“When You Stare into the Abyss,
the Abyss Stares Back” ~Nietzsche
The most important event in the new year for the United States will be Trump’s resumption of the Presidency. Will this mean the end of American democracy, as he has pointed to with pronouncements like being a dictator, inciting insurrection, encouraging legal prosecution of critics and Democratic legislators, opposing a peaceful transition of elected power, nominating bizarre people for the highest Executive Branch positions, etc?
There has been much discussion as to what good-thinking people should do. Much of the verbiage concerns self-care, marching around, doubling down on beliefs unpopular with half the American electorate, etc. This reminds me of trigger warnings, safe spaces, and correct pronouns. I’ve been focusing instead on the following:
1. Taking a more realistic approach to what we can expect, especially by listing institutional, legal, and economic obstacles to implementation of Trump’s initiatives.
An example of economic obstacles includes the fact that if undocumented farmworkers and food processors are deported, food prices in the US will rise by about 10 to 20%. Legal obstacles are trickier, because the Supreme Court is in the pocket of far rightwingers and Trump. Trump’s proposed tariffs would introduce a national sales tax on people in the United States, and raise prices on a great many goods. There are a wide variety of laws that will make it more difficult for Trump to convert the civil service into a patronage system as existed prior to 1883, and to end birthright citizenship, another Trump initiative. If Trump allows Elon Musk and Vikram Ramaswamy to cut the civil service, who will administer Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid? How will pure food and drug laws be implemented and enforced?
A further question is whether members of the US military will obey illegal orders to round up and shoot other Americans. In a larger perspective, one can wonder which of many threats will destroy us first—Trumpian autocracy and nihilism, global warming/climate change/rising ocean levels, or the rise of self-generative artificial intelligence that decides it doesn’t need humans?
2. Thinking about non-violent resistance to initiatives that take away basic civil and human rights.
Core principles include economic, social, and political non-cooperation; direct action and intervention; and communication and persuasion. Key principles for success include the following:
- Maintaining strict and non-violent discipline
- Focusing on achievable goals and clear demands
- Not indulging in name calling and labeling like “settler colonialism,” “patriarchy,” “white privilege,” and “racial capitalism”
- Building broad coalitions across social, racial, ethnic, class, religious, and income groups; seeking and accepting allies; not making enemies
- Developing alternative institutions
- Documenting and publicizing grievances and actions; using social media in a smart and targeted way
- Preparing participants for repression and consequences, including being willing to clog the jails and prisons
- Maintaining morale through small victories
- Keeping lines of communication open with opponents; not conceding to them
- Contributing to and electing Democrats in contested House and Senate elections
- Emphasizing the virtues of democracy
Historical examples of success include the following:
- Indian Independence Movement (1915-1947)
- Salt March and boycott of British goods
- Non-cooperation with British institutions
- Civil disobedience of unjust laws
- Civil Rights Movement USA (1954-1968)
- Montgomery Bus Boycott
- Lunch counter sit-ins
- Freedom Rides
- March on Washington
- Voting Rights March
- Solidarity Movement Poland (1980-1989)
- Workers’ strikes and union organization
- Underground press and education
- Economic and political non-cooperation
- Creation of parallel institutions
3. Exploring stand your ground laws for self-defense when threatened.
Many states now have stand your ground laws, which permit a person not to retreat when they perceive they’re being threatened, and to use lethal force to defend themselves. This can be outside the home, which is far broader than the “castle doctrine,” which permits a person to defend themselves in their own home. Interestingly, many of the same states with stand your ground laws also have the strictest antiabortion laws, which in many cases prevent essential medical treatment for women of child-bearing age. An interesting legal question is whether a woman who perceives that her life is being threatened by lack of care from medical providers, such as being sent out to a hospital parking lot to bleed to death, can use stand your ground laws to defend herself against the medical staff who are threatening her.
What we can expect politically is made worse by rampant self-harm by about half the American electorate who voted for Trump and other Republicans. This self-harm is shown by many examples, such as many women voting against their essential health rights, a rising percent of Latino and Black men voting for a political party that hates them, half of people with disabilities voting for a political party that wants to cut their services/benefits/legal protections, many older Americans voting for a political party that wants to cut their Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid, millions of Americans who have obtained health plans under the Affordable Care Act voting for a political party that wants to do away with the ACA, some unions voting for a person who wants to take away jobs and rights from union members, and voting for a felon when they have nominal concerns about law and order.
It appears that millions of Americans are suffering from what the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5 calls Non-Suicidal Self-Injurious Behavior. An example of this disorder that many of us are familiar with is cutting among teenage girls. But now we’re observing it on a society-wide basis. Cures are possible, but are long and arduous. And the sufferers need to want to be cured.
So far, there is no evidence that the approximately half of the American electorate who suffer from this disorder have any interest in cure. In part, this is probably because they do not perceive themselves as suffering. Rather, as some of us have heard in recent weeks, there is triumphalism on the part of some of those who voted for Republicans and Trump. Will they ever tumble to how they are being harmed? Will they realize this harm, and care about it while there is still something to salvage from American democracy? Or will they be like the Good Germans who supported the Nazi regime right up until the total destruction of Germany? We are seeing many other parallels to Germany in 1932, when the National Socialist Party was voted into power in a free and fair election.
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- Perspective on the Jewish New Year 2024 – by Marc Brenman - October 10, 2024