Effective resistance does not consist in turning out for street protests or performing indiscriminate obstructionism in Congress. Before the phase of action, there must be a phase of preparation. It's been time for that phase since the first days of Trump's second administration, when it became clear that he was going to run wild. The necessary preparation requires more than a grassroots network. It requires a multilayered network that benefits from the skills, the resources, and the connections of institutional leaders. David Brooks set forth a rough outline of what is needed in The New York Times on April 17.
It's time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It's time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. Trump is about power. The only way he's going to be stopped is if he's confronted by some movement that possesses rival power.
Peoples throughout history have done exactly this when confronted by an authoritarian assault. In their book, "Why Civil Resistance Works," Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan looked at hundreds of nonviolent uprisings. These movements used many different tools at their disposal — lawsuits, mass rallies, strikes, work slowdowns, boycotts and other forms of noncooperation and resistance.
These movements began small and built up. They developed clear messages that appealed to a variety of groups. They shifted the narrative so the authoritarians were no longer on permanent offense. Sometimes they used nonviolent means to provoke the regime into taking violent action, which shocks the nation, undercuts the regime's authority and further strengthens the movement. (Think of the civil rights movement at Selma.) Right now, Trumpism is dividing civil society; if done right, the civic uprising can begin to divide the forces of Trumpism.
Chenoweth and Stephan emphasize that this takes coordination. There doesn't always have to be one charismatic leader, but there does have to be one backbone organization, one coordinating body that does the work of coalition building.
The formation of a coordinating body ought to be going on now. Perhaps it is. The building of a wider, deeper network can begin at any time. However, the phase of action can't begin with any hope of success until the general public is ready for it. At present, Trump's alarming deeds have not in fact alarmed enough Americans. People who have always opposed him still do so. People who have always supported him still do so. The most crucial set, those people who chose to take a flier on him in last year's election, are in some cases frowning at what they got and in other cases contriving to justify their choice or shrugging it off with the thought that there was no good alternative; and, in still other cases, living in that state of blissful ignorance from which they roused themselves just long enough to vote. If you don't know, for example, that Trump has just fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because the latest employment data displeased him, you‘re not any closer than you were to realizing that he's trying to turn the government and the whole country into a personal Fantasy Island, with awful consequences assured. It will probably take some direct pain in the form of higher prices or unemployment or loss of access to medical services before many people are as angry as we readers of The New York Times think they ought to be.
It shouldn't be long now. Trying to rush it by telling people what to think won't bring it nearer and may push it farther back. People have got to think the first thoughts themselves and then find that a network of resistance stands ready to meet their need. People have got to feel the need for a civic uprising. That will be the beginning, when the wave starts to roll.
