Trump Resistance Plan (TRP) 2.0 — A Call to Action to Prepare for the Worst Case Scenarios

5 min readDec 15, 2023

The threat to American Democracy posed by the rise of Trump and MAGA ideology is real, imminent, and a clear and present danger to the American Republic should they seize power again in November of 2024. By seizing power, I mean Trump winning the Presidency and the MAGA-led GOP winning both houses of Congress, after they have already captured the Supreme Court in Trump’s first term of office.

Supreme Court of the United States of America

After reading the dozens of warnings in the press (see list of warnings below) and watching the book tour of former Congressman Liz Cheney, I now realize that the political opposition to this movement needs not only a call to action and plan to defeat this threat at the voting booth in 2024 and beyond, but there needs to be a plan developed now to prepare a well-coordinated opposition and plan of resistance should the worst come to pass — Trump and the MAGA GOP taking control in January of 2025.

An analogy is in order. Many of us that were called twenty+ years ago to address the threat of Global Climate Change followed the science and policy actions that were presented. These included Mitigation — implementing policies and practices that would slow down or stop Carbon pollution, and Adaptation — Building Resilience while recognizing that much of the pollution of the Industrial era was already baked in, that the likelihood of global change was not good, and that society needed to begin preparing for the impact of climate change and all the societal disruptions that would be produced.

Many in the Climate movement did not want to consider or even discuss the development of resilience plans, arguing and believing that doing so would take away from the more important strategy of mitigation, stopping the threat before it was too late. I believed then and still do now that both strategies and plans are important and should be pursued. The need for resilience is greater now more than ever, given what has happened in the last twenty years, including with last week’s COP28.

I believe this to also be true in regard to the threat to American Democracy as posed by the rise of Trump-led MAGA movement. The political opposition needs to do both things in 2024, it needs to stop this MAGA threat by winning the election of 2024 but it also needs to have a plan of resistance should the worst case happen — Trump winning the Presidency and MAGA GOP gaining control of the House and the Senate. We can not repeat the mistakes of 2016 and being unprepared for this looming national disaster.

The development of a resistance plan would not be starting from scratch. There is a playbook for fascist authoritarians, it is well documented and well known by historians and political scientists and our fellow humans from other countries that have experienced and are experiencing when this came to their countries.

Additionally, the MAGA-led GOP also has their own action plan that they have published, and they have been telling us about, including calling the opposition vermin. The opposition should now develop counter strategies and resistance plans for all potential scenarios from these fascist plans should the worst happen, and they gain power. There needs to be a well thought out scenario planning guidebook that informs future actions.

The team to develop such a resistance plan would not be large initially. It will need to be inter-disciplinary, highly skilled, and either funded by a wealthy donor that agrees with this need or staffed by a team of volunteers that are committed to this purpose. Most resources, energy and funding should and will go into winning the election fight, but there needs to be an action plan should that fail that is ready to go the day after a failed election in November.

After the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001, the USA created the Department of Homeland Security, and it includes the Preparedness Division that helps the nation to prepare for and respond to “all hazards,” natural and man-made. The patriotic opposition to this looming fascist threat also needs to begin a preparedness initiative alongside mitigation strategies for preventing it from coming to pass but also having a plan to provide guidance on how the resistance should respond should this disaster happen in November of 2024.

There are more than enough present day Paul Revere’s sounding the alarm. What is now needed is the modern day equivalent of a Continental Congress or “Big Six” set of organizations that will lead the American opposition to fascism, should it arrive in force in November of 2024.

Below is a list of resources that should both inform of the threat that is looming, and resources to consider when developing a plan of resistance and action should the worst come to pass.

This work needs to begin now.