Resistance in the Not Normal Presidency
A lot of what we are seeing is, simply, not normal. It has not been the tradition in the United States to talk about “America First” in an inauguration speech and the use of military parades for civilian leaders. It is also not normal to have a President who is a bully on social media and engages in the politics of domination and submission. It is not normal for the White House website to promote a relative’s business. These things are not normal and, to the degree that they have happened with our previous presidents, they shouldn’t have.
There are a lot of causes for this, and a lot of hard reflections we will be called to do over the coming years, but we also need to start putting our ducks in a row to act. This document is a guide aggregating various resources for that action.
Most of this will be links to other sources. Places and people who have said things better than I do. Part of our job here is to amplify those voices.
“…we do know something about the political dangers of a Trump administration that is allowed to move forward without mass resistance.” (Throw Sand in the Gears of Everything)
Resistance Manual
The Resistance Manual is your one stop shop for the resistance. If you see nothing else from this, go here. It is a project out of StayWoke.org, itself a growth out of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Their mission is “Together, we can harness the collective power of the people to resist the impact of a Trump presidency and to continue to make progress in our communities.”
It includes links and research to the various manifestations out of Trump’s agenda, as well as concrete ways you can take action, and resources for context.
Become Indivisible
“Our goal is to provide practical understanding of how your Members of Congress (MoCs) think, and how you can demonstrate to them the depth and power of the opposition to Donald Trump and Republican congressional overreach.” (Indivisible Guide)
Indivisible: A Practical Guide to Resisting the Trump Agenda talks about how to contact your representative and engage in localized advocacy. It explains how your representatives think, how to engage with them and the media, and effective grassroots strategies.
They also, critically, include a search tool for finding local groups and marches. You can also look at TogetherList and The United State of Women for more opportunities to organize money and time.
If you have challenges calling your representatives due to anxiety or executive function issues, see How to call your reps when you have social anxiety for a handy guide.
Stay Informed
The first task any of us can do is to stay informed. This means keeping abreast of what is happening in the world. To not look away and acknowledge that this is our country—we elected him by our policies and our laws—and to not pretend that this is happening somewhere else.
News Sources
Broaden the sources of news that you consume. Don’t become complacent. Examples of groups that have been doing a reasonable job at resisting becoming lulled.
US:
Non-US:
One thing you can do in this regard is to customize news.google.com. Go there and hit the “personalize” button, and then Adjust Sources, prioritizing resources such as the above and downgrading sources such as Fox and Breitbart.
Resist Fake News, Resist Falsehoods, Resist Propaganda
Fake news, otherwise called “propaganda,” was a major concern in the 2016 election.
RealDonaldContext
The RealDonaldContext plugin is a project out of the Washington Post to add context (including if they are distorting or outright lying) to a bunch of Donald Trump’s tweets.
Fake News Alert
The Fake News Alert extension flags a bunch of sites, not by any means comprehensive, that are known to produce hyperbolic distortions or downright fake information.
This is not an end-all, be-all but it can sometimes slow you down if you follow a link from a friend.
This is Fake
“The point isn’t just to flag fake news; you probably already know it when you see it. It’s to remind you that, anytime you see fake news in your feed, you have an opportunity to interrupt its viral transmission, both within your network and beyond.” (Only You Can Stop the Spread of Fake News)
A more recent tool out of Slate, ThisIsFake is a lot like Fake News Alert, but works more on a fine-grained level and is a little more nuanced about it. They also have been working to keep it up to date.
Fact Checking
Fact checking organizations are far from flawless. They often reach for trite details instead of fact checking meaning, they frequently try too hard to appear “non-partisan,” and they can get caught up in counterarguments instead of dealing with the statement itself. Still, they have generally proved invaluable in determining truth or falsity, especially when they contain sources that can be independently evaluated.
Becoming Intersectional, Becoming Non-Dualistic
“Thus, to ensure justice and equality in the feminist movement, it is very important to be mindful of intersectional issues” (Intersectional Feminism for Beginners, FAQ)
One of the major things that we need, moving forward, is to increase the degree to which we are intersectional. That we take into account the differences of others and embrace them. That we embraced the lived experience across the spectrum, and understand the various axes of oppression.
This means also that we accept that things are not binary good-or-bad—that is the tool of the Trump administration, and it is one that they use to turn us against each other—but rather be critical of something while also supporting it. That we can accept criticism and voices from others without becoming immediately defensive.
Uniting
“He who sacrifices the mass good for his personal conscience has a peculiar conception of ‘personal salvation’; he doesn’t care enough for people to be ‘corrupted’ for them.” (Rules for Radicals)
In stopping Trump we must. stand. united. We have to emphasize our commonalities—stopping Trump—rather than our differences. When in doubt, we should also defer to those differences that are most under threat from the new administration.
So we should not bend over to try to cater to anti-choice movements, we should maintain our pro-choice language, but they should have no issue marching with us against Trump. We are amplifying our voices together against this regime’s agenda. We are expressing solidarity and safety in whatever method we can. That’s the priority.
This means that when we are questioned about so-called “riots” and other such things, we turn the question back onto the system. This is what Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. did when he said:
But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.
Don’t let them divide us. Don’t let them turn our own natures against us.
This also means that we find the best candidate in 2020 and we vote for them, as well. Even if our top choice doesn’t win or if we aren’t entirely happy with the person. We rally. We fight back.
Swing Left: Fight for Elections
Our system has been gerrymandered to hell and back, making our job harder, but not impossible. We need to start fighting, and we need to make sure we are running in elections.
Run For Office
There are over 42 thousand elected offices in the US, and we need to be in them if we want to have any chance of winning. We need to take the state houses and state senates, the governorships, and even small little posts throughout the country. Not just national offices, but local ones.
Visit RunForOffice.org and see what elections are near you, see if you might be eligible, and seriously consider running. Take the class on How to Run For Office and start thinking about your next steps. Look especially for those positions that are currently in control of Republicans and try to unseat them.
One of the major challenges we as liberals tend to have is that we focus on the top ticket elections, but this means we aren’t in a lot of elections that we could win.
Help Us Win
“Don’t Despair. Mobilize.”
Visit SwingLeft.org and find competitive districts near you. These are especially the places where we need to be putting time, energy, and resources in order to try to swing the House of Representatives. The entirety of the House is up for reelection every two years, we need to be there, and that effort starts now to try to make a stab at at least gaining seats in 2018.
See also Flippable, another tool dedicated to a similar purpose.
Self Care
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” (Audre Lorde)
One of the most important things through this administration will be to take care of yourself. You are enough.
There is always more to do, but do what you can and don’t worry about what you can’t. This is a marathon against institutional forces that predate the United States, and we need you to be there tomorrow just as we need your efforts today.
Further Reading
In general, Resistance Manual has an excellent guide to essential reading. These are some specifics that drill down a bit or that cover other thoughts.
Organizing
- Tyranny of Structurelessness, by Jo Freeman
- Rules for Radicals, by Saul D. Alinsky
- The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michelle Alexander
- Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow: an organizing guide, by Daniel Hunter
Taking Action
Intersectionality, Coloniality, Power
- Coloniality of Gender, by Maria Lugones
- Coloniality of Modernity/Rationality, by Aníbal Quijano
- Privilege, Power, and Difference, by Allan G. Johnson
- A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America, by Ronald Takaki
- In the Courts of the Conquerer: The 10 Worst Indian Law Cases Ever Decided, by Walter Echo-Hawk
Privilege, Feminism Basics
- Feminism is for Everybody, by bell hooks
- Oppression, by Marilyn Frye
- Explaining White Privilege To A Broke White Person
- Ally Skills
Protecting Yourself
- You have the right to remain innocent, by James Duane
- Understanding Threats and Digital Privacy, by author
