The Democratic party has more to learn from Alexei Navalny or the protesters in Serbia than it does from Chuck Schumer or strategists obsessing over message-testing crosstabs. This battle is half mass mobilization and half asym…
The Democratic party has more to learn from Alexei Navalny or the protesters in Serbia than it does from Chuck Schumer or strategists obsessing over message-testing crosstabs. This battle is half mass mobilization and half asymmetric warfare. Over the next year those tactics will matter more than traditional political messaging as it has been practiced here in living memory.
Once you accept that reality, our next steps become clear.
Join now
The rough roadmap for how to proceed goes like this:
Demonstrate popular power in the provinces through large-scale rallies.
Use these events to organize the resistance into a mass movement that can be called into action.
Direct the mass movement into targeted political strikes: Getting blowout wins in special elections; boycotts of Tesla; etc.
Politicize everything: Attack the authoritarians for every bad thing that happens, anywhere in the world. Flood the zone.
Elevate the corruption/graft in a way that pits the billionaire insiders against the “forgotten man.”
When the moment is right, bring this movement to the Capital for a show of strength.
Use this demonstration as a slingshot to take back legislative power in the 2026 elections.
More importantly, use it to send a message to the institutional actors that people will have their back if they show courage.¹
Share
2. The Near Term
Winning in 2026 will not be sufficient to stop the authoritarian push; but it is necessary.
And the only way to win is people power. That’s it. No institutions are going to save us. The courts won’t stop the authoritarians. Corporate interests won’t stop them. The Democratic party won’t stop them, either. If the authoritarians can be stopped then the Democratic party will be the vehicle through which people wield power. But the Democratic party, as an institution, is too weak and desiccated to stage a real fight against Trumpism. It will have to be pushed into fighting by a mass popular movement.
AOC’s public events over the last week have been exactly what the opposition needs.
She is making herself a rally point and telling everyone who wants to resist that they have a place to go. She should do these rallies, over and over, across the country. But not in Washington or New York. Not yet.
When you look at the history of dissident movements, they almost always begin in the outer provinces.
The autocrats’ power is greatest near the literal center of the government they control. The further you get from their power center, the weaker their hold and the more risks they have to take if they want to put down demonstrations.
AOC went to Denver and Phoenix last week. She needs to go to Nashua and Nashville. Houston and Chicago. Oakland and Oklahoma City.
The bigger these rallies get, the better. Make them ongoing events.
She will need an infrastructure. It’s not enough to get 30,000 people in the streets. You need to get them organized. People in the pro-democracy space will need to help figure out how to do that—how to turn live attendance into lists that can be activated.
And when I say “activated” I do NOT mean for fundraising. Keep Act Blue away from this project: These lists should never be used for ginning up donations. They should be used to direct people into actions. Getting them registered to vote. Getting them to turn out for elections. Getting them to show up at the next rally; to organize their friends.
This will require a sophisticated data operation. AOC will need help. It would be great if Mark Cuban or Scott Galloway could step in here. The dissident movement will need its own platform.²
It will also need its own media. Because believe me, the New York Times is never going to be explicitly anti-authoritarian.
Apologies for cross posting, but people want to know how to resist, well here is an idea
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/how-to-think-and-act-like-a-dissident-in-trumps-america
The Democratic party has more to learn from Alexei Navalny or the protesters in Serbia than it does from Chuck Schumer or strategists obsessing over message-testing crosstabs. This battle is half mass mobilization and half asymmetric warfare. Over the next year those tactics will matter more than traditional political messaging as it has been practiced here in living memory.
Once you accept that reality, our next steps become clear.
Join now
The rough roadmap for how to proceed goes like this:
Demonstrate popular power in the provinces through large-scale rallies.
Use these events to organize the resistance into a mass movement that can be called into action.
Direct the mass movement into targeted political strikes: Getting blowout wins in special elections; boycotts of Tesla; etc.
Politicize everything: Attack the authoritarians for every bad thing that happens, anywhere in the world. Flood the zone.
Elevate the corruption/graft in a way that pits the billionaire insiders against the “forgotten man.”
When the moment is right, bring this movement to the Capital for a show of strength.
Use this demonstration as a slingshot to take back legislative power in the 2026 elections.
More importantly, use it to send a message to the institutional actors that people will have their back if they show courage.¹
Share
2. The Near Term
Winning in 2026 will not be sufficient to stop the authoritarian push; but it is necessary.
And the only way to win is people power. That’s it. No institutions are going to save us. The courts won’t stop the authoritarians. Corporate interests won’t stop them. The Democratic party won’t stop them, either. If the authoritarians can be stopped then the Democratic party will be the vehicle through which people wield power. But the Democratic party, as an institution, is too weak and desiccated to stage a real fight against Trumpism. It will have to be pushed into fighting by a mass popular movement.
AOC’s public events over the last week have been exactly what the opposition needs.
She is making herself a rally point and telling everyone who wants to resist that they have a place to go. She should do these rallies, over and over, across the country. But not in Washington or New York. Not yet.
When you look at the history of dissident movements, they almost always begin in the outer provinces.
The autocrats’ power is greatest near the literal center of the government they control. The further you get from their power center, the weaker their hold and the more risks they have to take if they want to put down demonstrations.
AOC went to Denver and Phoenix last week. She needs to go to Nashua and Nashville. Houston and Chicago. Oakland and Oklahoma City.
The bigger these rallies get, the better. Make them ongoing events.
She will need an infrastructure. It’s not enough to get 30,000 people in the streets. You need to get them organized. People in the pro-democracy space will need to help figure out how to do that—how to turn live attendance into lists that can be activated.
And when I say “activated” I do NOT mean for fundraising. Keep Act Blue away from this project: These lists should never be used for ginning up donations. They should be used to direct people into actions. Getting them registered to vote. Getting them to turn out for elections. Getting them to show up at the next rally; to organize their friends.
This will require a sophisticated data operation. AOC will need help. It would be great if Mark Cuban or Scott Galloway could step in here. The dissident movement will need its own platform.²
It will also need its own media. Because believe me, the New York Times is never going to be explicitly anti-authoritarian.