What Does “The Resistance” Want?
The following tweet reflects a sentiment being espoused widely by self-proclaimed members of #TheResistance:
What’s the ultimate aim here? Can someone please explain the harm done by working with Trump to produce better policy on infrastructure, outsourcing, and trade? If the worry is about “normalizing” him, that ship has already sailed. He is president, and therefore basically about as “normalized” as you can get. The entire “normalization” concept comes across like something that everyone suddenly decided to agree upon without ever bothering to parse the underlying logic. It’s become a kind of religious incantation: “This is not normal… This is not normal…”
Let’s say it’s still possible to prevent the “normalization” of Trump, whatever that means. Is preventing the “normalization” of Trump a more important goal than instituting effective domestic spending policy? In other words, should “anti-normalization” be a higher priority than infrastructure? Maybe so. But if you were to survey average voters, I think they’d probably say in large numbers that adequately funding various public works projects should take priority over some lofty notion of preventing Trump from being “normalized.” I’m open to alternative theories, though.
One might reply, “Well yes, but this ‘massive resistance’ strategy worked well for the GOP over the past eight years.” That’s true, to some extent, although it whitewashes the various ways in which the GOP “collaborated” with Obama on a whole host of initiatives. Let’s take the argument at face value, however: because the GOP often “resisted” Obama, Democrats should simply mirror that strategy. It was frequently said that Republicans were wrong to unflinchingly “resist” Obama, including on initiatives that they might otherwise support, because that kind of posturing was bad for the country even if it was a political winner. Doesn’t the same logic apply at present? Let’s say Elizabeth Warren takes the advice of the above tweeter and simply decides to abandon any effort to work with Trump on an infrastructure bill. Is that a good thing for the country? I’m of the mind that the GOP’s strategy might have been sound maneuvering on a purely cynical tactical level, but ended up doing a disservice to the public.
The reason I’ve commented extensively on this subject is not because I want to “concern troll,” but because I regard it as absolutely crucial that the anti-Trump “opposition,” such as it exists, operates rationally and tactfully. For an example of rational and tactful opposition, one need look no further than Bernie Sanders, whose approach thus far exemplifies exactly what I’ve been trying to advocate. And yet when you argue for just such an approach, inevitably come the waves of “fascist collaborator” accusations. So is Bernie Sanders a fascist collaborator too, per this standard? I really don’t think so. Hence, there are serious problems with the logic undergirding “The Resistance.” When an opposition is founded on faulty logic, it’s a good bet that it will not be especially effective.
