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In Resistance to Trump, "Community" Should Be a Verb
Against a Trump regime that is totally unacceptable, we'll need resistance that's sustainable. Like a healthy forest, the resistance will depend on great diversity to thrive--a wide range of people engaging in a vast array of activities. And our resistance will need community.
Nov 22, 2016
Against a Trump regime that is totally unacceptable, we'll need resistance that's sustainable. Like a healthy forest, the resistance will depend on great diversity to thrive--a wide range of people engaging in a vast array of activities. And our resistance will need community.
I'm not talking about the facile gloss of the word "community" that often follows an adjective denoting race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation. The kinds of community that will make ongoing resistance possible have little to do with demographic categories. The most powerful, most vital bonding will be transcendently human.
Facing a Trump presidency, we'll have an imperative opportunity to go deeper as individuals and groups of people working together--nurturing and growing the social, cultural and political strength that can overcome the Trump regime.
"Our resistance has got to be broadly inclusive, offering and inspiring a great variety of nonviolent tactics and approaches, whether they emerge with a few people around a kitchen table or with many thousands of people at a public protest."
Our resistance has got to be broadly inclusive, offering and inspiring a great variety of nonviolent tactics and approaches, whether they emerge with a few people around a kitchen table or with many thousands of people at a public protest. The strength of the united front that we need will depend on the extent of truly cooperative efforts.
Trump and his allies have already injected huge quantities of toxins into the body politic, with much more on the way. The antidote is democratic engagement from the grassroots. (Right now, as the new regime rolls out its top henchmen, early steps include doing all we can to block Trump's horrendous Cabinet picks.) To challenge the enemies of democracy who have gained power, we're just getting started.
What's at stake for U.S. society includes basic social decency, human rights, economic justice, civil liberties, rule of law--in short, democracy. Also at stake: climate change, nuclear weapons, the fate of the earth.
Trump has clearly shown his intention to destroy many decades of progress for the rights of women, people of color, Muslims, undocumented immigrants and many other people, while tightening the knot of the corporate state and the warfare state.
From Wall Street to Pennsylvania Avenue to the Pentagon, the purveyors of mega-corporate technocracy, oligarchy and militarism have given "power" a bad name. And yet the solution to anti-democratic power is power--truly democratic power --from the grassroots, from the bottom up--really our only hope. From protests and electoral work to public education and lobbying and legal interventions and so many other forms of organizing and activism, countless essential tasks await us.
During the presidency of Popular-Vote Loser Trump--maybe more profoundly than at any other time in our lifetimes--we'll need each other to make resistance personally sustainable, socially viable and political effective. This is all about energizing ourselves and each other, now and for the long haul.
That's why community should be a verb.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
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Norman Solomon
Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. The paperback edition of his latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, includes an afterword about the Gaza war.
Against a Trump regime that is totally unacceptable, we'll need resistance that's sustainable. Like a healthy forest, the resistance will depend on great diversity to thrive--a wide range of people engaging in a vast array of activities. And our resistance will need community.
I'm not talking about the facile gloss of the word "community" that often follows an adjective denoting race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation. The kinds of community that will make ongoing resistance possible have little to do with demographic categories. The most powerful, most vital bonding will be transcendently human.
Facing a Trump presidency, we'll have an imperative opportunity to go deeper as individuals and groups of people working together--nurturing and growing the social, cultural and political strength that can overcome the Trump regime.
"Our resistance has got to be broadly inclusive, offering and inspiring a great variety of nonviolent tactics and approaches, whether they emerge with a few people around a kitchen table or with many thousands of people at a public protest."
Our resistance has got to be broadly inclusive, offering and inspiring a great variety of nonviolent tactics and approaches, whether they emerge with a few people around a kitchen table or with many thousands of people at a public protest. The strength of the united front that we need will depend on the extent of truly cooperative efforts.
Trump and his allies have already injected huge quantities of toxins into the body politic, with much more on the way. The antidote is democratic engagement from the grassroots. (Right now, as the new regime rolls out its top henchmen, early steps include doing all we can to block Trump's horrendous Cabinet picks.) To challenge the enemies of democracy who have gained power, we're just getting started.
What's at stake for U.S. society includes basic social decency, human rights, economic justice, civil liberties, rule of law--in short, democracy. Also at stake: climate change, nuclear weapons, the fate of the earth.
Trump has clearly shown his intention to destroy many decades of progress for the rights of women, people of color, Muslims, undocumented immigrants and many other people, while tightening the knot of the corporate state and the warfare state.
From Wall Street to Pennsylvania Avenue to the Pentagon, the purveyors of mega-corporate technocracy, oligarchy and militarism have given "power" a bad name. And yet the solution to anti-democratic power is power--truly democratic power --from the grassroots, from the bottom up--really our only hope. From protests and electoral work to public education and lobbying and legal interventions and so many other forms of organizing and activism, countless essential tasks await us.
During the presidency of Popular-Vote Loser Trump--maybe more profoundly than at any other time in our lifetimes--we'll need each other to make resistance personally sustainable, socially viable and political effective. This is all about energizing ourselves and each other, now and for the long haul.
That's why community should be a verb.
Norman Solomon
Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. The paperback edition of his latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, includes an afterword about the Gaza war.
Against a Trump regime that is totally unacceptable, we'll need resistance that's sustainable. Like a healthy forest, the resistance will depend on great diversity to thrive--a wide range of people engaging in a vast array of activities. And our resistance will need community.
I'm not talking about the facile gloss of the word "community" that often follows an adjective denoting race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation. The kinds of community that will make ongoing resistance possible have little to do with demographic categories. The most powerful, most vital bonding will be transcendently human.
Facing a Trump presidency, we'll have an imperative opportunity to go deeper as individuals and groups of people working together--nurturing and growing the social, cultural and political strength that can overcome the Trump regime.
"Our resistance has got to be broadly inclusive, offering and inspiring a great variety of nonviolent tactics and approaches, whether they emerge with a few people around a kitchen table or with many thousands of people at a public protest."
Our resistance has got to be broadly inclusive, offering and inspiring a great variety of nonviolent tactics and approaches, whether they emerge with a few people around a kitchen table or with many thousands of people at a public protest. The strength of the united front that we need will depend on the extent of truly cooperative efforts.
Trump and his allies have already injected huge quantities of toxins into the body politic, with much more on the way. The antidote is democratic engagement from the grassroots. (Right now, as the new regime rolls out its top henchmen, early steps include doing all we can to block Trump's horrendous Cabinet picks.) To challenge the enemies of democracy who have gained power, we're just getting started.
What's at stake for U.S. society includes basic social decency, human rights, economic justice, civil liberties, rule of law--in short, democracy. Also at stake: climate change, nuclear weapons, the fate of the earth.
Trump has clearly shown his intention to destroy many decades of progress for the rights of women, people of color, Muslims, undocumented immigrants and many other people, while tightening the knot of the corporate state and the warfare state.
From Wall Street to Pennsylvania Avenue to the Pentagon, the purveyors of mega-corporate technocracy, oligarchy and militarism have given "power" a bad name. And yet the solution to anti-democratic power is power--truly democratic power --from the grassroots, from the bottom up--really our only hope. From protests and electoral work to public education and lobbying and legal interventions and so many other forms of organizing and activism, countless essential tasks await us.
During the presidency of Popular-Vote Loser Trump--maybe more profoundly than at any other time in our lifetimes--we'll need each other to make resistance personally sustainable, socially viable and political effective. This is all about energizing ourselves and each other, now and for the long haul.
That's why community should be a verb.
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