people who stood up to the dragon and saved their villages?
Apr 28, 2025
The best way of preventing authoritarian leaders from overthrowing democracies is to make sure that they never get into power in the first place. That’s what the French did last year when parties on the left united and then made a second-round pact with the centrists to prevent Marine Le Pen and her far-right National Rally from winning a parliamentary majority. And now the courts have convicted Le Pen of corruption and barred her from running for office.
Americans have obviously screwed the pooch on that particular method of preventing autocracy. Voted out of office, slapped with multiple suits, convicted of a felony, denounced by dozens of his former appointees, Donald Trump nevertheless managed to use these setbacks as evidence that even a billionaire ex-president can be an “outsider” who’s taking on the “establishment” and sticking up for the “little guy.”
A decade of Trump? That’s a sobering prospect. A 100-year-old president-for-life presiding over the dying embers of American society? A horror story indeed.
On the eve of the first 100 days of Trump’s second term, the challenge has now become infinitely more difficult. America is now living through that horror movie cliché where the call is coming from inside the house. The seemingly indestructible culprit has returned for a more horrifying sequel to destroy U.S. democracy from within. Worse, all the failures of his first term are now helping him craft more successful disruptions in his second.
With a cowboy president shooting from the hip in all directions, what can Americans do to prevent Trump from taking down democracy (not to mention the economy, the international system, and the planet)? Even New York Times columnist David Brooks, who admits in a staggering understatement that “he’s not a movement guy,” has recently declared that “it’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising.”
Alas, America has no history of such uprisings from which to draw, except perhaps the American Revolution and that was a long time ago. With few domestic examples to inspire, everyone is now searching the globe for cases of successful resistance to authoritarianism.
Unfortunately, most examples of such uprisings involved years and years of organizing. It took a decade to get rid of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, nearly two decades to oust Augusto Pinochet in Chile, slightly more than two decades to overthrow Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, and more than a half-century to depose the Assad’s father-and-son regime in Syria.
A decade of Trump? That’s a sobering prospect. A 100-year-old president-for-life presiding over the dying embers of American society? A horror story indeed.
But there are other examples of more compressed resistance from which Americans committed to a national civic uprising can take inspiration. In recent years, autocrats have been defeated in Brazil, Poland, and South Korea. What can we learn from the brave people who stood up to the dragon and saved their villages?
Dumping Bolsonaro
Like the United States, Brazil is a deeply divided country, with an even larger wealth gap. As Oxfam reports, “Brazil’s six richest men have the same wealth as the poorest 50% of the population; around 100 million people. The country’s richest 5% have the same income as the remaining 95%.”
The leftist Workers’ Party successfully mobilized the have-nots to win a series of elections in the 2000s. But in 2018, buoyed in part by Donald Trump’s win in 2016, an aggressive, nationalist outsider, Jair Bolsonaro, capitalized on voter frustration with corruption and persistent poverty to become the country’s president. The leading reason for voters to back the sexist, homophobic, religiously conservative Bolsonaro was anti-incumbent sentiment, a profound dissatisfaction with the political status quo.
Once in office, Bolsonaro threatened to pack the Supreme Court with his supporters and, when that failed, to ignore its rulings. He praised the country’s past military dictatorship and threatened to send troops into the streets to restore “order.” He ramped up the disastrous deforestation of the Amazon. Like Trump, he failed to address the Covid-19 pandemic, pushing Brazil to the top of the list of countries with the most fatalities (after the United States and Russia).
There were plenty of protests against Bolsonaro. But his allies in Congress provided a legislative shield against impeachment. Which meant that the most effective form of resistance turned out to be judicial. And that judicial resistance largely boiled down to one person, Alexandre de Moraes, a member of the country’s Supreme Court. As Jon Lee Anderson explains in The New Yorker:
After Bolsonaro took office, in 2019, de Moraes led an ever-expanding series of investigations into him and his family. As Bolsonaro’s supporters formed “digital militias” that flooded the internet with disinformation—claiming that political opponents were pedophiles, spreading blatant lies about their policies, inventing conspiracies—de Moraes fought to force them offline. Granted special powers by the judiciary, he suspended accounts belonging to legislators, business magnates, and political commentators for posts that he described as harmful to Brazilian democracy.
These actions went a long way toward constraining Bolsonaro’s power and reducing his overall popularity, so that by the time the next elections rolled around in 2022, the strongman lost his reelection bid.
U.S. Supreme Court justices don’t have the same kind of power as their Brazilian counterparts. The court as a whole has an even more limited ability to constrain the Trump administration if the latter decides not to implement the decisions it doesn’t like. It’s also going to be difficult to rein in Trump’s digital militias, given Elon Musk’s control of Twitter and Mark Zuckerberg’s capitulation to Trump over at Facebook.
But one lesson from the Brazilian case is the need to launch immediate investigations into government corruption and misconduct. This can be done in the United States by way of congressional requests for reports by the Congressional Research Service, which for instance deemed the defunding of USAID to be unconstitutional, or to the Government Accountability Office, which has been tasked to study the impact of the mass firings of federal workers. Lawmakers can also hold informal hearings on the unconstitutional actions of DOGE and the executive branch.
Don’t wait and play a defensive game. Be as bold as the Brazilians against Bolsonaro and go on the offensive.
Displacing Law and Justice
The right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS) took electoral advantage of the discontent of Polish voters, particularly in the countryside, who had not benefited from the country’s rush to capitalism after 1989. Poland A did well by the liberal reforms; Poland B didn’t and took revenge at the polls by voting for PiS.
Like Donald Trump and his MAGA forces, PiS had a first taste of power when it governed for two years in a coalition government and didn’t accomplish much. When it came roaring back in 2015, PiS knew exactly what to do. First, it went after the courts. PiS was determined to destroy the country’s constitutional order and remake Polish society according to conservative, nationalist, and religious principles.
The first target was the constitutional court, which had blocked PiS initiatives in that first administration. As Christian Davies writes:
The ruling party’s strategy played out in three parts: First, to deny opposition-appointed judges from taking their place on the court. Second, to pass laws designed to paralyze the court and prevent it from functioning effectively. Third, to force through the appointment of judges loyal to the ruling party. All this was done in open defiance of the law, the constitution, and multiple rulings issued by the Tribunal itself.
This attack on the judiciary, which was also accompanied by assaults on the media, free speech, and nonprofit organizations, precipitated a battle with the European Union, which put pressure on the Polish government to reverse its judicial “reforms.” But with the courts now aligned with its agenda, PiS looked as though it would consolidate its power indefinitely. In the 2019 elections, it even expanded its legislative majority in the lower house of parliament.
Four years later, thanks to its control of the media and other methods of rigging political outcomes, PiS again came out on top in the 2023 parliamentary elections with 35% of the vote. But this time, three opposition parties were able to unite to sideline PiS and form a new government. Poland’s constitutional crisis had come to an end.
How did the Polish opposition manage to beat a clearly still-popular party?
Perhaps the E.U. pressuring from the outside might have helped. But part of the PiS base was Euroskeptical, so the party could use E.U. pressure to rally its nationalist supporters.
More influential was the ability of the Polish opposition to overcome its fractiousness and bring together leftists, liberals, Solidarity true believers, traditional conservatives, and interest-group advocates like environmentalists and pro-choice feminists. In 2015, after the PiS government refused to follow a Constitutional Court verdict, major street protests broke out and a journalist called for a new civic movement patterned after the communist-era dissident group, the Committee for the Defense of Workers (KOR). “We have to remember, the goal isn’t to overturn the legally elected authorities of the country, but rather the defense of democracy,” the journalist wrote.
Out of this ferment came the Committee for the Defense of Democracy (KOD), which organized a series of massive protests around the country. Within a few months, it had garnered the support of 40% of the population. Because it wasn’t a party, KOD could appeal to a large segment of the population that had become disgusted with electoral politics. It successfully promoted the message that PiS was no ordinary party pushing for an ordinary platform of policies. Rather, PiS was a threat to the very legacy of the Solidarity movement that had liberated the country.
The United States needs just such a nonpartisan umbrella organization that can appeal to the largest swath of the anti-Trump community. Let’s call it the Society Organized to Save American Democracy (SOSAD). It stands for mom, baseball, apple pie, the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, fairly compensated work, equal rights for all: in short everything that makes America truly great.
Reversing a Coup
To overcome a parliament that blocked his policies, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law on the evening of December 3, 2024. The president ordered police to seal off the parliament and special forces to enter the building.
But the coup lasted for only a few hours. Enough members of parliament managed to get into the building that night and hold a vote to lift martial law. Meanwhile, spurred by news spread rapidly by electronic means, citizens began to gather in public places to protest Yoon’s actions.
South Koreans saved their democracy because of brave legislators and determined civil society activists. The country has a long history of civic engagement, going back to the democratization movement of the 1970s and 1980s and efforts to bring down former President Park Geun-Hye through months of candlelight vigils.
The defense of democracy perhaps feels more urgent in countries where it’s not taken for granted.
“The speed of this latest democratic defense suggests that lessons learned during decades of mobilization have strengthened South Korea’s institutional guardrails and nationwide vigilance against executive abuse,” writes Darcie Draudt-Véjares.
This month, the country’s constitutional court upheld the parliament’s impeachment and officially removed Yoon from office.
The lessons from the South Korean case are clear. U.S. legislators have to step up—as Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) did with his 25-hour filibuster and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have been doing with their recent rallies. Meanwhile, civil society must organize rapid responses, not just within silos (like the recent letter from university presidents) but across institutions.
One key lesson from the South Korean experience is the role of labor. After Yoon’s martial law announcement, the main trade union confederation immediately called for a general strike until the president stepped down. The prospect of a significant hit to the Korean economy was a wake-up call for many who hadn’t yet made up their minds about Yoon.
U.S. labor has had a love-hate relationship with Trump. Many labor leaders refused to back the candidate even as support among rank-and-file members surged. Several key unions—Teamsters, UAW—have been enthusiastic about Trump’s tariffs.
Any opposition to Trump must appeal to working people who feel ignored and undervalued by politicians and the elite. They are a core part of Trump’s support, but they are certainly persuadable. When the costs of Trump’s actions begin to rise—at the pump, in the grocery store, through reduced checks from Medicare and Medicaid—they may well be ready for a political change.
Why were Poles, Koreans, and Brazilians able to turn back authoritarianism where others have failed? All three have histories of strong civil society engagement in politics. All three had credible leaders—Donald Tusk, Lee Jae-myung, Lula—who could step in as alternatives.
And all three countries have had rather short experiences of democratic rule. In 1981, South Koreans were living in the shadow of martial law, which had been declared the previous year. Poles entered a martial law period in December of that year. And Brazilians were living under a military dictatorship that wouldn’t collapse until 1985.
The defense of democracy perhaps feels more urgent in countries where it’s not taken for granted. So far, America is failing the stress test that Trump is applying to the country’s democratic institutions. But if Americans are willing to learn some lessons from Brazil, Poland, and Korea, maybe we can defeat the dragon as well.
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A Nation of Sheep? Trump's Fascist Tactics Working All Too Easily
Where are the nationwide protests? The national strikes against the destruction of what is left of U.S. democracy? As for the eerie complacency of the Democrats, it is hardly surprising why there is such a huge loss of trust in the leadership of the Democratic Party.
Apr 18, 2025
Trump’s historic first 100 days are just around the corner. How is the U.S. doing? What are the global implications, including for climate and the environment, of Trump’s policies to create a “new world order” and “Make America Wealthy Again? In the interview that follows with independent French-Greek journalist Alexandra Boutri, political scientist/political economist, author and journalist C.J. Polychroniou argues that both the future of U.S. democracy and of humanity as a whole are at great risk because of an ignorant, self-serving autocrat at the helm of the world’s most powerful nation.
Alexandra Boutri: Trump’s first 100 days are nearing the end. What have we learned so far about Trump’s second term and his direction for the country?
C. J. Polychroniou: The first thing that ought to be said is that there are significant differences between Trump’s first and second terms. This time he has a much clearer agenda, largely thanks to Project 2025, and is better prepared to see it through to the end. The aim is to undo race and gender progress, restore white dominance, deregulate the economy and use whatever means are available to further enrich the super-rich, and use economic coercion to secure U.S. hegemony. It’s a thoroughly anti-democratic, blatantly neofascist vision that spells serious trouble for the future of democracy, especially given America’s fragile democratic convictions. Indeed, one of the most shocking things so far is the ease with which the country is heading toward a 21st century version of fascism under Trump’s second term.
One of the most shocking things so far is the ease with which the country is heading toward a 21st century version of fascism under Trump’s second term.
This disturbing development speaks volumes of the weaknesses of the U.S. labor movement as well as of the overwhelmingly apolitical nature of civil society. Where are the nationwide protests? The national strikes against the destruction of what is left of U.S. democracy? As for the eerie complacency of the Democrats, it is hardly surprising why there is such a huge loss of trust in the leadership of the Democratic Party.
Alexandra Boutri: Are we witnessing a revolution in the making?
C. J. Polychroniou: With regard to what Trump is doing to American society and its institutions, the right word is “counterrevolution.” Trump is carrying out a fascist destabilization of society in order to stop a progressive agenda, establish new forms of political legitimacy, and suppress, if not eliminate, threats from below. With regard to foreign affairs, he sees the world as a zero-sum game. But it would be naïve to think that what he is after are the interests of the average American citizen. Trump has nothing but contempt for working people. He is both after a world order and an economic regime at home that enriches corporations and the ultrawealthy at the expenses of the many.
Trump is carrying out a fascist destabilization of society in order to stop a progressive agenda, establish new forms of political legitimacy, and suppress, if not eliminate, threats from below.
Alexandra Boutri: Why is the Trump administration so keen in controlling education and taking over cultural institutions, such as the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts?
C. J. Polychroniou: Exerting power over education, taking control of cultural institutions and silencing the press are primary aims of every self-respecting authoritarian regime that wishes to take over civil society in order to transform a country’s political landscape and colonize the consciousness of its citizens. Mussolini did so in Italy; Hitler in Germany; Franco in Spain; and even the colonels of Greece. What Trump and the thugs surrounding him are doing are precisely just that: they are trying to suppress ideas they despise, silence dissent, and convert citizens into a nation of sheep. Fascist goals, fascist tactics. Pure and simple. And, sadly enough, he seems to be doing it with great ease as a huge portion of the American citizenry has already been turned into a nation of sheep. Now it's only up to that small but courageous community of American dissenters and radicals to stand up to the ignorant and stupid autocrat.
Alexandra Boutri: China is standing up to Trump’s bullying tariffs, but the same cannot be said about Europe. Why is that?
C. J. Polychroniou: You have here two entirely different situations. China is a single, unified country. The European Union (EU) is a group of 27 independent countries with different histories, cultures, languages, customs, and interests. These member states work together to promote peace, security and economic efficiency. But the EU lacks a unified military and a centralized fiscal authority. Moreover, Europe is more dependent on trade than either China or the U.S. And since the end of the Second World War, Europe’s defense is also too reliant on the U.S. It is thus hardly surprising that EU senior officials have been desperately trying since the start of Trump’s tariff actions to appear conciliatory and even willing to bend over backwards to appease America’s new King. They were forced to impose new tariffs on specific U.S. products in retaliation for Trump’s 25 percent tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. But don’t forget that Trump even rejected EU’s offer to drop tariffs. And, of course, the EU has now paused its countermeasures on U.S. trade tariffs as a response to the U.S. delaying by 90 days its so-called reciprocal tariffs.
China is not backing down because it can afford to do so. Its leadership knows that it can deal with the side effects of a trade war far more effectively--and less painfully--than the U.S. can. The extent to which Trump seems to understand the realities of the U.S.-trade relationship, let alone of the mechanisms that the Chinese government has at its disposal to deal with economic side effects, is highly questionable.
Indeed, it’s safe to say that a U.S. trade deal with Europe will eventually take place no matter what. Italy’s neo-fascist but politically savvy prime minister Giorgia Meloni may be able to secure an EU-U.S. trade deal in a fashion that no top EU official could, perhaps only because Trump is smitten with her. But what happens with China is anyone’s guess. There are both economic and geopolitical considerations behind Trump’s hostility towards China. And the Chinese no longer view their country as a semi-peripheral country in the global capitalist world. China’s global influence is growing, so its leaders are not going to be intimidated by Trump’s chicken game over tariffs.
Alexandra Boutri: One last question. How would Trump’s energy and deregulation policies impact the fight for climate change?
C. J. Polychroniou: When all is said and done, this is the most important issue of all facing the future of humanity. We have a planet on the precipice. I hate to sound pessimistic, but the odds are already stacked against us. Trump’s manic energy and deregulation policies, which come on top of a mania to deny climate change, will make the task of net-zero emissions by 2050 simply impossible to achieve.
We have a planet on the precipice. I hate to sound pessimistic, but the odds are already stacked against us.
I say this because Trump’s energy and deregulation policies will encourage other fossil-fuel hungry nations to continue with the further exploration and consumption of the poisons that are destroying the planet. In addition, and indicative of what’s happening on the ground with regard to the fight against global warming, a new study by the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst reveals that “governments throughout the world continue to subsidize both the consumption and production of oil, coal, and natural gas.” Overall fossil fuel subsidies, for 2023, amounted to $1.1 trillion. Obviously, such a staggering amount in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry seems to indicate that governments across the world only have worries about short-termism and think very little about the future of humanity. But that’s what capitalism is all about, isn’t it?
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How to Resist Trump and Musk? Become Ungovernable
For a day, a week, or as a rolling walkout, we could shut down the economy and most governmental functions and bring the country to a standstill.
Mar 14, 2025
Not even two months since Inauguration Day and it’s already been quite a trip. Ping-ponging between vindictive pettiness and unconstitutional overreach while using everything in his power (and much that isn’t), U.S. President Donald Trump has served up a goulash of dubious orders with a slathering of venom on top. He’s been abetted in the upheaval he promised on the campaign trail by the richest man on Earth, a cabal of lickspittles, and a cabinet filled with people who appear to have answered job ads stipulating, “Only the unqualified may apply.” As it became clearer what the battles to come would be, a friend wrote me: “I feel now like we’re watching it all happen. It being that thing that can’t happen here.”
There would be something strangely exhilarating about the frenzy of activity in Washington, if only it weren’t so careless, mean, dishonest, and destructive. Some of the most egregious actions have indeed been temporarily halted by the courts, but there’s no guarantee that trend will hold up—if, of course, Donald Trump and crew even pay attention to court decisions—especially when cases arrive at what’s potentially “his” Supreme Court. Meanwhile, insidious ideological purges encourage citizens to rat out their neighbors and coworkers, as leaders of industry, the media, and other institutions rush to appease the president before he dissolves into a hissy fit of revenge. (The speed with which many corporations complied with the order to axe DEI programs illuminates how shallow their commitment to that effort really was.)
In the months after the election, I mourned, ranted, resorted to magic thinking. I reminded myself that, while Trump did (barely) win the popular vote, democracy isn’t something that only happens every four years. Then, after my umpteenth conversation diagnosing how the hell we got into this mess, I had had enough. Okay, I said to my friends (who didn’t deserve my impatience), now what are we going to do about it?
Bedlam or Bust
Of course, I’m anything but the only person to ask that question. My inbox is crammed with notices of newsletters, podcasts, videos, and Zoom meetings full of rallying cries and, increasingly, suggested responses like the growing “economic blackouts.” With the executive branch already a kleptocracy, congressional Republicans in a state of amnesia when it comes to the Constitution’s separation of powers, most congressional Democrats waiting all too quietly (with the exception of Sen. Bernie Sanders (-Vt.) and a few others) for the midterm elections or for Trump to screw up irremediably, and the courts tied up in rounds of Whac-A-Mole, it falls to civil society—that’s us—to try to check the slash-and-smash rampage of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and the rest of that crew, while offering a different vision for the country.
Such responses will undoubtedly involve a variety of approaches. These are likely to range from the immediate to the long haul; from small, local acts to ease individual lives—accompanying immigrants through the legal process when their residency is imperiled, for example—to more traditional activities like lobbying, petitioning, and supporting civil liberties organizations, or even movement-building and large-scale actions aimed at challenging the power of Trump and changing our very political situation.
When I allow myself to dream big and boldly, I envision a nation of Bartlebys, the title character in a Herman Melville story who replies to all work assignments with the impenetrable refrain, “I would prefer not to.”
We’ve already seen individual acts of principle, along with small communal acts of subversion. When someone in the Air Force took the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion purge literally and cut a video about World War II’s Black Tuskegee Airmen from a training course, a senator decried it as “malicious compliance.” In Silicon Valley, there was a “quiet rebellion” when Meta workers brought in certain sanitary products to replace those removed from men’s bathrooms by order of their boss, Mark Zuckerberg. A DOGE hiring site was besieged by mock applications from well-qualified Hitlers, Mussolinis, Francos, and a Cruella De Vil. Then there was that World War II anti-fascism Simple Sabotage Field Manual, downloaded at least 230,000 times since 404Media made it accessible online. Ways to gum up the works suggested there include, “Cry and sob hysterically at every occasion, especially when confronted by government clerks,” and my fave, “Act stupid.”
Traditional forms of lobbying—emails, phone calls, petitions, or attending town hall meetings—have also proved to be important options, but in one of the kinks in democratic representation, the legislators we most seek to influence are often the ones with the least reason or desire to listen to us. My representatives are all outspoken, progressive Democrats, so all I can say is, thanks or try even harder. Meanwhile, good luck getting through to swamped legislative offices, which generally accept messages only from their constituents.
And finally, marches and performative protests are photogenic and build solidarity, but because they seldom disrupt much of anything, they are often all too easy to ignore. Moreover, in Donald Trump’s topsy-turvy world, it’s hard to know not just where to direct your protest, but even at whom to direct it. On February 5 and again on a frigid Presidents’ Day, sizable demonstrations against Trump, Musk, and their policies took place across the country. If you didn’t notice, no surprise there since they barely made a blip in what passes for the news these days (and apparently not even that in Donald Trump’s consciousness).
May I Have Your Attention!
“Attention, not money, is now the fuel of American politics,” writesNew York Times columnist Ezra Klein. MSNBC host Chris Hayes, whose most recent book is about attention as a valuable and endangered commodity, has called Trump’s skill at commanding it a “feral instinct.” He noted that, while the president excels at getting the public’s attention, he’s not all that great at holding it. Still, give Trump credit for his remarkably relentless pace of presidential threats, orders, and mind lint to keep our synapses sparking and, while he’s at it, overwhelming any opposition with the enormity—and folly—of resisting him or his administration.
Always leading with his chin, Trump employs a variety of tactics, including:
- Stating something as fact when it isn’t. He did not win a mandate last November with just 49.7% of the vote; Panama did not agree to a freebie for U.S. ships in its canal; and Ukraine did not start a war with Russia.
- Repeating and embellishing half-baked ideas—including annexing the Panama Canal and Greenland, turning Canada into the 51st state and Gaza into a golf resort—until they become articles of faith or at least possibilities worth considering. By then, of course, he’s already corralled the discussion.
- Drowning us in verbiage, belligerence, and hollow proclamations—or, as Steve Bannon put it, “flooding the zone”—until it’s impossible to respond. In his first week in office, Trump typically talked so much that even official stenographers scrambled to keep up.
- Confusing everyone (probably himself included). Take the inherently illegal directive that froze massive amounts of federal funds already appropriated by Congress. Except it was utterly unclear what money was being frozen and, according to the White House press secretary in her first press briefing, it was legal because the relevant Office of Management and Budget memo said it was. Oh, and then came that other directive rescinding the first one. Except it turned out to apply only to the memo announcing the other directive, not the directive itself. Except… no, wait! That non-rescission applied to previous executive orders. Except… oh, never mind.
- Whining about “unfairness” to the United States and—yes, of course—him(he often conflates the two) as a cover for bullying people, organizations, and countries into submission.
- Not giving a damn if he’s caught in a lie or an error or simply sounds nuts as long as the focus remains on him or, these days, on his stand-in, Elon the Enforcer.
Ultimately, the last of these may be Trump’s greatest menace, but also his greatest weakness, because what he does give a damn about is his image. It doesn’t take an armchair psychologist to recognize why Trump preens and puffs himself up or a master strategist to know how easy it would be to make him lose his cool (which may be the only time the words “Trump” and “cool” appear in the same sentence). And boy, can he not take—or make—a joke!
So, one simple way we could resist is by denying him our full attention. Of course, we can’t ignore him completely, since willful ignorance is self-defeating and, like an adolescent testing parental limits, he’ll just keep upping the ante to see what he can get away with. But it’s necessary not to be derailed by every inanity or outrage. I’m choosing to concentrate my attention on two or three areas I know something about, while counting on my fellow outragees to attend to other issues.
Not that I think Trump cares what I do, but if enough of us focus less on what he says and more on his actions that have discernable policy outcomes, we might indeed be able to cover all the bases and have enough energy and attention left over to push back more quickly and effectively.
Disrupt the Disruption
As for the longer range, I’m tired of being told resistance is futile, not to mention a bad strategy. The Democratic Party may be in disarray and protests probably were more impressive during Trump’s first term, but enough already! It’s time to focus on the majority of the electorate who didn’t vote for Trump and who still think democracy is worth working toward.
Which leads me to Gene Sharp, an unsung but influential theorist of nonviolent resistance, whose pragmatic ideas about peaceful protest were picked up by popular liberation movements around the world in this century. He argued that the power of governments depends on the cooperation and obedience of those they govern, which means the governed can undermine the power of the governors by withdrawing their consent. “When people refuse their cooperation, withhold help, and persist in their disobedience and defiance,” he wrote, “they are denying their opponent the basic human assistance and cooperation that any government or hierarchical system requires.” While his suggestions for challenging power included individual resistance, he advocated a nonviolent insurgency big enough and sustained enough to make a country ungovernable and so force the governors to truly pay attention to the governed.
How big? Political scientist Erica Chenoweth has suggested that about 3.5% of a country’s population participating actively in nonviolent protest can bring about significant political change. If that’s accurate, an effective resistance would need about 12 million Americans taking to the streets. And yes, that’s a lot, but keep in mind that the women’s protest march early in Trump’s first term gathered more than 5 million Americans on a single day, many of whom were part of a political protest for the first time.
Imagining change is a crucial step to achieving change.
When I allow myself to dream big and boldly, I envision a nation of Bartlebys, the title character in a Herman Melville story who replies to all work assignments with the impenetrable refrain, “I would prefer not to.” We Bartlebys, then, would withhold our cooperation by staging a massive national strike. For a day, a week, or as a rolling walkout, we could shut down the economy and most governmental functions and bring the country to a standstill. But unlike the systemic disruption going on now in Washington, the change would be at the will of millions of Americans cooperating with each other.
The United States hasn’t seen a major general strike since 1946, when workers from multiple unions shut down Oakland, California for 54 hours, but there have been recent, small-scale versions, notably, A Day Without Immigrants this February, when businesses across the U.S. closed in solidarity with the approximately 8.1 million undocumented immigrant workers in this country.
Recent actions of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency are reportedly driving more workers to unions and, well before the last election, the United Auto Workers invited other unions to align their contract expiration dates in preparation for a giant general strike planned for May Day 2028. But 2028 is a long way off and a lot of damage will be done in the meantime. What I’m envisioning would go beyond organized labor to include anyone who contributes to the economy and civil society, be they employees, managers, owners, government workers, freelancers, independent contractors, retirees, students, homemakers, volunteers, or whomever I’ve missed.
Pie in the sky? Probably. I can easily envision 20 things that could go wrong. For starters, even the most grassroots of actions require coordination and a means of communication beyond the capacity of TikTok, while preserving the requisite element of surprise. And some work can’t be safely left undone, even for a day. Worse yet, those in power tend to respond harshly to challenges from below, so it’s not without risk. But there is some safety in numbers and Sharp believed protesters could turn retaliation to their advantage by continuing to struggle nonviolently—he called it “political jiu-jitsu”—only increasing sympathy and support for their cause.
Of course, in the era of Donald Trump, organizing millions of people across the country could prove a breeze compared to getting them to agree on a set of demands or even a central goal. But recent polls show that, in what should be Trump’s honeymoon period, his approval rating is 15 points below the historical average for presidents since 1953, when Gallup started keeping track. Overall, the polls indicate that the majority of Americans are not okay with much of what’s going down in Washington now and there are signs that some who voted for Trump are already starting to feel betrayed, if not by him directly, then by Musk, who excels at pissing people off.
Twenty years ago, a young veteran who had fought in Iraq and then turned against the war there explained to me why he became involved in the anti-war movement of that time. As he put it, “Someone sees [me] and says, I agree with that guy, I just didn’t have the courage to do it alone. So now he comes and stands next to me. I’m not alone, he’s not alone, and more people come. It just takes one person to start a movement.”
To which I would add that imagining change is a crucial step to achieving change. Without it, we’re stuck with Donald Trump and Elon Musk in an untenable present.
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