Corporate media pundits will not tell you, because it remains at the core of their belief system. But neoliberalism is not just an economic doctrine, but a political project that has now ushered us into the abyss of fascism.
November 13, 2024
Source: Common Dreams
Donald Trump’s commanding victory over Kamala Harris seems to have surprised a lot of people both in the U.S. and around the world. Yet, it’s not surprising that Trump pulled off this victory, especially since polls predicted a tight race. What is surprising though is the scale of his victory. In a deeply divided society with a two-party system, one would have expected that either candidate would have won by a narrow margin.
Trump’s victory, which will have a wide-ranging impact on all aspects of U.S. society and will reverberate through the global political economy, represents a genuine political earthquake. He won the electoral college and the popular vote by expanding his coalition with historic demographic shifts. Even democratic heartlands saw large swings toward Trump, while Kamala Harris underperformed with both women (thus indicating that abortion was much less of a key issue than people thought it would be in the 2024 presidential election) and young voters. Young male voters, in particular, swung toward Trump in a big way as Kamala Harris not only put women on top of her agenda but, in turn, had very little to say about men. As for the loss of the working-class vote, which so much has already been said and written about it, suffice to say that Harris also had nothing to say to the mass of citizens facing economic hardship. Strangely enough, Harris and the Democrats in general did not even try to convey to the public some of the success that Biden’s economic policies had in contributing to growth and employment.
What the next four years will bring from the Trump administration may be unlike anything the United States has experienced in modern times.
Kamala Harris could not convince the voters. A considerable majority of the electorate did not share her priorities. That much is obvious. Following her loss to Donald Trump, Democratic National Committee finance committee member Lindy Li made a telling comment when she said that Harris’ bid for the White House was a “$1 billion disaster.”
Indeed, Democrats’ humiliating losses in the 2024 elections has sparked infighting and finger pointing about what went wrong and where the party goes from here. Whether Kamala Harris was the right choice for the Democrats is now of course an academic question. But it may be of interest to see what the New York Times said about Harris in November 2019: “Ms. Harris is the only 2020 Democrat who has fallen hard out of the top tier of candidates. She has proved to be an uneven campaigner who changes her message and tactics to little effect and has a staff torn into factions.”
The emerging consensus on Trump’s reelection is that it was fueled by the economy. But what exactly does this mean? Between the final quarter of 2022 and the third quarter of 2024, the U.S. economy under the Biden-Harris administration was in rather good shape. Unemployment was at its lowest level in decades, wages were rising (though it’s not clear at all if Americans’ pay has fully recovered from inflation), and the GDP was expanding above the trend. In fact, the U.S. economy has been growing faster than any other advanced economy by a wide margin. And the inflation has steadily cooled over the past couple of years.
Now, we do know of course that there was a mismatch in U.S. economy perception and reality, and that a Harris-Guardian poll conducted in the spring of 2024 had in fact revealed that almost everything that most Americans believed about the economy was wrong. However, all this can be explained by the fact that economies are too complex to be summed up by just a couple of indicators. A person’s perception of a country’s economic health can be influenced by one’s own economic status, pessimism about the overall direction of the economy based on comparisons about economic conditions even with the rather distant past, and sentiments about the role of government and even the public’s voice in government and politics. People who feel disconnected from the political system and have dismal views about the nation’s politics are not likely to express positive views about the state of the economy. In other words, perceptions about the state of the economy can be influenced by political biases.
The notion that Trump’s re-election was fueled not so much by the actual state of the economy but rather by voter anxiety over the general direction of the economy and who is really in charge of government in the United States would have made more sense. Most voters don’t feel economically stable or secure. They are aware of the growing economic inequalities and worry about job security. Surveys have consistently found that most workers in the U.S. can’t afford an emergency expense even of a few hundred dollars. For most U.S. adults, the American dream no longer holds true, including a staggering 80 percent among people under the age of 30.
Let’s call things by their proper names. It is the cumulative effects of neoliberalism on economic wellbeing, social cohesion, and democratic politics that explains the pessimism that exists in people’s minds about the direction of the economy and the condition of the country overall. It is the disastrous effects of neoliberalism that can explain the latest realignment of the U.S. electorate and Trump’s decisive victory over Kamala Harris. It is the dysfunctional U.S. economic system in its totality that has given rise to authoritarian demagogues like Donald Trump who promise unhappy and angry voters a return to a golden age.
The economic, political, social, and cultural dominance of neoliberalism has facilitated the rise of authoritarian populism and the far right not only in the United States but throughout the world. Here, I define neoliberalism not only as an economic doctrine primarily characterized by free markets, globalization, liberalization, massive deregulation, shifts away from social welfare programs, and the redistribution of income and wealth from labor to capital, but also as a political project that aims to undo the demos and is carried out by the dominant economic classes through a brutal form of class warfare and with the explicit aim of capturing the political system and hijacking the state as the implementation of neoliberal policies requires large-scale intervention in the capitalist economy; and, equally important, as a sociopolitical ideology that puts individual self-interest before the common good, displays indifference to economic and social inequality and subsequently justifies plutocracy, offers acceptance to unequal power distribution, and transfers responsibility to individual agents.
Neoliberalism has attained a hegemonic position as an economic doctrine and sociopolitical ideology in much of the developed world and permeates the entire mainstream political space. Across Europe, social democratic and socialist parties have become virtually indistinguishable from conservative and right-wing political parties. In the U.S. the Carter, Clinton and Obama administrations pushed neoliberalism as the only viable alternative. Subsequently, what we have seen over the past twenty or so years across the developed capitalist world is the resurgence of ethno-nationalism, the rise of far-right political movements and political parties, and neofascist leaders like Orban in Hungary and Meloni in Italy and proto-fascists like Trump in the United States rising to power through the ballot box.
The new breed of authoritarian populists like Trump has emerged precisely because neoliberal capitalism has created so much discontent and anger that it needs a new model of governance to keep the system intact. And it comes in the form of proto-fascism or neo-fascism. Trumpism is an extreme far-right ideology that attacks democracy and seeks to disband progressive social agendas while promoting a new and more ruthless form of market liberalization. Trumpism is best defined as neoliberal fascism.
Unfortunately, as the traditional parties of the left have themselves embraced the neoliberal orthodoxy and the postmodern left has become obsessed with cultural issues and anti-racism at the expense of economic issues, a very sizeable chunk of the working class has been duped by the new breed of authoritarian populists and put its trust in turn in their hands in hopes of a better future. This is the tragedy of the Left. For without radical political leadership for guidance and inspiration, the working class of today fails to recognize neoliberal capitalism as the problem and has been made in turn to look for scapegoats. This is what Trump has managed to do with his vicious attacks on immigrants, undoubtedly more successfully than any other authoritarian demagogue in the western world.
Like their predecessors, the new breed of authoritarian demagogues with proclivities to fascist rhetoric like Trump are homogenizing nationalists. But with the U.S. being one of the most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations in the world, Trump knew he had to expand his voter base if he were to be successful in his bid for reelection. The fact that his message got through with black, Latino and Asian voters is nothing short of amazing. It seems that the more racist Donald Trump sounds, the more voters he attracts from minority groups. Indeed, the Republican Party is now less white than ever before, and that has to be a very distressing development for the future of the Democratic Party.
What the next four years will bring from the Trump administration may be unlike anything the United States has experienced in modern times. Trump feels he has a powerful mandate, which is hard to argue against, to fulfill his campaign promises. Deportations and closing the border, drilling, pardons, tariffs, targeting journalists, and signing executive orders for schools pushing “critical race theory” and “gender identity” could be among the first promises he may try to fulfill. The restructuring of the U.S. government will take time, and it is unlikely that the second Trump administration will be as disorganized and chaotic as the first.
Progressives and radicals should prepare for what lies ahead. We do live in interesting times.
Donald Trump’s commanding victory over Kamala Harris seems to have surprised a lot of people both in the U.S. and around the world. Yet, it’s not surprising that Trump pulled off this victory, especially since polls predicted a tight race. What is surprising though is the scale of his victory. In a deeply divided society with a two-party system, one would have expected that either candidate would have won by a narrow margin.
Trump’s victory, which will have a wide-ranging impact on all aspects of U.S. society and will reverberate through the global political economy, represents a genuine political earthquake. He won the electoral college and the popular vote by expanding his coalition with historic demographic shifts. Even democratic heartlands saw large swings toward Trump, while Kamala Harris underperformed with both women (thus indicating that abortion was much less of a key issue than people thought it would be in the 2024 presidential election) and young voters. Young male voters, in particular, swung toward Trump in a big way as Kamala Harris not only put women on top of her agenda but, in turn, had very little to say about men. As for the loss of the working-class vote, which so much has already been said and written about it, suffice to say that Harris also had nothing to say to the mass of citizens facing economic hardship. Strangely enough, Harris and the Democrats in general did not even try to convey to the public some of the success that Biden’s economic policies had in contributing to growth and employment.
What the next four years will bring from the Trump administration may be unlike anything the United States has experienced in modern times.
Kamala Harris could not convince the voters. A considerable majority of the electorate did not share her priorities. That much is obvious. Following her loss to Donald Trump, Democratic National Committee finance committee member Lindy Li made a telling comment when she said that Harris’ bid for the White House was a “$1 billion disaster.”
Indeed, Democrats’ humiliating losses in the 2024 elections has sparked infighting and finger pointing about what went wrong and where the party goes from here. Whether Kamala Harris was the right choice for the Democrats is now of course an academic question. But it may be of interest to see what the New York Times said about Harris in November 2019: “Ms. Harris is the only 2020 Democrat who has fallen hard out of the top tier of candidates. She has proved to be an uneven campaigner who changes her message and tactics to little effect and has a staff torn into factions.”
The emerging consensus on Trump’s reelection is that it was fueled by the economy. But what exactly does this mean? Between the final quarter of 2022 and the third quarter of 2024, the U.S. economy under the Biden-Harris administration was in rather good shape. Unemployment was at its lowest level in decades, wages were rising (though it’s not clear at all if Americans’ pay has fully recovered from inflation), and the GDP was expanding above the trend. In fact, the U.S. economy has been growing faster than any other advanced economy by a wide margin. And the inflation has steadily cooled over the past couple of years.
Now, we do know of course that there was a mismatch in U.S. economy perception and reality, and that a Harris-Guardian poll conducted in the spring of 2024 had in fact revealed that almost everything that most Americans believed about the economy was wrong. However, all this can be explained by the fact that economies are too complex to be summed up by just a couple of indicators. A person’s perception of a country’s economic health can be influenced by one’s own economic status, pessimism about the overall direction of the economy based on comparisons about economic conditions even with the rather distant past, and sentiments about the role of government and even the public’s voice in government and politics. People who feel disconnected from the political system and have dismal views about the nation’s politics are not likely to express positive views about the state of the economy. In other words, perceptions about the state of the economy can be influenced by political biases.
The notion that Trump’s re-election was fueled not so much by the actual state of the economy but rather by voter anxiety over the general direction of the economy and who is really in charge of government in the United States would have made more sense. Most voters don’t feel economically stable or secure. They are aware of the growing economic inequalities and worry about job security. Surveys have consistently found that most workers in the U.S. can’t afford an emergency expense even of a few hundred dollars. For most U.S. adults, the American dream no longer holds true, including a staggering 80 percent among people under the age of 30.
Let’s call things by their proper names. It is the cumulative effects of neoliberalism on economic wellbeing, social cohesion, and democratic politics that explains the pessimism that exists in people’s minds about the direction of the economy and the condition of the country overall. It is the disastrous effects of neoliberalism that can explain the latest realignment of the U.S. electorate and Trump’s decisive victory over Kamala Harris. It is the dysfunctional U.S. economic system in its totality that has given rise to authoritarian demagogues like Donald Trump who promise unhappy and angry voters a return to a golden age.
The economic, political, social, and cultural dominance of neoliberalism has facilitated the rise of authoritarian populism and the far right not only in the United States but throughout the world. Here, I define neoliberalism not only as an economic doctrine primarily characterized by free markets, globalization, liberalization, massive deregulation, shifts away from social welfare programs, and the redistribution of income and wealth from labor to capital, but also as a political project that aims to undo the demos and is carried out by the dominant economic classes through a brutal form of class warfare and with the explicit aim of capturing the political system and hijacking the state as the implementation of neoliberal policies requires large-scale intervention in the capitalist economy; and, equally important, as a sociopolitical ideology that puts individual self-interest before the common good, displays indifference to economic and social inequality and subsequently justifies plutocracy, offers acceptance to unequal power distribution, and transfers responsibility to individual agents.
Neoliberalism has attained a hegemonic position as an economic doctrine and sociopolitical ideology in much of the developed world and permeates the entire mainstream political space. Across Europe, social democratic and socialist parties have become virtually indistinguishable from conservative and right-wing political parties. In the U.S. the Carter, Clinton and Obama administrations pushed neoliberalism as the only viable alternative. Subsequently, what we have seen over the past twenty or so years across the developed capitalist world is the resurgence of ethno-nationalism, the rise of far-right political movements and political parties, and neofascist leaders like Orban in Hungary and Meloni in Italy and proto-fascists like Trump in the United States rising to power through the ballot box.
The new breed of authoritarian populists like Trump has emerged precisely because neoliberal capitalism has created so much discontent and anger that it needs a new model of governance to keep the system intact. And it comes in the form of proto-fascism or neo-fascism. Trumpism is an extreme far-right ideology that attacks democracy and seeks to disband progressive social agendas while promoting a new and more ruthless form of market liberalization. Trumpism is best defined as neoliberal fascism.
Unfortunately, as the traditional parties of the left have themselves embraced the neoliberal orthodoxy and the postmodern left has become obsessed with cultural issues and anti-racism at the expense of economic issues, a very sizeable chunk of the working class has been duped by the new breed of authoritarian populists and put its trust in turn in their hands in hopes of a better future. This is the tragedy of the Left. For without radical political leadership for guidance and inspiration, the working class of today fails to recognize neoliberal capitalism as the problem and has been made in turn to look for scapegoats. This is what Trump has managed to do with his vicious attacks on immigrants, undoubtedly more successfully than any other authoritarian demagogue in the western world.
Like their predecessors, the new breed of authoritarian demagogues with proclivities to fascist rhetoric like Trump are homogenizing nationalists. But with the U.S. being one of the most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations in the world, Trump knew he had to expand his voter base if he were to be successful in his bid for reelection. The fact that his message got through with black, Latino and Asian voters is nothing short of amazing. It seems that the more racist Donald Trump sounds, the more voters he attracts from minority groups. Indeed, the Republican Party is now less white than ever before, and that has to be a very distressing development for the future of the Democratic Party.
What the next four years will bring from the Trump administration may be unlike anything the United States has experienced in modern times. Trump feels he has a powerful mandate, which is hard to argue against, to fulfill his campaign promises. Deportations and closing the border, drilling, pardons, tariffs, targeting journalists, and signing executive orders for schools pushing “critical race theory” and “gender identity” could be among the first promises he may try to fulfill. The restructuring of the U.S. government will take time, and it is unlikely that the second Trump administration will be as disorganized and chaotic as the first.
Progressives and radicals should prepare for what lies ahead. We do live in interesting times.
CJ Polychroniou is a political scientist/political economist, author, and journalist who has taught and worked in numerous universities and research centers in Europe and the United States. Currently, his main research interests are in U.S. politics and the political economy of the United States, European economic integration, globalization, climate change and environmental economics, and the deconstruction of neoliberalism’s politico-economic project. He has published scores of books and over one thousand articles which have appeared in a variety of journals, magazines, newspapers and popular news websites. His latest books are Optimism Over Despair: Noam Chomsky On Capitalism, Empire, and Social Change (2017); Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet (with Noam Chomsky and Robert Pollin as primary authors, 2020); The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic, and the Urgent Need for Radical Change (an anthology of interviews with Noam Chomsky, 2021); and Economics and the Left: Interviews with Progressive Economists (2021).
AOC Asks MAGA One Question… The Results Are STUNNING
By Adam Mockler
By Adam Mockler
November 12, 2024
Source: Adam Mockler
Adam Mockler with MeidasTouch Network analyses the responses to an experiment run by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez where she asked Trump voters in her district, why they also voted for her.
Adam Mockler with MeidasTouch Network analyses the responses to an experiment run by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez where she asked Trump voters in her district, why they also voted for her.
Dear Donald and MAGA: It’s Our Turn Now
November 14, 2024
Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.
Source: Kelly Kanayama via ReligionWatch
Trump won an election. Are we beaten? Will it be years and still more years until there is space for anything positive? Is progressive activity now merely blowing into the wind? MAGA and more MAGA. I think not. Should we now prepare to endure extreme deprivation, disruption, and repression? Learn to survive. Prepare to help one another. Hate the power, but dodge it. I don’t think so. To assume Trump will successfully implement his preferred agenda will help guarantee that agenda. I say we shouldn’t assume darkness and thereby help it arrive. We should turn on lights.
Quite a few progressives may gear up, brace up, stand up. Serious and sincere, but with their thoughts on elections two and four years from now. That certainly has a point. Winning two years from now can help restrain Trump. Winning four years from now can replace him. But it misses that this election has been something new. Trump did not campaign to have himself and some others fill existing government roles. He campaigned to fundamentally change government roles. The point for Trump is not just to be President. He wants to change governmental rights and responsibilities. He wants to demolish and redefine.
Sometimes an authoritarian replaces an old boss with a new, worse boss. Other times an authoritarian redefines what being the boss means. The problem with a mainly next election approach, or a mainly keep-doing-what-we-do approach, is that we now need to do other than what we usually do because if Trump isn’t stopped now, his support may grow and elections later may be entirely sham affairs, supposing they happen at all.
So, Trump is in the saddle. He has the government. But the country is not yet in his saddle bag. Trump won just over half the voters. Maybe only one percent over. And how many didn’t vote at all? Additionally, a great many of Trump’s voters think they voted for change, for help for working people, to end war, and to protect embattled lives. They will get none of that. They were already mighty disaffected. They may become even more disaffected, but from a new incumbent.
Nonetheless, if Trump struts to agenda success after agenda success, if he trumpets each agenda success as him serving his people, if he boasts that he is bashing his peoples’ enemies, and if he dominates the airwaves more than ever, what he retains of his support may grow more attached. Having been deceived into thinking that Trump is an antiwar working class hero who seeks people-serving changes, those who now weakly support him, if he soon has many little victories to celebrate, may become convinced of his heroism. We have seen the result of such fealty too often already.
In light of those thoughts, I hope that beyond worrying about future elections, starting in January many leftists will move to stop Trump’s agenda lest by 2026 he abolishes the office of President to declare himself the people’s tribune, which will be Americana for “your Führer.” That danger knocked at our door on Election Day. We let it in. It is about to sit at the head of our table. It is reaching for a very big club. Now is the time to stop fascism’s march.
I hope I am wrong, but I fear I am not. In one domain after another any near-term gain that Trump successfully enacts will empower him to seek bigger and more devastating subsequent gains. This could ramp upward monthly or even weekly. From inauguration on, we need to prevent that. But what do we fight against and fight for, and by what means?
I believe millions of people have already realized or will soon realize the full dangers that Trump’s Administration represents. But I also believe that most such people lack much prior experience of grassroots activism. I doubt many know where to go much less what to do to help experienced activists’ efforts to stop Trump.
Unless Trump’s personal weaknesses cause him to get sloppy and overreach, which is certainly quite possible, I believe he will try to ease into his agenda one manageable step at a time. Rhetoric will soar but he will start with smaller, easier, more vulnerable targets. He will celebrate each gain as a wondrous achievement. His media will normalize his methods. Each time he manages a gain, he will go further. That is the trajectory we need to prevent.
I don’t claim that Trump much less activists will proceed entirely as I hypothesize below. Trump may behave more like Trump usually behaves. And with Musk aboard, prospects for chaos rise even higher. Experienced activists will undoubtedly forge better, deeper, and richer plans than the hypothetical possibilities I suggest below. But I do think that a same broad guiding logic will apply to all issues: Creatively connect activist plans so that each activist effort aids the rest. Do not alienate potential allies. Do not give Trump excuses to use what many might deem warranted violence. Make Trump’s aims so costly for him to pursue that he slows or foregoes doing so. Simultaneously build support for further resistance. By our diverse but unifying actions, prevent Trump’s negative agenda but also seek our own positive agenda. At the risk of this commentary getting overly long, I think people may need some specifics to get a better feel for what is coming, however tentative and contingent the specifics may be.
Consider The Border: Trump declares the border closed. He sends additional agents, and perhaps troops to guard it. How might activists make such a choice too costly for Trump to carry through? Familiar options for this and all issues include publicly explaining the harm and displaying people’s opposition in demonstrations at local, state, or national venues. But maybe activists also cross the border and then return to the U.S. with immigrants who seek to enter. Perhaps activists accompany immigrants on foot, in cars, and in whatever ways make sense. When stopped and if arrested maybe activists stay with their new friends and many more activists demand everyone’s release. The point is that to stop Trump as soon as he starts seeking wins, I suspect we will have to take some unusual risks, expand our community, and escalate our thinking. Activists aware of the issues and possibilities will undoubtedly propose, discuss, and advocate worthy border plans beyond my ken. Solidaritous support, or its absence, will decide the border issue.
Consider Deportations: Trump vilifies and tries to deport our undocumented neighbors, workmates, and schoolmates. He likely starts with those in jail and their families. They are his easiest targets. If he succeeds there, then he widens his net. Activists work to expand public understanding of the situation and of the contributions of immigrants. As now and earlier, activists also likely protect and provide sanctuary for potential deportees by blocking police and ICE agents at churches, schools, and perhaps at larger and more dramatic and also more socially disruptive venues where immigrants are invited to sanctuary—like at public schools where faculty and staff invite them, at universities where students invite them, at concert halls where staff and performers invite them, and at sports stadiums where athletes invite them. To deport a million undocumented immigrants a year, that is a thousand thousand. It’s a lot of sanctuaries. Imagine no more symphony and no more football until deportation policies are rescinded. Are such approaches plausible? Experienced, involved activists will propose and advocate whatever campaigns they determine to be most workable and promising. Outcomes will depend on how many participate to together implement winning proposals.
Consider “Enemies”: Trump begins to investigate and prosecute, or perhaps even just incarcerate without investigation various “enemies.” He first targets his most hated and less public adversaries to only later move on to more notable opponents and eventually to whoever dissents sufficiently to earn his ire. Activists of course educate for popular support, but perhaps also flood courts, demonstrate in Washington, and provide sanctuary. Maybe activists also name our real criminal enemies including on Wall Street and hold revelatory people’s tribunals. How many new people respond and react to whatever’s undertaken? That will matter most.
Consider Jan 6 Insurrectionists: Trump frees and welcomes currently jailed MAGA members to the White House. We may say just a minute. We support rehabilitative rather than punitive justice. Perhaps we demand employing inmates to improve their rehabilitative surroundings. Employing inmates to build affordable housing that they and others can later live in. Providing inmates excellent education and job training so they are prepared to contribute to their families and society. Perhaps we say release and welcome into socially worthy pursuits prisoners held for non-violent crimes. Whatever demands and pursuits legal, prison, and other related activists pursue, how many prisoners, prisoners’ families, and others concerned with justice will help refine their proposals and take up the fight? That is what will decide the issues.
Consider LGBTQ+: Trump early on attacks LGBTQ+ people as abnormal or unnatural or whatever garbage he spouts. He expects to have near impunity but activists expand public understanding to combat ignorant prejudices and perhaps also, as with “enemies” and “deportees,” to provide sanctuary and court challenges. Perhaps noted LGBTQ+ performers, athletes, and scientists, plus then various broader Hollywood and athletic communities plus other citizens not only protest and educate but say that Trump can’t deny LGBTQ+ people without denying us all. We will all together resist. Then what?
Consider Reproductive Rights: I doubt Trump will seek abortion bans immediately, especially if our resistance efforts are succeeding for other items. But I think he will at least make overtures and try to prepare the public for this step. Nineteen state bans already exist and more demonstrations that demand reproductive rights and more movements that physically protect mothers and doctors in those states will be heard nationally as well. And whether that is part of an unfolding approach, or different and additional steps are taken, perhaps caring doctors and pretty much all nurses will decide to strike for associated demands. Dissent that steadily deepens and broadens wins.
Consider Homelessness: Trump enlarges anti-homeless rhetoric and then urges and finances sweeps in urban areas where he needs to bolster his support. Beyond education, what might activists do? Perhaps demand that millions more units of housing be built. Perhaps demand that more housing be provided right now in under-utilized motels and hotels. Perhaps activists will sit with the homeless to be swept up with them if it comes to that, and will then demand release for all. Perhaps activists will demand rent rollbacks and rent control plus defend against evictions. Whatever plans housing activists and their constituencies arrive at to implement, will they also help activists who address the other focuses of resistance, and will other activists who tackle different primary focuses help them? That would be an overarching development Trump could not easily ignore.
Consider Healthcare: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seeks to cut budgets and Medicare. He seeks legal penalties and de-Fluoridation. He announces insane vaccine limits, and guts drug safety policies. Perhaps the main first step activists employ to block these type efforts is to disrupt Kennedy’s appointment along with demanding and demonstrating for funding rural medical centers and especially to provide medicine and health care as free rights for all. Not only the scale of such resistance but also its trajectory would be compelling.
Consider Labor Protections and NLRB Appointments: To stop incursions on labor undoubtedly education, demands, and displays of dissent will arise. Higher minimum wage? Stronger child labor protection? Pass the PRO-Act? But what beyond that? Perhaps protests brought to the Halls of Congress? In any event, labor opposition led by the most militant and aware parts of the labor movement will need to be creative and speak to the widest possible labor audience. A national strike has been proposed for four years from now. If Harris had won, that would have been very sensible. Long prep time would have fostered great preparedness and participation. But with Trump having won, four years from now may be harder, not better. If many areas of resistance to Trump are growing and winning, perhaps it will make sense to move up the national strike. Whatever plans emerge, how many will support labor’s program, defend labor, and join it?
Drill Baby Drill: Trump will say he is doing it day one. Will he be? Will new or old sites be expanding their activity? If so, in addition to other on-going climate and Green activism perhaps those who have been involved for years will add widening paths for consideration and support. Block the Drills, Baby, Block the Drills. Provide for ex-fossil fuel workers. Expand mutual aid and social protections. Here might arise a worthy use for public service by even military (but now protective) forces, nationally and internationally.
Civil Rights Enforcement: Trump will want to reduce funding for agencies and programs that protect against repression and oppression. Again, education, rallies, and demands will arise. Perhaps people will also seek community control of police and various new police training and on the job requirements and responsibilities. Maybe some citizens who have suitable background and experience will even join the police to organize from within. Perhaps activists will decide to seek to communicate with police as workers and citizens, and not as presumed acolytes of violence and Trumpian control.
Cabinet Appointments: Trump is already high on this. Mostly he will want beholden cowards. So but for a few, if that, his appointments are likely to be a clown show. What might we do about that? Research the appointees? Educate about them? Yes, but these are new times. While activists avoid provoking violent responses, perhaps we protest appointees where they live, or maybe better yet at the law firms, media outlets, and other institutions they partner in. Make business as usual very difficult for those who spawned the likes of Trump’s Cabinet appointees. Perhaps also propose alternative candidates. Maybe convene an alternative shadow cabinet, even an alternative shadow government, whose members provide research, propose legislation, and advocate and facilitate change.
Civil Service Employees: Trump will likely initiate mass replacements. What to do? Lawsuits? Education and rallies? How about surrounding the agencies that are being taken over and preventing the new hires access? Perhaps treat them as if they are scabs, because they are. Could something like that be organized as more and more people and unions realize just what is at stake?
Social Security: Can Trump be crazy enough to mess with this? I doubt it.
Regulatory Government Departments including the FDA, EPA, CDC, etc.: This seems like firing employees, except more visibly. So what might activists do? Educate and display dissent, of course. But how about occupying the agencies first with seasoned activists but perhaps then with professionals in the same fields? Imagine doctors and researchers from all over society who organize to protect those who are supposed to protect the public.
Non Profits: This is like reducing government regulatory departments except out in the world of progressive non profits that pursue various popular programs. I think Trump will go after less popular targets before he goes after more popular ones. But regardless, Trump’s thinking is likely to be like that of all authoritarians. The more of civil society I can decimate, the more I can take over, the better it will be for me. Perhaps non-profit media should prepare their audiences to defend their existence or even to carry it on, but more clandestine, and from elsewhere if need be. Too apocalyptic? Maybe—but maybe not.
Voting Rights: I think this is at least a way down the road and will then depend on how Trump has done with his other agenda items, and derivatively with how much popular and institutional support he retains. That is why future elections depend on current successful resistance.
Public Schools and Universities: The ban the books, curb socially relevant education, regiment all learning, and put religion in the classroom wing of Trump’s support may gain his executive backing. Whether they do or not, fascistic parents, albeit incredibly confused, should not be permitted to take over school boards and impose anti-education policies. What to do? Maybe teachers resist en masse. Maybe parents do. This would certainly be harder in committed Trump country than elsewhere, but maybe anti Trump parents and teachers can reach through Trumpist myths and fears, especially once progress is occurring on other fronts. Maybe education-focussed movements can propose curriculum changes to actually benefit students. Perhaps movements can also welcome night time social and educational uses of otherwise empty public school buildings and university facilities to benefit local parents and families. Trump may start with private colleges and universities including using federal funds and whatever else he can muster to impose ideological restraints on administrations and faculties. Students and faculty re-conceiving and taking over schools may be their only remedy.
Public Libraries: Same as for public schools, or so it seems to me…
Green Investment and the Paris Climate Agreement: ecological survival may need local creative blockages, but no doubt also regional and national displays of sustained resistance of whatever sorts Green activists and supporters plan. Plus, and perhaps most important, activists might generate clear evidence that Green activists are eager and ready to aid all the other areas of struggle, and also to welcome all other areas to aid Green efforts. The merging of all opposition elements to collectively stop each aspect of Trump’s agenda—that is something everyone would hear.
Judicial Reform: Perhaps Biden can be pressured to grow the Supreme Court now and populate every open position he can with sensible jurists. Otherwise, perhaps activists will treat judicial appointments much like all appointments get treated, but also dissent and protest them like all bad policies.
Media: All authoritarians seek media control. Those who attain it become far more entrenched and destructive than those who don’t. Trump already has quite a bit of beholden media, both more and less mainstream. He will likely move to control still more, whether via licensing penalties, legal assaults, buyouts, replacements, or who knows what other tactics. What will activists propose? Can activist media work more collectively? Can activist media better coordinate coverage? Better aid activism? Better conduct fund raising? Can the public better Press the Press?
Military Policy: Almost everything may be impacted by the threat and actuality of domestic military intervention. Other than education, visible protest, and unity across focuses, will activists have other ideas? Perhaps some activists will join and then organize inside the military as during the Vietnam War? Maybe others will set up shop at the gates to military bases to provide progressive information and support for what will be growing numbers of dissenting soldiers.
International Relations: Of course activists will continue to demand an immediate ceasefire in the Mideast. Perhaps they will reinitiate the brilliant encampments of not many months back, this time not only behind the peace demand, but behind every aspect of anti Trump, anti Fascist resistance that the encampments can usefully gather student and faculty support for. And maybe activists will enlarge resistance to some old on-going targets like the Pentagon, the military budget, and Masters of War.
I know that many may feel my words above describe a delightful wish list but may also wonder if I have lost my mind. They might say I am too apocalyptic about Trump. They might say I am too optimistic about resistance. They might say they wish it was where more people are at. They might say couldn’t you have done one or two examples and moved on. But I believe I am neither too apocalyptic about Trump nor too optimistic about resistance. And I know that of course many of us aren’t ready today for all the above, but don’t lots of people have to get ready quite soon? Lots of examples ensure realizing just how much is at stake. Isn’t how to do it all what experienced activists need to think about? Isn’t it our job to ask how we get where we need to go?
I hope I am wrong but I think we have to mount sufficient resistance to block Trump early and then to stop him for good later. If we assume we can’t do that, we won’t do it. That’s where we began this article.
Forget about cynicism. Forget about defeatism. What to do now is the question we need to answer. Not who or what can we blame. And in any event a good many Democratic Governors, Mayors, and Congresspeople are going to be important allies for the tasks ahead. So ask not about yesterday. More than enough people are doing that. Ask how can we stop Trump. And whatever answers emerge, don’t we have to propose them, discuss them, figure out how to implement them, and then act on our plans? All quite soon.
We don’t need crazy, wild, juvenile, shaming or posturing. But we also don’t need resignation, “internal firing squads” or magical thinking. While respecting real difficulties, we can’t put off what we need to undertake until it is too late to undertake it.
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers. Donate
Michael Albert
Michael Albert`s radicalization occurred during the 1960s. His political involvements, starting then and continuing to the present, have ranged from local, regional, and national organizing projects and campaigns to co-founding South End Press, Z Magazine, the Z Media Institute, and ZNet, and to working on all these projects, writing for various publications and publishers, giving public talks, etc. His personal interests, outside the political realm, focus on general science reading (with an emphasis on physics, math, and matters of evolution and cognitive science), computers, mystery and thriller/adventure novels, sea kayaking, and the more sedentary but no less challenging game of GO. Albert is the author of 21 books which include: No Bosses: A New Economy for a Better World; Fanfare for the Future; Remembering Tomorrow; Realizing Hope; and Parecon: Life After Capitalism. Michael is currently host of the podcast Revolution Z and is a Friend of ZNetwork.
Source: Kelly Kanayama via ReligionWatch
Trump won an election. Are we beaten? Will it be years and still more years until there is space for anything positive? Is progressive activity now merely blowing into the wind? MAGA and more MAGA. I think not. Should we now prepare to endure extreme deprivation, disruption, and repression? Learn to survive. Prepare to help one another. Hate the power, but dodge it. I don’t think so. To assume Trump will successfully implement his preferred agenda will help guarantee that agenda. I say we shouldn’t assume darkness and thereby help it arrive. We should turn on lights.
Quite a few progressives may gear up, brace up, stand up. Serious and sincere, but with their thoughts on elections two and four years from now. That certainly has a point. Winning two years from now can help restrain Trump. Winning four years from now can replace him. But it misses that this election has been something new. Trump did not campaign to have himself and some others fill existing government roles. He campaigned to fundamentally change government roles. The point for Trump is not just to be President. He wants to change governmental rights and responsibilities. He wants to demolish and redefine.
Sometimes an authoritarian replaces an old boss with a new, worse boss. Other times an authoritarian redefines what being the boss means. The problem with a mainly next election approach, or a mainly keep-doing-what-we-do approach, is that we now need to do other than what we usually do because if Trump isn’t stopped now, his support may grow and elections later may be entirely sham affairs, supposing they happen at all.
So, Trump is in the saddle. He has the government. But the country is not yet in his saddle bag. Trump won just over half the voters. Maybe only one percent over. And how many didn’t vote at all? Additionally, a great many of Trump’s voters think they voted for change, for help for working people, to end war, and to protect embattled lives. They will get none of that. They were already mighty disaffected. They may become even more disaffected, but from a new incumbent.
Nonetheless, if Trump struts to agenda success after agenda success, if he trumpets each agenda success as him serving his people, if he boasts that he is bashing his peoples’ enemies, and if he dominates the airwaves more than ever, what he retains of his support may grow more attached. Having been deceived into thinking that Trump is an antiwar working class hero who seeks people-serving changes, those who now weakly support him, if he soon has many little victories to celebrate, may become convinced of his heroism. We have seen the result of such fealty too often already.
In light of those thoughts, I hope that beyond worrying about future elections, starting in January many leftists will move to stop Trump’s agenda lest by 2026 he abolishes the office of President to declare himself the people’s tribune, which will be Americana for “your Führer.” That danger knocked at our door on Election Day. We let it in. It is about to sit at the head of our table. It is reaching for a very big club. Now is the time to stop fascism’s march.
I hope I am wrong, but I fear I am not. In one domain after another any near-term gain that Trump successfully enacts will empower him to seek bigger and more devastating subsequent gains. This could ramp upward monthly or even weekly. From inauguration on, we need to prevent that. But what do we fight against and fight for, and by what means?
I believe millions of people have already realized or will soon realize the full dangers that Trump’s Administration represents. But I also believe that most such people lack much prior experience of grassroots activism. I doubt many know where to go much less what to do to help experienced activists’ efforts to stop Trump.
Unless Trump’s personal weaknesses cause him to get sloppy and overreach, which is certainly quite possible, I believe he will try to ease into his agenda one manageable step at a time. Rhetoric will soar but he will start with smaller, easier, more vulnerable targets. He will celebrate each gain as a wondrous achievement. His media will normalize his methods. Each time he manages a gain, he will go further. That is the trajectory we need to prevent.
I don’t claim that Trump much less activists will proceed entirely as I hypothesize below. Trump may behave more like Trump usually behaves. And with Musk aboard, prospects for chaos rise even higher. Experienced activists will undoubtedly forge better, deeper, and richer plans than the hypothetical possibilities I suggest below. But I do think that a same broad guiding logic will apply to all issues: Creatively connect activist plans so that each activist effort aids the rest. Do not alienate potential allies. Do not give Trump excuses to use what many might deem warranted violence. Make Trump’s aims so costly for him to pursue that he slows or foregoes doing so. Simultaneously build support for further resistance. By our diverse but unifying actions, prevent Trump’s negative agenda but also seek our own positive agenda. At the risk of this commentary getting overly long, I think people may need some specifics to get a better feel for what is coming, however tentative and contingent the specifics may be.
Consider The Border: Trump declares the border closed. He sends additional agents, and perhaps troops to guard it. How might activists make such a choice too costly for Trump to carry through? Familiar options for this and all issues include publicly explaining the harm and displaying people’s opposition in demonstrations at local, state, or national venues. But maybe activists also cross the border and then return to the U.S. with immigrants who seek to enter. Perhaps activists accompany immigrants on foot, in cars, and in whatever ways make sense. When stopped and if arrested maybe activists stay with their new friends and many more activists demand everyone’s release. The point is that to stop Trump as soon as he starts seeking wins, I suspect we will have to take some unusual risks, expand our community, and escalate our thinking. Activists aware of the issues and possibilities will undoubtedly propose, discuss, and advocate worthy border plans beyond my ken. Solidaritous support, or its absence, will decide the border issue.
Consider Deportations: Trump vilifies and tries to deport our undocumented neighbors, workmates, and schoolmates. He likely starts with those in jail and their families. They are his easiest targets. If he succeeds there, then he widens his net. Activists work to expand public understanding of the situation and of the contributions of immigrants. As now and earlier, activists also likely protect and provide sanctuary for potential deportees by blocking police and ICE agents at churches, schools, and perhaps at larger and more dramatic and also more socially disruptive venues where immigrants are invited to sanctuary—like at public schools where faculty and staff invite them, at universities where students invite them, at concert halls where staff and performers invite them, and at sports stadiums where athletes invite them. To deport a million undocumented immigrants a year, that is a thousand thousand. It’s a lot of sanctuaries. Imagine no more symphony and no more football until deportation policies are rescinded. Are such approaches plausible? Experienced, involved activists will propose and advocate whatever campaigns they determine to be most workable and promising. Outcomes will depend on how many participate to together implement winning proposals.
Consider “Enemies”: Trump begins to investigate and prosecute, or perhaps even just incarcerate without investigation various “enemies.” He first targets his most hated and less public adversaries to only later move on to more notable opponents and eventually to whoever dissents sufficiently to earn his ire. Activists of course educate for popular support, but perhaps also flood courts, demonstrate in Washington, and provide sanctuary. Maybe activists also name our real criminal enemies including on Wall Street and hold revelatory people’s tribunals. How many new people respond and react to whatever’s undertaken? That will matter most.
Consider Jan 6 Insurrectionists: Trump frees and welcomes currently jailed MAGA members to the White House. We may say just a minute. We support rehabilitative rather than punitive justice. Perhaps we demand employing inmates to improve their rehabilitative surroundings. Employing inmates to build affordable housing that they and others can later live in. Providing inmates excellent education and job training so they are prepared to contribute to their families and society. Perhaps we say release and welcome into socially worthy pursuits prisoners held for non-violent crimes. Whatever demands and pursuits legal, prison, and other related activists pursue, how many prisoners, prisoners’ families, and others concerned with justice will help refine their proposals and take up the fight? That is what will decide the issues.
Consider LGBTQ+: Trump early on attacks LGBTQ+ people as abnormal or unnatural or whatever garbage he spouts. He expects to have near impunity but activists expand public understanding to combat ignorant prejudices and perhaps also, as with “enemies” and “deportees,” to provide sanctuary and court challenges. Perhaps noted LGBTQ+ performers, athletes, and scientists, plus then various broader Hollywood and athletic communities plus other citizens not only protest and educate but say that Trump can’t deny LGBTQ+ people without denying us all. We will all together resist. Then what?
Consider Reproductive Rights: I doubt Trump will seek abortion bans immediately, especially if our resistance efforts are succeeding for other items. But I think he will at least make overtures and try to prepare the public for this step. Nineteen state bans already exist and more demonstrations that demand reproductive rights and more movements that physically protect mothers and doctors in those states will be heard nationally as well. And whether that is part of an unfolding approach, or different and additional steps are taken, perhaps caring doctors and pretty much all nurses will decide to strike for associated demands. Dissent that steadily deepens and broadens wins.
Consider Homelessness: Trump enlarges anti-homeless rhetoric and then urges and finances sweeps in urban areas where he needs to bolster his support. Beyond education, what might activists do? Perhaps demand that millions more units of housing be built. Perhaps demand that more housing be provided right now in under-utilized motels and hotels. Perhaps activists will sit with the homeless to be swept up with them if it comes to that, and will then demand release for all. Perhaps activists will demand rent rollbacks and rent control plus defend against evictions. Whatever plans housing activists and their constituencies arrive at to implement, will they also help activists who address the other focuses of resistance, and will other activists who tackle different primary focuses help them? That would be an overarching development Trump could not easily ignore.
Consider Healthcare: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seeks to cut budgets and Medicare. He seeks legal penalties and de-Fluoridation. He announces insane vaccine limits, and guts drug safety policies. Perhaps the main first step activists employ to block these type efforts is to disrupt Kennedy’s appointment along with demanding and demonstrating for funding rural medical centers and especially to provide medicine and health care as free rights for all. Not only the scale of such resistance but also its trajectory would be compelling.
Consider Labor Protections and NLRB Appointments: To stop incursions on labor undoubtedly education, demands, and displays of dissent will arise. Higher minimum wage? Stronger child labor protection? Pass the PRO-Act? But what beyond that? Perhaps protests brought to the Halls of Congress? In any event, labor opposition led by the most militant and aware parts of the labor movement will need to be creative and speak to the widest possible labor audience. A national strike has been proposed for four years from now. If Harris had won, that would have been very sensible. Long prep time would have fostered great preparedness and participation. But with Trump having won, four years from now may be harder, not better. If many areas of resistance to Trump are growing and winning, perhaps it will make sense to move up the national strike. Whatever plans emerge, how many will support labor’s program, defend labor, and join it?
Drill Baby Drill: Trump will say he is doing it day one. Will he be? Will new or old sites be expanding their activity? If so, in addition to other on-going climate and Green activism perhaps those who have been involved for years will add widening paths for consideration and support. Block the Drills, Baby, Block the Drills. Provide for ex-fossil fuel workers. Expand mutual aid and social protections. Here might arise a worthy use for public service by even military (but now protective) forces, nationally and internationally.
Civil Rights Enforcement: Trump will want to reduce funding for agencies and programs that protect against repression and oppression. Again, education, rallies, and demands will arise. Perhaps people will also seek community control of police and various new police training and on the job requirements and responsibilities. Maybe some citizens who have suitable background and experience will even join the police to organize from within. Perhaps activists will decide to seek to communicate with police as workers and citizens, and not as presumed acolytes of violence and Trumpian control.
Cabinet Appointments: Trump is already high on this. Mostly he will want beholden cowards. So but for a few, if that, his appointments are likely to be a clown show. What might we do about that? Research the appointees? Educate about them? Yes, but these are new times. While activists avoid provoking violent responses, perhaps we protest appointees where they live, or maybe better yet at the law firms, media outlets, and other institutions they partner in. Make business as usual very difficult for those who spawned the likes of Trump’s Cabinet appointees. Perhaps also propose alternative candidates. Maybe convene an alternative shadow cabinet, even an alternative shadow government, whose members provide research, propose legislation, and advocate and facilitate change.
Civil Service Employees: Trump will likely initiate mass replacements. What to do? Lawsuits? Education and rallies? How about surrounding the agencies that are being taken over and preventing the new hires access? Perhaps treat them as if they are scabs, because they are. Could something like that be organized as more and more people and unions realize just what is at stake?
Social Security: Can Trump be crazy enough to mess with this? I doubt it.
Regulatory Government Departments including the FDA, EPA, CDC, etc.: This seems like firing employees, except more visibly. So what might activists do? Educate and display dissent, of course. But how about occupying the agencies first with seasoned activists but perhaps then with professionals in the same fields? Imagine doctors and researchers from all over society who organize to protect those who are supposed to protect the public.
Non Profits: This is like reducing government regulatory departments except out in the world of progressive non profits that pursue various popular programs. I think Trump will go after less popular targets before he goes after more popular ones. But regardless, Trump’s thinking is likely to be like that of all authoritarians. The more of civil society I can decimate, the more I can take over, the better it will be for me. Perhaps non-profit media should prepare their audiences to defend their existence or even to carry it on, but more clandestine, and from elsewhere if need be. Too apocalyptic? Maybe—but maybe not.
Voting Rights: I think this is at least a way down the road and will then depend on how Trump has done with his other agenda items, and derivatively with how much popular and institutional support he retains. That is why future elections depend on current successful resistance.
Public Schools and Universities: The ban the books, curb socially relevant education, regiment all learning, and put religion in the classroom wing of Trump’s support may gain his executive backing. Whether they do or not, fascistic parents, albeit incredibly confused, should not be permitted to take over school boards and impose anti-education policies. What to do? Maybe teachers resist en masse. Maybe parents do. This would certainly be harder in committed Trump country than elsewhere, but maybe anti Trump parents and teachers can reach through Trumpist myths and fears, especially once progress is occurring on other fronts. Maybe education-focussed movements can propose curriculum changes to actually benefit students. Perhaps movements can also welcome night time social and educational uses of otherwise empty public school buildings and university facilities to benefit local parents and families. Trump may start with private colleges and universities including using federal funds and whatever else he can muster to impose ideological restraints on administrations and faculties. Students and faculty re-conceiving and taking over schools may be their only remedy.
Public Libraries: Same as for public schools, or so it seems to me…
Green Investment and the Paris Climate Agreement: ecological survival may need local creative blockages, but no doubt also regional and national displays of sustained resistance of whatever sorts Green activists and supporters plan. Plus, and perhaps most important, activists might generate clear evidence that Green activists are eager and ready to aid all the other areas of struggle, and also to welcome all other areas to aid Green efforts. The merging of all opposition elements to collectively stop each aspect of Trump’s agenda—that is something everyone would hear.
Judicial Reform: Perhaps Biden can be pressured to grow the Supreme Court now and populate every open position he can with sensible jurists. Otherwise, perhaps activists will treat judicial appointments much like all appointments get treated, but also dissent and protest them like all bad policies.
Media: All authoritarians seek media control. Those who attain it become far more entrenched and destructive than those who don’t. Trump already has quite a bit of beholden media, both more and less mainstream. He will likely move to control still more, whether via licensing penalties, legal assaults, buyouts, replacements, or who knows what other tactics. What will activists propose? Can activist media work more collectively? Can activist media better coordinate coverage? Better aid activism? Better conduct fund raising? Can the public better Press the Press?
Military Policy: Almost everything may be impacted by the threat and actuality of domestic military intervention. Other than education, visible protest, and unity across focuses, will activists have other ideas? Perhaps some activists will join and then organize inside the military as during the Vietnam War? Maybe others will set up shop at the gates to military bases to provide progressive information and support for what will be growing numbers of dissenting soldiers.
International Relations: Of course activists will continue to demand an immediate ceasefire in the Mideast. Perhaps they will reinitiate the brilliant encampments of not many months back, this time not only behind the peace demand, but behind every aspect of anti Trump, anti Fascist resistance that the encampments can usefully gather student and faculty support for. And maybe activists will enlarge resistance to some old on-going targets like the Pentagon, the military budget, and Masters of War.
I know that many may feel my words above describe a delightful wish list but may also wonder if I have lost my mind. They might say I am too apocalyptic about Trump. They might say I am too optimistic about resistance. They might say they wish it was where more people are at. They might say couldn’t you have done one or two examples and moved on. But I believe I am neither too apocalyptic about Trump nor too optimistic about resistance. And I know that of course many of us aren’t ready today for all the above, but don’t lots of people have to get ready quite soon? Lots of examples ensure realizing just how much is at stake. Isn’t how to do it all what experienced activists need to think about? Isn’t it our job to ask how we get where we need to go?
I hope I am wrong but I think we have to mount sufficient resistance to block Trump early and then to stop him for good later. If we assume we can’t do that, we won’t do it. That’s where we began this article.
Forget about cynicism. Forget about defeatism. What to do now is the question we need to answer. Not who or what can we blame. And in any event a good many Democratic Governors, Mayors, and Congresspeople are going to be important allies for the tasks ahead. So ask not about yesterday. More than enough people are doing that. Ask how can we stop Trump. And whatever answers emerge, don’t we have to propose them, discuss them, figure out how to implement them, and then act on our plans? All quite soon.
We don’t need crazy, wild, juvenile, shaming or posturing. But we also don’t need resignation, “internal firing squads” or magical thinking. While respecting real difficulties, we can’t put off what we need to undertake until it is too late to undertake it.
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers. Donate
Michael Albert
Michael Albert`s radicalization occurred during the 1960s. His political involvements, starting then and continuing to the present, have ranged from local, regional, and national organizing projects and campaigns to co-founding South End Press, Z Magazine, the Z Media Institute, and ZNet, and to working on all these projects, writing for various publications and publishers, giving public talks, etc. His personal interests, outside the political realm, focus on general science reading (with an emphasis on physics, math, and matters of evolution and cognitive science), computers, mystery and thriller/adventure novels, sea kayaking, and the more sedentary but no less challenging game of GO. Albert is the author of 21 books which include: No Bosses: A New Economy for a Better World; Fanfare for the Future; Remembering Tomorrow; Realizing Hope; and Parecon: Life After Capitalism. Michael is currently host of the podcast Revolution Z and is a Friend of ZNetwork.
