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It's a distinctly strange -- in fact, that's far too mild a word for it -- moment in these (dis-)United States of America. Donald Trump is in power (big time) and his buddy (until he's not) Elon Musk is going wild, trying to fire government employees en masse while attempting to shut down or wreck government agencies. The two of them are also remarkably hard at work wiping out any government effort to stop this planet from heating to the boiling point. Yet, while all this has been happening, it almost seems as if the Democrats haven't been there.
Yes, of course, there are exceptions, including (of course, again!) Bernie Sanders, who has been traveling the country on a National Tour to Fight Oligarchy, trying to whip up opposition to the Trumpian nightmare; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; and a few lesser-known congressional representatives like Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico who have indeed been speaking out. And given what's happening, I suspect a lot more Democrats could be up and yakking soon.
Sadly, though, despite some growing demonstrations, it's been all too quiet in the already disastrous second term of You Know Exactly Whom, even if he seems to be preparing the way, once all those tariffs go into effect, along with a series of tax breaks for billionaires that Republicans in Congress are eager to pass, for Americans who aren't billionaires to start paying through the nose, for the economy to plummet (as it undoubtedly will), and for the Democrats to retake Congress almost two years from now, even as the president revs up for -- yes, it would be historic (in the worst sense imaginable) -- a possible third term in office.
Yikes! In the context of all that (and possibly the longest single sentence paragraph I've ever written), let TomDispatch regular Nan Levinson explore how indeed it might be possible to disrupt the Great Disrupter sooner rather than later. Tom
How to Resist This Fresh Hell
Withholding Consent from the Trump Regime
By Nan Levinson
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), 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 Bernie Sanders 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.
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 404 Media 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.
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