Another Way of Looking At It: Immigration as the New Civil Rights Movement

Alternately, if Niemoller comparisons are too scary, let me offer a homegrown point of comparison -- the Civil Rights Movement.

Back when the fight of the day was gay marriage, I read someone commenting that the problem with today's left is that they are desperately looking for a new Civil Rights Movement -- a heroic struggle against oppression, and keep turning what are really mundane disputes of policy into the new Civil Rights.

Gay marriage is one such example.  Certainly, one can be in favor of it and still acknowledge that it is going a bit far to call it the defining moral issue of our day, rather than a relatively mundane policy dispute.  And the reason it really was dangerous to treat gay marriage as the defining moral issue of the day is that advocates had an unfortunate tendency to treat one's stance on the issue as the sole defining question of who was and was not a good person, and opposition as placing people wholly outside the bounds of reasonable discourse.  That seems a bid harsh for what was, after all, quite a radical redefinition of the meaning of marriage.  And it disallowed intermediate positions, such as favoring gay marriage while recognizing that people of good will could disagree, or favoring gay marriage but recognizing the rights of conscientious objectors.  And in the end, I actually think the Supreme Court reached a good compromise -- gay marriage is the law of the land, but on one should be required to participate in and "expressive" manner.  The controversy has largely subsided.

The same goes for transgenderism.  Once disputes over gay marriage subsided, our side set out to make transgenderism the new Civil Rights Movement.  Again, sorry, but the issue of whether a handful of athletes have to play on the team of their natal sex, or what conditions (if any) should be placed on puberty blockers for minors fit well within the realm of normal policy disputes.

Plenty of other Trump actions fit in the same category.  Disputes of whether Congress should cut Medicaid or withdraw clean energy subsidies, or make budgetary rescissions, are policy dispute.  Some of these are really bad policies that will hurt a lot of innocent people, but they are not threats to our constitutional order.  The Trump tariffs are a threat to our constitutional order in the sense that they threaten the legislature's power of the purse, a provision in effect since the Middle Ages.  But if Congress were to pass such taxes, it would be a policy dispute -- bad policy, but nonetheless lawful.

Immigration is a different matter.  Masked men without uniforms are randomly snatching people off the streets and sending them off to unknown locations, deliberately hiding where they are to deny them a day in court.  People with legal status are having it stripped away without notice.  People who comply with immigration laws are being arrested at check-ins, arrested at court hearings, arrested at naturalization ceremonies.  Central to the viewpoint of not just the relevant Trump officials, but to MAGA in general is that non-citizens have no rights, that recognizing any rights in non-citizens somehow degrades the rights of citizens, and that while citizens do have rights, those rights do not include the right to suggest that non-citizens have any sort of rights, or to protect them.  Not only have ICE officials engaged in egregious violations of the rights of immigrants, but most infringements on the rights of citizens have also involved the issue of immigration.

Thus far -- and those words do a lot of heavy lifting these days, but thus far the Trump Administration has shown no disposition to criminalize the opposition -- except on immigration.  Thus far the only opposing politicians to have been arrested have been ones who got on the wrong side of ICE.  Thus far our independent media have remained independent and the Trump Administration had only succeeded in getting one journalist fired -- Terry Moran of ABC, for his comments about Stephen Miller, the mastermind behind the deportation regime.  Thus far the Administration has shown no tendency to crack down on protests -- except where immigration is concerned.  

Thus far there has been no widespread attempt to shut down opposing organizations by denying their tax-exempt status, possibly because safeguards in place make that extremely difficult.  One of the proposals in the latest budget monstrosity is one that was defeated before and would give the IRS unilateral authority to declare any non-profit to be a supporter of terrorists and not only strip it of its non-profit status, but seize its assets.  The organization would not be able to appeal the decision to the courts for 90 days, and in the meantime would be rendered powerless by the seizure of its assets.  If this outrage passes, I have no idea how far Team Trump will use it in attempting to shut down the opposition, but can anyone doubt that it will be immediately deployed against every organization the defends immigrant rights?

In short, immigration is where the greatest danger is, both at the mass and the elite level.  That is where we must take on the Administration and we must defeat it.  And I believe we can, though how long it will take and at what cost I cannot venture a guess.

Niemoller and Immigration

 There are people who have urged us to steer clear of immigration and stick to subjects where we can be more sure of public support, such as tariffs and Medicaid cutbacks.  Gavin Newsom initially dismissed the issue as a "distraction" from economic issues.  Matthew Yglesias has made similar arguments.

I am, in general, in favor of Democrats focusing on issues that play well with the public and steering clear of the sort of niche or boutique issues that just make Democrats look out of touch.  Tariffs and Medicaid cuts are examples of issues that Democrats should emphasize because they can count on pubic opinion backing them.

But there are some moral issues that admit no compromise.  Trump's current immigration policy is one such instance.  In deciding what is a mere policy dispute and what allows no compromise, I think it fair to apply the Niemoller test -- "First they came for . . . "  And yes, I absolutely believe that such analogies get thrown around a bit loosely, so maybe we should consider what Niemoller's actual background was.

Wikipedia level sketch:  Niemoller was a Lutheran pastor and a conservative.  He voted for the Nazis in 1924, 1928, and 1933, welcoming 1933 ascent to power.  He believed that Jews as a religious group deserved persecution, but also that a Jew who was baptized as a Christian was immediately freed of such a taint.  As such, he opposed discriminatory measures against baptized Jews and Nazi attempts to subordinate Protestant churches to Nazism.*  In 1934 he was one of the co-founders of the Confessing Church, established to resist the Nazis' interference in church matters and to protest the refusal to recognize Jews who converted to Christianity as true Christians.  He was arrested in 1937 and sent to Dachau in 1938.  

So, treating 1937 as "and then they came for me," how bad had things gotten by then?  I have written a little before about the early stages.  First they came for the Communists.  Hitler was named Chancellor on January 30, 1933.  Within days he took over the Prussian police, deputized the Brown Shirts, and authorized them to shoot Communists mobs on sight.  On February 27, the Reichstag burned down.  The cabinet issued an emergency decree banning the Communist Party and authorizing the arrest of political opponents and closing of opposition newspapers.  On March 5, new elections were held and Nazis did better than ever before.  The next day, Nazis forcibly seized state government buildings and arrested political opponents by the tens of thousands.  On March 23, the Reichstag handed Hitler emergency powers, effectively voting itself out of existence.

Dachau was opened on March 22, the day before the Reichstag handed over the keys to Hitler, as a makeshift prison in a munitions factory to house political opponents, who has been arrested in such numbers as to exceed the capacity of existing prisons.  There were already reports of torture and murder there by April, and even an attempt at prosecution (suppressed by the authorities).  

Then they came for the homosexuals. Niemoller did not, as far as I know, ever name gays as a target.  As a conservative Christian, he would have thoroughly disapproved of their lifestyle.  Homosexuality was illegal in Weimar, but the laws were not widely enforced.  It remained illegal in West Germany after the Nazis were defeated, so gays were not as quick to speak up as other persecuted groups.  The suppression of gay bars, clubs, and publications began at once, with the wide approval of conservatives, religious and secular.  Ordinary gays at first continued their lives as long as the kept a low profile.  This changed in mid-1934 with the execution of Ernst Roehm, the gay leader of the Storm Troopers.  An estimated 100,000 gay men were arrested and torture was routinely used to extort confessions.  Some were imprisoned for years and an estimated 5-6,000 were sent to concentration camps and had a death rate of 60%. The scale of the persecution strained police resources, but the pressure for arrests was so strong that  some police departments resorted to calling in entire classes of teenage boys and asking them about their sexual experiences.

Some versions of Niemoller do name Jehovah's Witnesses.  Because Jehovah's witnesses refused to serve in the miliary or Nazi organizations.  By mid-1933, their press was closed down, their publications burned, and their meetings banned.  Jehovah's Witnesses were fired from government jobs for refusing to take a loyalty oath.  By 1935 and 1936, Jehovah's Witnesses were having their cars and bicycles seized, being evicted from their homes, having their children taken, and being imprisoned.  Some 2,000 were sent to concentration camps.

Then they came for the Jews.  It began with discrimination, not violence.  The Reichstag handed Hitler absolute power on March 23, 1933.  In April, Jews and Communists were barred from government employment.  Civil service protections were stripped from anyone hired under the Weimar government. Jews were also barred from practicing law, and the national health service stopped paying Jewish doctors.  (Patients could still pay out of pocket).  Jewish students were limited to 1.5% of total enrollment -- their proportionate share of the population.  In July, 150,000 naturalized Jews were stripped of their citizenship and deported.  In September, Jew were barred from owning farmland (not that many did in the first place).  Jews were also barred from producing works of culture.  In 1935, the Nuremburg laws stripped Jews of their citizenship.  Jews were also barred from marriage or sex with Germans (existing marriages were allowed to stand), from employing German women under 45, and from flying the German flag.  

In 1938, things became significantly worse.  Jews were forbidden from practicing medicine even for private payment, from having gardens, from attending theaters, opera, or concerts, or from public schools.  Kristallnacht took place on November 9-10, 1938.  After a deported Jew assassinated a German diplomat in Paris, a "spontaneous" pogrom led by the secret police broke out -- mass vandalism and looting of Jewish property, 30,000 Jewish men arrested and sent to concentration camps, and an undetermined number of murders and other acts of personal violence.  This was the first act of widespread violence against Jews under the Nazis.  Mass murder began only after the war, and specifically after Hitler invaded Russia.

It should also be noted that the events of 1938 took place after Niemoller had been arrested (1937).  So, at the time Niemoller was arrested, the organized opposition had been fully suppressed and thousands send to Dachau.  Thousands of gay men had been arrested, to the point of interfering with police ability to handle ordinary crime.  Jehovah's Witnesses were facing economic persecution and some arrests for refusing military service.  Jews were being barred from most desirable jobs and many had been deported, but widespread violence had not yet begun.  In other words, things had not yet reached the level of the Holocaust.  But many Germans did realistically have to fear the knock in the night.

And so the question really has to be, not whether we are facing gas chambers, but whether we are facing the knock in the night.  And for immigrants in this country -- legal and illegal like -- the answer has to be yes.  We are seeing random immigrations sweeps, people being arrested when they make routine check-ins with their immigration officers, at people being arrested in immigration court, the deliberate refusal to identify where people are being held, arrests of citizens making any attempt to protect immigrants, an over 200 men shipped off to a prison in El Salvador that boasts that no one leaves alive. And now military forces sent to Los Angeles.

In fact, I heard a most alarming comment on a recent podcast.  The commenter remarked that many people compare Trump to Orban and ask if he had gone as far.  And plenty of things Trump has done, such as his attacks on the independence of the civil service, universities, and elite law firms, seem Orbanesque.  But Orban never went so far as ICE is going today.  Maybe Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines is a better point of comparison.

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*The Catholic Church, due to its transnational structure, was a tougher nut to crack.

Whoa!

 

So, with Elon Musk and Donald Trump fighting, should Democrats seek an alliance with Musk, as some have suggested?

On matters of policy, I would say no, absolutely not.  We are fighting the Trump budget on the grounds that it will strip millions of their health insurance.*  Musk's main problem with the bill is that it increases the deficit by not stripping enough people of their health insurance.  

On the other hand, the alarming side of the prospect of a Trump/Musk split has always been that one of them will win -- presumably Trump.  The prospect of Trump using the state to take down the world's richest man has a certain satisfaction, but it has alarming implications.  Hugo Chavez and Recep Erdogan both used fail coup attempts as pretexts to crack down on their opponents and consolidate their dictatorships.

Granted, we are not Russia.  Really we are not.  I am not in the least bit concerned that Musk will lead a private army against Washington, or that he will be killed in a mysterious plane crash.  But Steve Bannon has called for Trump to cancel contracts with Musk's companies, nationalize Starlink, strip Musk of his citizenship and deport him.**If the Trump Administration takes politically motivated actions against Musk or violates his rights, we must all champion him.  If the world's richest man is not safe, who among us can be?***

______________________________________
*And other reasons as well that I hope to write about, but this is the one with the most public pull.
**I can even see a reasonable case for some of these things.  There is widespread suspicion that Musk has used DOGE to increase his federal contracts at the expense of rivals which, if true, should be rolled back.  Many people have made the case that Starlink is too great a concentration of military power in the hands of a private citizen and should be nationalized.  And while I see no good reason to deport Musk for technical visa violations, it has been  happening to a lot of people lately and what's sauce for the goose may be sauce for the gander.  But to the extent these things are politically motivated, they are extremely dangerous and must be fought.
***What do I make of Musk's allegations that there is incriminating material against Trump in the Epstein files?  Trump's friendship with Epstein, and his knowledge that Epstein likes 'em young are well documented.  Musk has had enough access to government at all levels that he might have some inside information.  On the other hand, Musk has a longstanding history of believing false and wildly paranoid things, so don't jump to any conclusions.

Many Levels of Niemoller's Poem

 

Martin Niemoller

 First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for the Catholics
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Catholic*
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.


I learned about Niemoller's poem at an early age, knowing nothing about the author, only that is described the rise of the Nazis.  At the time, my interpretation was the simplest one -- freedom is indivisible.  None can be free unless all are free.

But over time, I began to understand more about the significance of the progression, and to see other layers of meaning.

One was when Jonah Goldberg came out with his ridiculous book, Liberal Fascism, claiming that Hitler was really a left-winger.  Niemoller's poem can come as a shorthand refutation as Hitler's victims parade from left to right -- Communists, then Socialist, then trade unionists, then Jews (broadly liberal), then (possibly) Catholics (generally conservative).  

Another is as a rejection of the morality that JD Vance called ordo amoris or Jonathan Haidt (at his worst) calls well-balanced values with a proper sense of group loyalty, i.e., the idea that everyone should be divided into an in-group of people who morally matter and an out-group of un-people who don't morally matter.  Admittedly, both Vance and Haidt appear to draw the boundary nationality -- since Hitler's early victims were fellow German citizens, Niemoller should have cared.  But really, neither Vance nor Haidt offer any really good reason why one should draw the line at citizenship.  If Niemoller originally drew the line more narrowly, neither man's reasoning offer a good reason why he should have drawn it more broadly.  Niemoller practiced ordo amoris.  He had well-balanced values, including a proper sense of group loyalty.  When people outside his in-group were targeted, he showed a commendable indifference.  When he was targeted other people stuck to their in-groups just as much as he did.  Too late, he learned the error of his ways.

Another insight came, of all places, from the Roman historian Gaius Sallustius Crispus.  He described a thwarted rebellion against Rome and Cicero (then serving as consul) proposed to execute the conspirators without trials.  Caesar warned against such an action:

These thirty began their administration by putting to death, even without a trial, all who were notoriously wicked, or publicly detestable; acts at which the people rejoiced, and extolled their justice. But afterward, when their lawless power gradually increased, they proceeded, at their pleasure, to kill the good and the bad indiscriminately, and to strike terror into all; and thus the state, overpowered and enslaved, paid a heavy penalty for its imprudent exultation.

Within our own memory, too, when the victorious Sylla ordered Damasippus,14 and others of similar character, who had risen by distressing their country, to be put to death, who did not commend the proceeding? All exclaimed that wicked and factious men, who had troubled the state with their seditious practices, had justly forfeited their lives. Yet this proceeding was the commencement of great bloodshed. For whenever any one coveted the mansion or villa, or even the plate or apparel of another, he exerted his influence to have him numbered among the proscribed. Thus they, to whom the death of Damasippus had been a subject of joy, were soon after dragged to death themselves; nor was there any cessation of slaughter, until Sylla had glutted all his partisans with riches.

Such excesses, indeed, I do not fear from Marcus Tullius [Cicero], or in these times. But in a large state there arise many men of various dispositions. At some other period, and under another consul, who, like the present, may have an army at his command, some false accusation may be credited as true; and when, with our example for a precedent, the consul shall have drawn the sword on the authority of the senate, who shall stay its progress, or moderate its fury?**

"First they came for the Communists. . ."  Those haunting words echoed with new meaning.   The early victims of the Nazis were not sympathetic people, especially to a conservative like Niemoller.***

Another point of significance here is that the Nazis targeted the organized opposition first.  Communists, Socialists, and unions are all organized structures with institutional power.  Jews and Catholics, by contrast, are much more diffuse groups.  And in that sense, "There was no one left to speak out for me," is not purely hyperbolic.  There were people, of course, who could have spoken out for him, but there were no organized institutions left to oppose the Nazis.  

In general, I would say, do not be too quick to quote Niemoller.  Stick to the face-eating leopards. But I am beginning to find that poem apt in the case of ICE.  More to come.

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*The inclusion of Catholics is debated. Certainly many Catholics continued to practice their faith openly in Nazi Germany, but the transnational nature of Catholicism made it the natural enemy of Nazi hypernationalism.
**Classical historians generally sided against Caesar and suspected that is solicitude for the conspirators may have been because of complicity. Modern readers would applaud him more if he had advocated for due process. Instead of calling for trial, Caesar was actually calling for non-capital punishment, still without trial. It should be noted that when Caesar became dictator, he practiced what he preached. He did not execute any of his political rivals.
***Indeed, Niemoller's own comments appear to confirm this interpretation, "We thought: Communists, those opponents of religion, those enemies of Christians—should I be my brother's keeper?"

Niemoller and the Face-Eating Leopards

 First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for the Catholics
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Catholic*
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.

Martin Niemoller

These quotes are, in their own way, saying the same thing.  They stand as warning that if you allow government to trample on the rights of others, your own rights may be the next target.  

The Niemoller quote is meant to be taken seriously and mostly literally.  I say mostly because, obviously, no country will ever truly reach the point when there is no one left to speak for the last person arrested.  When Niemoller was arrested, there were many people left to speak for him.  The just didn't.  A more accurate account might be, "And then they came for me.  And no one spoke out because they were not me."

The face-eating leopards, by contrast, are clearly hyperbolic and metaphoric.  No one literally comes out in favor of leopards eating people's faces.

Both Niemoller and the face-eating leopards get a lot of play in our political debate, sometimes as expressions of disagreement on quite mundane policy disputes.  My advice in most cases is that the face-eating leopards are the better choice. The face-eating leopards are such an obvious and outrageous exaggeration that no one can possibly see them otherwise than as a metaphor. It may very well be that people quoting Niemoller also mean it as a metaphor and not a serious comparison of whatever one is opposing to the Nazis.  But the point is not always clear.  The Niemoller quote leave open the possibility that one is literally comparing one's opponents to Nazis.  Godwin's law and all that.

Stick to the leopards.  Although there are a few exceptions.  More on that later.

__________________________________________

*The inclusion of Catholics is debated.  Certainly many Catholics continued to practice their faith openly in Nazi Germany, but the transnational nature of Catholicism made it the natural enemy of Nazi hypernationalism.  

So What Does Choose Democracy Recommend?

 

What If Trump Wins? is a book with an agenda.  It does not just oppose Trump, it has clear ideas what we should and should not do to oppose him.  I think their overall approach is good, even if I may not agree on all particulars. Obviously the actions of any one person will not change the outcome, but accept the usual fiction that what you do will scale up.  Their recommendations do not differ much regardless of what Trump does.  

Don'ts:

Don't resort to violence.  It simply discredits your movement and gives the authorities an excuse to move against you.  It also scales up more than anything else, in the sense that it doesn't take all that much violence to give any movement a bad name.  Agree.  Despite a few acts of vandalism at Tesla dealerships, we have generally avoided violence.  

Don't give up, despair, or flee to Canada.  This is what is known as "submission in advance."  Remember, hope gives no guarantee of success, but despair guarantees failure.  Again, agreed.

Don't limit yourself to street protests.  Street protests are all fine and good, but they are just the beginning.  By themselves, street protests are not sustainable and will fizzle out.  They have to be followed by organizing.  Again, agreed.  That is the lesson of the Tea Party's success and Occupy Wall Street's failure.

Don't let t come to this

I will add that people I know who cut their political teeth in the 1960's have a mixture of enthusiasm and anxiety about protests that I am not quite old enough to understand.  The Kent State shootings are a major traumatic memory for them, and the general, widespread use of violence against protestors in the 1960's.  This may be why so many of them feared the National Guard firing on peaceful protestors and I was more willing to give the Trump Administration the benefit of the doubt on that score.  We have been having protests and getting safety instructions that always strike me as a little overwrought.  Counter demonstrators have shown up and tried to provoke us, so far without much success.  Maybe our peace keeping team makes a difference and things would have gotten ugly without them.  But really, the counter protestors have been vastly outnumbered. 

Or it just might come to this

Of course, you don't have to go back to the 1960's to know about the danger of protests and violence.  As recently as 2020, protests all to frequently degenerated into riots, and the police responded with violence.  I think it is a mistake to underestimate just how traumatizing the 2020 riots were to a lot of right wingers, how much it cemented in their minds that violence was the exclusive province of the left, and that they were the party of law and order.  Trump turned this to good effect by taking a strong stance against riots.  

Observers of the April 19 protests commented that the protestors were significantly older and whiter that the ones during the 2020 protests.  I feel mixed about that.  On the one hand, it confirms the view that we are out of touch elitists.  We will not have the really broad-based movement we need until crowds start looking younger and darker.  On the other hand, an older, whiter crowd is also less likely to riot, which is all to the good.  

In general, I think our side need to refrain from violence, but also not be too fearful of a violent response, either from the state or from the militias.  If Trump had 10 million Proud Boys, things would no doubt be quite different.  But he doesn't have them.  While the authors underestimate the ease with which Trump would close the border and just how aggressively his government layoffs and cutoffs of funding would be, they overestimate the threat from rightwing militias.  Let's not give them any excuses.  And the warning about the need to move beyond street protests is sound. 

Do's

The authors recommend four courses of action as useful:

• Protect people being targeted;
• Defend existing institutions;
• Strategize acts of disobedience; and
• Plan for what comes after Trump.

This is not to say that everyone should devote themselves to all four activities. Specialization and division of labor are essential to any really effective activity -- but with coordination as well.  The authors offer some procedural advice here that strikes me as sound.  People who want to protect individuals and institutions are generally people who dislike conflict.  And protecting work is certainly useful -- up to a point.  But the time may well come when they need to get out of their comfort zones and confront the regime.  

To people strategizing acts of disobedience, the advice is the opposite.  Calling for civil disobedience too soon will receive a feeble response and weaken the movement.  You have to wait until the time is ripe.  The time frame is not clearly  laid out, but most scenarios talk in terms of seeing small political changes "over the next year."  Whether that means the first year Trump is in power or the first year after the first 100 days.  One scenario refers to events that happen by the semiquincentenial (July 4, 2026).  That is purely speculative, of course, but it gives some idea when the authors think the time my be ripe.  We are not there yet.

Finally, it is important not just to be against Trump, but to offer a positive alternative.  Defending existing institutions is all very well, but the reason people voted for a man proposing to burn it all down is that they thought our institutions were not working for them. We need to offer something better.

All of this seems like sound advice.  In gaming out what might happen, the authors introduce their own agenda.

Protect people being targeted

The authors have three suggestions here -- a mutual aid society, joint emergency funding, and an underground railroad.  Many of these are alternatives to government funding, which has been pulled (true).  The authors clearly like the non-hierarchical nature of mutual aid societies -- no division between givers and recipients, but everyone gives when they can and accepts when they need.  But fundraising for existing organizations that lost their federal funding also works.  Neither activity is overtly political, and the authors imagine that they may lose supporters if they come out as openly anti-Trump, but in the end they must.  An underground railroad -- primarily for immigrants, but occasionally for a federal whistle blower -- is a riskier option.  The authors also seem to think that staying small and nimble, staying local but expanding offerings, and forming a national network are all reasonable options.  

Defendant existing institutions

The authors here offer three options that presumably are just intended as a sampling of what is possible.  One is to reach out to veterans and their families and urge them to use their ties to the active duty military to remind them that the military must stay out of domestic politics.  One is for fired federal scientists (and presumably other skilled workers) to do their work outside the federal government and possibly use information they have gathered to help regulatory agencies get by on a smaller staff.  One is to work with election workers to keep elections safe, educate voters, and the like.  Once again, the authors consider either staying small and nimble or building a broader network as reasonable options.  They do see these things as being more confrontational and posing more danger than mutual aid or charitable fundraising.  If you want to scale up, better adopt strong cyber security to avoid being doxed.  And they differ from helping people being targeted by involving local government.  The role of local government in elections is obvious.  And the authors suggest local regulations when the feds are unwilling to act.  Obvious question -- why can't state or local government also be part of funding nonprofits?

Envision what comes after Trump

Here is where the authors reveal their ideological agenda most of all.  They favor a constitutional convention, or rather, a series of local conventions to recommend changes to the Constitution.  They recommend that these conventions follow a certain format -- a three day convention, with the first day devoted to learning, the second to making proposals and discussing them, and the third to voting on them.  The authors consider this a good general format for participatory decision-making.  I suppose it works if you have three days to spare.  Not everyone does. The convention adopts the proposals that have widespread support and leave the more controversial ones for a later day.  This seems like a sound approach.   

The measures that are widely supported, presumably including by the authors are term limits for judges and senators, ending the influence of money in politics, ending secret holds and the filibuster, "breaking apart" the two party system, and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.  More controversial are guns, crime, and other aspects of immigration.  Funny, but I don't think these procedural issues are what most people are most likely to care about.  They seem too abstract to excite most people.  The part about imposing term limits on judges was presumably born of frustration at the Supreme Court's overall direction, particularly in repealing protection for abortion and creating the doctrine of presidential immunity.  I am guessing that a lot of people may feel differently seeing how firmly judges have held the line against Trump, largely thanks to lifetime tenure that protects them from political pressure.  

I must admit to mixed feelings about the filibuster as well.  I do think the general principle of voting by simple majority is a sound one.  But the filibuster may also turn out to be essential to blocking many aspects of Trump's agenda.  And the authors do not make clear how the convention proposes to "break apart" the two party system.  Two party systems seem to be inherent in a first-past-the-post electoral system.  Do the authors propose ending the first-past-the-post system and, if so, how?  Especially, how can that be done for the President. And it does seem strange that they don't propose ending the Electoral College (not that it would have made a difference this time around, but the authors didn't know that).

Strategize acts of disobedience

The authors offer three alternatives, presumably not intended to be exhaustive.  One is simply to adopt a symbol (they propose a paperclip) to represent refusal to obey an unconstitutional order.  One is to strike -- starting with a one-minute strike that will scarcely be notice, and then to escalate to a 15 minutes strike.  Another is an organized movement to refuse paying taxes, in whole or in part.  

While the other approaches largely continue on their own, with no response by the Trump Administration, the more confrontational movements do receive a response.  The book games out possible responses by Trump -- none, denunciation by tweet, arresting leaders, or having the IRS seize the movement's assets.  

At the risk of stating the obvious, these three approaches are not equivalent.  Wearing a paperclip or other symbol of resistance is completely legal.  The narrative also talks about the movements leaders, assets, website, etc.  What leaders, assets, website, etc?  While there are laws governing when strikes are and are not allowed, does anyone truly think anyone will care about a one minute work stoppage?  Or even 15 minutes?  Refusing to pay taxes, by contrast, is clearly illegal.  The authors appear to recognize this, by having the IRS crack down much harder on the tax protesters than the others.  While the author treat staying local and nimble or connecting on a nationwide scale both as reasonable alternatives for the other movement, it makes clear that anyone seeking confrontation must reach out to others before it initiates a showdown.  A showdown will fail without a sufficient number of supporters.  This will happen if the resistance movement does not reach out to a wider population, or if it strikes before the time is ripe.

How will be know when the time is ripe?  In the meantime, the adventures imagine serious crackdowns on immigrants (true), subversion of the federal bureaucracy (to some degree), packing the bench with MAGA judges (may happen, but hasn't yet but presumably will) and violence by rightwing militias (probably an exaggerated fear).  (The book also mentions a shaky economy resulting from Trump's erratic polices, but does not emphasize it).  The back of the book has some shocking potential headlines -- Liz Cheney is arrested, HHS bans "gender affirming" care, hate crimes rise and the feds refuse to prosecute, Trump threatens to withhold funds unless Congress bans abortifact drugs, and the Texas National Guard goes to California to crack down on immigration, leading to a shootout.  Some of the groups featured in earlier pages show up in these stories.  

But still the time is not ripe for confrontation.  While these shocking stories clearly mean that groups focused on confrontation should reach out to a wider public, still they are not quite ready for the final confrontation.

How will be know when the time is ripe?  The authors have two hypotheticals -- Trump trying to stay in office in defiance of the 22nd Amendment, and Trump trying to forcibly shut down an electric vehicle plant.  No, I don't know how the authors chose the electric vehicle plant, but it strikes me as unlikely. Another obvious possibility suggests itself -- Trump openly defies a Supreme Court order, probably one involving the rights of immigrants.  

The authors are understandably vague about the time frame.  In numerous scenarios the authors say, "Over the next year, you see small political changes around you.  But it barely feels like a dent amidst the national scene."  So they envision a least a year going by before the time is ripe.  Is this a year from when Trump was first inaugurated, a year from when you, the hypothetical actor, first take action, or a year from Trump's first 100 days?  

We get a better picture of the hypothetical time frame for anyone who declines to join in the confrontation when the crisis strikes.  As you celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 2026, resistance leaders are beaten and arrested. Democracy enters an irretrievable downward spiral.  So the authors appear to believe that the decisive moment will take place in the first half of 2026.  Perhaps for this reason, the midterms play no role in their scenarios.  There is some ambiguity here.  The electric vehicle scenario has the Trump regime fatally weakened relatively early but limp out the rest of the term.  The 22nd Amendment scenario takes place in the first half of 2026 if Trump opponents fail to stop him, but skips over to 2028 if confrontation proceeds.  Make of it what you will.

Meanwhile, what is really happening?

Thus far I would say that immigration crackdown is worse than the authors anticipated, firing of federal workers and cancelling of federal funding is also worse, but private rightwing violence is not nearly as bad as they expected.  Civil society continues to function -- both in reality and in the book.  How are people responding in real life?

The authors comment that their proposed categories -- protecting people being targeted, defending existing institutions, strategizing forms of disobedience, and envisioning what comes after -- are not such separate categories as they propose.  Also, a whole lot of resistance is taking place at the elite level, out of reach of regular folks like you and me.  I suspect the authors recognized this but did not emphasize it because the book was written, after all to suggest what you, John Q. Citizen can do.

Elite litigators, including state attorney generals, the ACLU, and immigration rights advocates, have challenged many Trump policies in court.  People are quitting law firms that knuckled under to Trump.  Law students are keeping spreadsheets to show which firms have and have not submitted.  Private parties are saving data the federal government has deleted.  An immigration rights activist is tracking and compiling ICE flights and passing the information on to immigration lawyers -- and training others to do the same.*  All of this is extremely valuable.  Some of it is geared toward protecting people being targeted and some is best described as building new institutions.  It is all very valuable -- and all out of reach of most people.

In the meantime, a lot of resistance is taking place through ordinary political channels.  People aren't just showing up in the streets; they are showing up in town halls to confront members of Congress.  5 Calls is organizing calls to Congress.  Indivisibles regularly shows up at Congressional offices.  Run for Something is seeing record numbers of people seeking to run for local office.  Democrats are focusing on a positive agenda, mostly focused on building more housing.  Aside from the focus on protecting elections What If Trump Wins? does not really pay attention to any of these options.

Speaking just for myself, I must admit that I have not yet decided what I want to do to oppose Trump.  But my hypothetical goal is to do two activities -- one solely benevolent and not overtly political, and one overtly political and activist.  I just haven't decided what yet.

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*If there is anyone I fear should flee to Canada, this is probably who.

The First 100 Days by Choose Democracy

 

And then there are the speculations on the Trump Presidency from What if Trump Wins, a choose your own adventure from Choose Democracy.  Naturally, as a choose your own adventure, there were alternate scenarios of what Trump might do, and alternate responses.  Their basic advice on resistance is about the same, regardless of what Trump does.  Democracy fails if you don't resist, or resist the wrong way.  But it offers at least two ways that popular resistance might bring down the regime, if Trump tries to cancel the 2028 election or tries to shut down an electric vehicle plant.*

But that it getting a little ahead of ourselves.  It offered six alternate scenarios of the first 100 days.

Certain communalities present themselves in these alternate scenarios.  In nearly all, Trump:

• Pardons himself and the other January 6 defendants (true)
• Either closes the border (true) or reallocates funds to build the border wall (false, he seems to have lost interest in this), which is challenged in court but not halted (false)
• Withdraws from the Paris Climate Accords, halts all government research on climate, and/or deletes it from government websites (true)
• Appoints loyalists to key positions (true), possibly bypassing the Senate (false)
• Classifies 50,000 to 100,000 federal workers as Schedule F so he can replace them, temporarily blocked by courts (not quite but happened, but really!)

Clearly, these were the things the authors were most confident Trump would do and, for the most part, they were correct.  They did underestimate Trump's effectiveness in closing the border and failed to foresee DOGE, but no one foresaw DOGE.  

There were also differences.

Scenario 1: Trump installs loyalists  and opens IRS investigations into protest groups

This one is only presented if there are widespread protests against Trump that degenerate into violence.  It has Trump institute a 16-week abortion ban and has the IRS freeze the assets of the groups that organized the protests.  The IRS freezes assets of organizations involved in protests, opens investigations of Planned Parenthood, MoveOn, and a dozen others.  

Certainly this was something I was very much afraid of.  But in fact widespread pre-inauguration protests and violence did not materialize, and neither did IRS attacks on organizations opposed to Trump -- at least not yet.  One reason may be that there are currently institutional safeguards that make such a thing extremely difficult.  The bad news is that Trump's "big beautiful bill" contains a provision that would largely eliminate those barriers.  Stay tuned.

Scenario 2, Trump issues 150 radical executive orders

Aside from the usual measures (see above), Trump issues a "Back the Blue" order giving legal protection to police and encourages them to join forces with ICE.  He orders ICE to prepare for mass deportations, which ICE begins, joined by right wing militias.  Trump also orders the investigation of Liz Cheney, the rest of the January 6 Select Committee, and 27 others involved in the 2020 election.  

The mass deportation part is true, clearly, although it took longer than this scenario supposed, presumably as a result of the logistical difficulty in ramping up deportations so quickly.  Neither local police nor rightwing militias appear to have joined the effort.  And there have been no investigations of Liz Cheney and the rest.  So basically thus far the Trump Administration has been focusing on deporting immigrants -- including ones with a plausible claim to legal status -- but not on his political opponents. 

Scenario 3: Trump talks big, but his chaotic office only completes 10 major executive orders:

The executive orders are basically the ones outlined above.  Further actions are stymied by infighting within the Administration.  Unable to gain traction on real-world actions, Trump turns to online incitement.  In this scenario, the Georgia case against him for election subversion continues and the Proud Boys firebomb Fani Willis's house and shoot at her father.  

The authors did not anticipate that Fani Willis would be disqualified for having an affair with the special prosecutor she hired.  What would have happened if the parties had curbed their impulses is anyone's guess.

Scenario 4: Trump invokes the Insurrection Act and orders the military into major Democratic cities

In this scenario, besides the usual actions above, Trump pledges to end the "lawlessness of major Democratic cities," invokes the Insurrection Act, and sends in the National Guard.  Military leaders are alarmed and take this to military courts, which limit the activity.  National Guard limits itself to walking around, but everyone is on edge, fearing a violent explosion.  

Well, first of all, the authors get this wrong. Trump would have said, "lawlessness of major Democrat cities," a small difference, but one with big resonance.  Obviously, this hasn't happened.  Trump has focused on deportations instead.  And I must say that I, at least, was not all that worried about this one.  I was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that his threat to invoke the Insurrection Act and send in the National Guard were limited to violent riots.  And, in fact, it was proposed as an alternative mostly (not exclusively) if there were widespread protests that broke out into violence.

Scenario 5: Trump talks big but governs like a normal President

This one is very similar to Scenario 3, above, including the hypothetical firebombing and shooting at Fani Willis's house.  The main difference is that the governors of Texas and Arizona send the National Guard to the border, backed by rightwing militias.  

This one did not happen, either.  Trump has proved much more aggressive and successful on the border than anyone anticipated.

Scenario 6: Trump invokes the Insurrection Act and orders the military to the US Mexico border

This is probably the closest to what actually happened.  Trump issues the usual orders, invokes the Insurrection Act, sends the military to the border, and proclaims "the largest domestic deportation operation in American history."  For the first 100 days, the National Guard limits itself to patrolling the border and does not engage in military operations.  Border crossings are reduced.  The authors do not say anything about domestic deportations.

After the first 100 days, before the midterms

Regardless of what Trump does, the basic options on how to respond are about the same.  I will address that later.  Also notable are that the options on how to respond all assume certain things are happening above and beyond what is proposed in the six scenarios.  Maybe the authors think of these as things that happen after the first 100 days, or maybe they expect these things to happen within the first 100 days but saw them as background noise.  Most of these presumed events assume that the midterm elections have not yet happened, although the midterms play a fairly minimal role in the book. 

Obviously awe are just a little out of the first 100 days and well short of the midterms.  A lot can happen in the next year and a half.  Still, it is worth considering what the authors expect to happen over the first year or so of the Trump term and what has happened so far:

• Large scale immigration raids and mass deportations, with little or no process
• Loss of funding for health departments
• Increase is hate crime or workplace violence, which the FBI declines to investigate
• Somewhat vague conflict with the military, which slow-walks some of Trump's orders
• Department of Education takes funding from public schools and sends it to private schools
• Trump appoints young, rightwing judges who gerrymander districts to ensure Republicans will win
• Large scale firing of executive branch officials, to the point of making most regulation impossible
• Right wing violence against protesters
• Calls for political arrests

At this early stage, much of this has come about, but not all.  Obviously, the mass deportations, loss of funding, and widespread firing of executive branch officials have come about.  The cancellation of funding and firings have been much worse than anyone could have foreseen, and are being at least somewhat reversed.  Trump will undoubtedly appoint rightwing judges, many of whom do not have the same devotion to the rule of law as his first-term appointees, but that will take time.  Calls to prosecute opponents have happened but so far it has mostly been empty talk, with the notable exception of public officials who stand in the way of the Administration's worst deportation policies.

What the authors most seem to overestimate is the power of rightwing militias and terrorists.**  I do not mean to deny the existence of such things.  There is some evidences, for instance, that some Senate votes to confirm have been the result of threats of physical violence and not merely threats of a primary challenge.  And there have been vague but alarming threats against federal judges.  But judges continue ruling against the Trump Administration, and plenty of Republicans in Congress, like Thomas Massie and Rand Paul, freely speak out against Trump's economic policies.  And there has been no widespread outbreak of rightwing violence.

I was afraid of this sort of thing, too.  Looking back on it, that may have been a misunderstanding of how these things work. In general, rightwing militias tend to tick upward when a Democrat is in the White House because they feel threatened and downward under a Republican because they consider mission accomplished.  The upsurge in 2020 was a exception, largely in response to COVID lockdowns and riots, that militia members saw as threatening.

I assured many friends ahead of the election that while I greatly feared Trump winning, I did not think he was Hitler -- more like Orban.  One challenged me.  Did I mean that Trump was not as evil as Hitler, or not as competent.  I thought it over and and said that the US was not facing the sort of social breakdown that Germany was.

While I stand by this opinion, there is more to add to it.  When Hitler was named Chancellor, he had a private army of 2 million Brown Shirts out of a population of about 66 million.  Do the math.  That means about one in 33 Germans was a Brown Shirt, or about 3% of the population.  Rounding the US population today to 330 million, that would be equivalent to about 10 million Proud Boys.  (Or 10 million combined Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Three Percenters).  If Donald Trump had a private army of that size, the calculus of power would undoubtedly be very different from what it is today.  

Maybe the Three Percenters are onto something.

NEXT UP:  What Choose Democracy recommends we do.

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*I personally considered the former much more likely than that latter, but that is just applying Rule Number One of Smart Authoritarians.  It should be obvious by now that Trump is not very smart.

**Also significant -- the authors do not say anything about economic damage from tariffs or budget-busting tax cuts, even though these were major campaign promises that Trump made.  Presumably the authors deemphasize these issue because they do not see them as serious threats to democracy.  But Trump's incredibly arbitrary tariff policies are a vivid illustration of the danger of Congress ceding the power of the purse strings.  And economic issues of this kind are what is most likely to sink the Trump Administration.