Where is the Resistance?

Historians are going to be arguing about what has brought us to this point for a long time, but one thing has been the Democratic Party’s suppressing its activist base. The resistance has popular support, a few political leaders, legislators (in the minority), and judges and lawyers, but also needed now are leaders and direct action. They need people like the old union leaders and rank-and-file; people willing to organize and carry out sit-ins, sit-down strikes, guards who are loyal to them and can’t easily be bought, people willing to stand up when the cops, DOGE’s goons, and the ICE thugs show up. They ought to have been ready to go the moment Trump was inaugurated. Now there have been many losses and they face a harder task.

For many years, the Democratic leadership has discouraged direct action on the part of party rank-and-file. Most famously, the Obama campaign built a grass-roots organization and dismantled it after he was elected president. The leadership of the Democratic Party, heavily influenced by wealthy donors, seems to regard itself as above popular action. For many years labor unions provided that base of support, but as the unions became (they thought) secure in their economic position, misogyny and xenophobia came to dominate the politics of many and they increasingly supported Republicans; the activist labor base has been hollowed out.

There are a few leaders emerging: AOC, Tim Walz, but the strongest pro-democracy activists have been alienated by the Democratic Party machinery and decades of relentless anti-Democratic propaganda. AOC/Sanders rallies are drawing crowds, but crowds don’t necessarily translate into organized resistance. Above all, building a pro-democracy Democratic activist base is going to take time, working out strategies and tactics are going to take time, and all the while the fascists are doing damage. I do think the fascists will eventually lose, but how much will be lost with them, and what will the rebuilt USA be like?