Category Archives: nonviolence

tools people need to preserve and strengthen democracy

In this post, I’m proposing that it would be useful to develop a suite of practical tools for civic organizations. I believe this is an urgent task at the onset of the second Trump Administration as well as a more permanent need. I’ll start with a general argument and conclude with a preliminary list of needed tools.

First, the basis of a strong and resilient democracy is hands-on, local political engagement.

That is an old theory, but current evidence reinforces it. Just for example, I showed recently that Americans who participate in community groups are much less likely to dismiss the media and schools as sources of information, probably because participation gives them a feeling of agency, teaches them that compromise is necessary (it’s not a sign that leaders are corrupt), and encourages them to share and critically assess information. Direct involvement is much more important than ideology or demographics as a predictor of trust in media and schools. People who are more engaged also hold Trump in lower esteem, regardless of their ideology.

However, not very many people address community problems in groups. In 2023, 21% of Americans told the Census that they “get together with other people from [their] neighborhood to do something positive for [their] neighborhood or the community.” That is a valuable base–millions of people–but it’s too few for democracy’s urgent current needs. And 21% may be an overestimate, since you could say that you’d “gotten together” with neighbors even if you just attended one event that didn’t amount to much.

I have argued that at least one million Americans not only participate themselves but also enable others to do so. These community organizers, nonprofit board members and staff, teachers, and other civic leaders help to organize opportunities to engage in local problem-solving.

The first Trump Administration was a stress test for democratic engagement–not because Donald Trump poses the only threat to our republic, nor because all local civic action should define itself as resistance to Trump, and certainly not because civically engaged people must be Democrats. Rather, it was a test because robust local organizations would at least push back against some aspects of the Trump agenda.

We learned from the 2017-2020 stress test that the one million local leaders and 21% of other engaged citizens can generate a lot of activity and resources, but they face limitations. They tend to direct money and attention to national organizations. They don’t hire people to work locally. When they grow, they don’t federate into state and local bodies, and they rarely form truly robust coalitions. Their own members come and go; many groups fade away.

One reason for these limitations was a lack of knowledge about how to organize sustainable groups that encompass diversity.

To be successful, people need big ideals and principles, allies and mentors, and inspiring stories. But I think that tools would also make a difference for our one million (or more) local leaders. I am thinking about tools like these:

Model documents and instructions for forming a new nonprofit in defense of democracy;
Model budgets (of several sizes) for such organizations;
Job descriptions (and pay ranges) for organizers, ranging from a part-time, paid student worker to an experienced leader of a team;
Bylaws for a local organization, for federated organizations, and for a coalition’s steering committee, including the roles of elected leaders and the responsibilities of members;
A model agenda for a first meeting in a community, plus agendas for several other kinds of meeting that might follow;
A discussion guide that a new group could use to analyze its local situation and begin to develop a strategy;
A member survey that an organization can field to collect anonymous guidance on its strategy;
A blank diagram (often called a “logic model”) that can turn into a strategic plan once the group fills in the empty boxes, which have labels like “assets,” “actions,” “outcomes,” etc.
Worksheets that can help a civic group troubleshoot its own limitations.
A simplified set of rules that can replace Roberts’ Rules of Order for groups that don’t want to deal with that book;
Scripts that organizers can use when they talk to residents for the first time in relational, one-to-one interviews;
Draft outreach emails requesting friendly initial meetings with local elected officials, editors, school superintendents, clergy, college presidents, and the like.

What else would be useful?

nonviolence, state repression, and saving democracy

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I showed the image that accompanies this post in class recently, when we discussed these articles:

Enos, Kaufman and Sands (2019): The 1992 Los Angeles riots caused local voters to support more funding for public schools, presumably because voters became more concerned about racial justice.
Wasow (2020): The nonviolent Civil Rights Movement dramatically shifted public opinion in favor of civil rights and helped cause major favorable legislation, but rioting later in the 1960s caused a backlash and helped elect Richard M. Nixon.
Ebbinghaus, Baile & Rubel (2024): Black Lives Matter protests–which, research shows, were overwhelmingly nonviolent and which called for reductions in police budgets–were associated with increases in police spending.

My image is meant to be a framework that can accommodate these divergent examples and findings. You can read it like this:

A social injustice (or at least a perceived one) may cause a reaction in the form of violence and/or nonviolence. This reaction may be largely spontaneous or may reflect leadership and structure. The vast majority of citizens and decision-makers will not directly witness the reaction. However, it may be conveyed in media, which may present the reaction positively or negatively and may describe, ignore, or downplay the underlying injustice. As a result, public opinion may shift, favorably or unfavorably. A substantial shift in public opinion may cause policymakers to ameliorate or to exacerbate the original injustice. This whole system may be affected by intentional state violence directed at the protesters, the media, or the public.

I used conditional verbs throughout the previous paragraph because none of this is inevitable. Sometimes people just bear injustice, or the media ignores a protest, or the public retains its opinions, or policymakers shrug off a shift in opinion. But change is possible, for better or worse.

Given the very different outcomes discussed in our readings, one might conclude that the outcomes are random. A nonviolent movement may be depicted as violent and cause a backlash. A riot may draw sympathy. A huge march may barely cause a ripple. A tiny protest can start something big.

In my view, history always involves an element of randomness, but it still pays to plan, train, and organize. The dramatic shift in public opinion about civil rights that Wasow describes was due to the Civil Rights Movement.

Looking ahead to the next 2-4 years, I think we can anticipate a significant amount of planned, structured, nonviolent resistance that will be met with state violence. The state violence is likely to pay off if the protesters (or insurrectionists) can be depicted as violent and lawless, whether that is true or not. But state violence may badly backfire on the government if it looks cruel.

It is not fair that organizers must navigate these issues, but then again, organizing would be unnecessary if the society were just. I believe this kind of analysis is necessary if you are willing to strategize to combat injustice.

Sources: Ryan Enos, Aaron Kaufmann & Melissa Sands, “Can Violent Protest Change Local Policy Support? Evidence from the Aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots (American Political Science Review, 2019); Omar Wasow,. “Agenda Seeding: How 1960s Black Protests Moved Elites, Public Opinion and Voting” (American Political Science Review, 2020); Mathis Ebbinghaus, Nathan Bailey, Jacob Rubel, “The Effect of the 2020 Black Lives Matter Protests on Police Budgets: How ‘Defund the Police’ Sparked Political Backlash, “Social Problems, 2024. See also: the tide will turn; building power for resisting authoritarianism; and strategizing for civil resistance in defense of democracy.

building power for resisting authoritarianism

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After Donald J. Trump was elected president in 2016, informal groups popped up almost everywhere. They often attracted people who had not been involved in politics before. Stereotyped in the media as suburban white women, these citizens were informally named “The Resistance.” About a half million of them attended the Women’s March in Washington on January 21, 2017, with another five million marching in their home communities.

But the #resistance in 2017 proved evanescent because the nascent groups mainly encouraged their members to support other organizations.

Inboxes filled with urgent fundraising appeals for national organizations. For example, 350,000 people donated to the ACLU in just one weekend during Trump’s first month as president. People also shared and encouraged each other to follow news from national outlets, and digital subscriptions for The New York Times and The Washington Post tripled under Trump. Finally, many people gave money and time to Democratic candidates in 2022.

None of this generosity built power for the new groups themselves, and most–although not all–have faded away. For instance, donations to the ACLU funded essential legal advocacy but didn’t support much grassroots engagement. According to the Tufts Equity in America survey (which I co-led), just 1.5 percent of Americans “identified with” or “actively supported” the ACLU in 2020.

As Erica Chenoweth and Zoe Marks observe, many committed and skilled activists emerged, yet we have “no established, organizational infrastructure that can facilitate sustained collective action across a multiracial, multiclass constituency.”

How to Build Power

Imagine if the 350,000 people who gave $24 million to the ACLU in one weekend had instead (or also) formed 1,000 new local groups with an average startup budget of $24,000 and had set about raising enough additional funds and recruiting enough additional members to put 1,000 paid organizers at the service of half a million active volunteers in 1,000 American neighborhoods and towns. Our situation would be totally different today.

I am not saying that Kamala Harris would have won the election, but no president would be able to trample over a robust civil society.

Last summer, the Brennan Center and partners organized simulations to test how established institutions, such as state governments and the military, might resist if a US president used authoritarian methods. By all accounts, the results were unpromising. According to Ed Pilkington and Kira Lerner, “the consensus among many policy experts was that the … response felt weak and inadequate.” To me, this experiment reinforces the need for broad-based, nonviolent grassroots resistance.

In 2020, while 9.2 percent of survey respondents in the Tufts Equity in America survey said they had donated money to any advocacy organization, just 3.6 percent said they had “volunteered or worked for a political party, issue, or cause.” We need that last number to grow. Local groups must raise and control resources to recruit, train, and deploy volunteers, so that many more people work for issues and causes.

I would not exactly define the present cause as resistance to Trump. He was legitimately elected, and we don’t know how he will act. It will be an enormous relief if his administration turns out to be feckless. In that case, announcing a movement to save America from Trump would sound overwrought. What we certainly need is a movement to protect democracy and civil rights from anyone who might threaten those values, now or later.

The Structures We Need

This movement must be based on durable, self-sufficient, democratic organizations that work together effectively. They need financial autonomy, accountable leaders, paid staff, and federated structures.

When friends or neighbors are alarmed, they should decide whether they already have an organization that can join the #resistance or whether they need a new structure. A relevant existing organization could be a religious congregation, an activist group, or a union local, among others. It may need a new steering committee for its #resistance work.

However, most people do not belong to any entity that could seriously commit to politics, and they will have to consider incorporating new 501(c)4 organizations. This process starts with an online IRS form. A new group also needs by-laws so that it is clear who is responsible for what. There are free sample by-law documents that anyone can download.

Although structures can vary, some people should be elected to offices with limited terms so that the rest of the group can decide whether to reelect them. Someone’s job should be to develop agendas, facilitate discussions, and clarify the decisions that have been reached. Someone else should keep and share notes so that conversations can proceed from one meeting to another instead of cycling through the same issues. Someone should keep the accounts. Someone is responsible for the membership list.

These groups should raise money from their own members or through bake-sales and the like. They should not seek grants or large gifts from non-members, because they need autonomy.

If a group can grow to 100 or so members who donate or raise an average of $8,000/year, they can hire a full-time organizer with a budget. Even if these amounts are unrealistic, every member should be required to contribute money or specific amounts of volunteer time–with the requirements set low enough that anyone can join. Failure to contribute should cost you a seat at the table, but people should be encouraged to contribute in different ways.

Hiring organizers is crucial because we need some people to be organizing full-time, and because paid employment allows individuals to develop skills and networks that are essential in the longer term.

Growing to Scale

If a group gets much bigger than 100, it should consider splitting. The Black women who formed the Women’s Political Caucus in segregated Montgomery, Alabama in the 1950s launched a new chapter every time one of their existing groups breached the 100-person limit, so as to keep all members fully engaged in their own chapters. Depending on their economic resources, a group of 100 may be able to employ, or at least share, paid staff; and affluent groups should support needier ones.

It’s fine for groups to work “in coalition,” as people use that phrase nowadays–i.e., communicating with each other and periodically coming together for events. But loose coalitions will not really suffice for building power. Aligned groups should consider federating. This means incorporating a new entity for a region or state, with its own bylaws and budget, that has formal relationships with its affiliated groups.

For instance, each participating local group might get one seat on the larger organization’s board, might be expected to contribute some money to the umbrella organization for state-level work, and might be able to claim a portion of funds raised by the larger organization. Again, it may be possible to redirect an existing organization rather than forming a new nonprofit for a region or a state, but that will still require written agreements and bylaws.

Unity and Disagreement

Since groups and alliances need as much support as possible, they should avoid purity tests. A basic tip for anyone who drafts a statement of principles is to keep it short and simple, because unnecessary details offer individuals reasons to opt out. In fact, groups should generally avoid issuing statements, which have relatively little impact. They should affirmatively welcome internal dissent and hold robust discussions for their own members.

Nevertheless, their charters should clearly communicate their mission, and they should look for opportunities to speak in a single voice when that can make a difference. In short, the movement should aim for both unity and pluralism.

For those who are prone to reject broad-based movements as too moderate, I commend Bayard Rustin’s prophetic 1965 article, “From Protest to Politics: The Future of the Civil Rights Movement” (Commentary, 2/39, Feb. 1965):

[The] effectiveness of a swing vote depends solely on ‘other’ votes. It derives its power from them. … Thus coalitions are inescapable, no matter how tentative they may be. … The issue is which coalition to join and how to make it responsive to your program. Necessarily there will be compromise. But the difference between expediency and morality in politics is the difference between selling out a principle and making smaller concessions to win larger ones. The leader who shrinks from this task reveals not his purity but his lack of political sense.

What Should People Do?

Protests are appropriate, but the #resistance is not a set of protest actions. In fact, seasoned organizers often view a public protest mainly as an opportunity to identify supporters who can then be recruited for more consequential tasks. So what should people actually do?

One-to-one interviews with residents who may or may not share the principles of the movement. These conversations may persuade some neutral or even hostile people and can help to recruit new active volunteers and potential leaders. In 2000, 2.2 percent of our respondents told us that they had “worked as a canvasser–having gone door to door for a political or social group” within the past year. That represents a substantial number, especially during a pandemic, but it needs to grow; and we need genuine conversations rather than quick pitches for political candidates.
Filling the vacuum created by the collapse of local professional journalism and combatting propaganda. This means collecting reliable information from published sources, conducting original research, and monitoring institutions and sharing the results with the public in credible forms–social media channels, email lists, teach-ins, and the like.
Forming relationships with established institutional leaders (elected officials, corporate CEOs, small-business owners, clergy, college presidents, philanthropists, celebrities) and asking them to take steps that are appropriate for their roles. For example, a university cannot and should not take a partisan position, but it must protect its own undocumented students, the intellectual freedom of its students and employees, and its own projects that address contested issues, such as climate change. It may need a nudge to do those things. Similarly, a Republican Member of the House will not vote to impeach Trump but might privately bury a terrible bill.
Registering and educating voters, including people who turn 18 or who naturalize as US citizens.
Endorsing candidates in primaries and general elections. A 501(c)4 organization is allowed to endorse, but its primary activity may not be assessing and endorsing politicians. In any case, political endorsements are more meaningful when they come from civic groups that mainly work independently. Their members can choose to volunteer for candidates or parties if they want to.
To a limited extent, fundraising for other entities, such as organizations that can mount legal strategies. However, there is a risk of sharing so much of a group’s own resources that it becomes a mere conduit.
Periodically organizing confrontational actions, such as boycotts, sit-ins and occupations, sheltering fugitives, and strikes. These methods must be used sparingly and strategically or else they will wear people out. But they certainly belong in the repertoire of any social movement.

A Broad-Based Civic Movement

We need a pro-democracy movement for the kind of people who are “normies” in the eyes of deeply committed activists. This will not be a movement that requires the modes of organizing that are favored (and perhaps necessary) on the radical left. For example, some long-term antiracist organizers keep their groups highly decentralized and avoid uplifting prominent leaders because so many high-profile leaders of color have been prosecuted or murdered in the past. And some pacifists, deep environmentalists (and others) repudiate ordinary bourgeois American lifestyles.

I honor these people as contributors to our overall political culture, but they alone will not protect the republic as it currently stands. For that purpose, we need many millions of much less committed and much less radical people to operate effectively in response to each new threat.

Building civic organizations is a deep American tradition. The urgent task is to revive it.

Source: Erica Chenoweth and Zoe Marks (2022), Pro-democracy Organizing against Autocracy in the United States: A Strategic Assessment & Recommendations, HKS Working Paper No. RWP22-017.

the tide will turn

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Michael Schaffer has a piece in Politico entitled, “The Resistance Is Not Coming to Save You. It’s Tuning Out.” He collects indicators of low engagement, such as declining audiences for MSNBC and the number of people who are projected to attend a January protest march in DC: 50,000, instead of the 500,000 who showed up in January 2017.

I don’t think Schaffer is wrong about the present moment. In 2016, the election surprised many liberal, centrist, and principled conservative Americans and jolted them into action. This year, most anti-Trump voters dreaded the outcome and now feel resigned. The various contingent explanations for Trump’s 2016 election (Comey, Russian interference, an Electoral College fluke) can’t apply in 2024, so it’s common to blame the American people, the media landscape, or the American left–none of which appear alterable in the near future. Certain scenarios, such as Trump’s overriding the 22nd Amendment, are causing fearful paralysis and resignation.

But there is a tide in the affairs of men–as Brutus said, when he advocated a battle that proved disastrous for his own cause. The tide had turned against Brutus well before that moment (at Caesar’s funeral). As Shakespeare’s dramatic irony implies, momentum is easy to misread, especially when it seems to be with you. Today, Trump thinks everything is flowing his way, and that is when leaders make fatal errors.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump’s momentum carries him to early victories, such as ramming his whole cabinet through the Senate on 50-50 votes (with J.D. Vance as the tiebreaker). But I’m also confident that this lame-duck, second-term, cognitively impaired president who surrounds himself with sycophantic fools will lose momentum as his popularity tanks.

Although the threat of primaries will keep incumbent Republicans in line, they will face tough reelection races against Democrats and will scramble to contain the damage. The Democratic Party is only one element of the resistance–and electoral politics is only one avenue–but Democrats will gain momentum in inverse proportion to Republicans’ approval ratings. The military, the legal and medical professions, the intelligence agencies, and big companies that have liberal consumers all have considerable capacity.

Seasoned organizers (both leftists and those who are trans-partisan advocates of democracy) may be dispirited right now, but we will rally. New people will join as a result of Trump’s provocations or encouraged when he stumbles.

Leaders will emerge. Some may be contenders for 2026 statewide races or the 2028 presidential election, but some will be celebrities, clergy, or organizational leaders who attract broad support without seeking public office. While I certainly hope that no one dies as the direct result of conflict about Trump, tragedies can reverse public opinion. Political prosecutions will also create heroes.

Some us are in a position to act right now. We have the security, resources, and space to work in defense of democracy. We may feel tired and dispirited, but we are obligated to step up.

For now, I don’t think our message should be that everyone else must rush out and join us. Many people have good reasons to be afraid, or at least confused and demoralized. Now is not the time to mobilize but to work quietly to build the skills, networks, and organizational muscle for popular resistance in 2025 or 2026. Short-term indicators of passivity are largely irrelevant. Our job is to prepare for a riper moment.

(I’ll be posting regularly about concrete actions and strategies.)

strategizing for civil resistance in defense of democracy

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In July, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said, “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless, if the left allows it to be.” His statement reflected some bluster and hype, and Trump distanced himself from Heritage. Nevertheless, Roberts expressed a mood that will be shared by many–perhaps more than 1,000–new White House staff, senior federal appointees, allied members of Congress and staff, and ideological lobbyists. They will all be thinking hard about what to do to advance their “revolution.”

To plan a response, we should imagine what such people will do. Here is a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) assessment of the situation from the perspective of the second Trump Administration:

Strengths: Ability to make appointments, issue executive orders, negotiate with foreign governments, and command attention. Immunity from prosecution for all official acts and the power to pardon people who follow illegal orders. A compliant congressional GOP, a friendly Supreme Court, and some fawning media platforms. A claimed mandate from the election, and tens of millions of actual supporters.
Weaknesses: At this moment, the House remains in play. Democratic control would mean no laws or budgets without Democratic support. Even if Democrats lose the House, they will be able to filibuster legislation in the Senate. The economy looks healthy right now, but Trump’s tariffs and other economic proposals would cause inflation and/or contraction. MAGA true-believers will be tempted to introduce bills that are clearly unpopular.
Opportunities: Picking fights to establish dominance, discourage opposition, motivate supporters, and dare opponents to promote positions that many voters consider radical. If the opposition looks radical, many voters will perceive that politics is polarized, not that the president is extreme, and they may accept authoritarianism to “restore order.”
Threats: Trump voters include substantial subgroups who don’t really share his ideology but who believe that he is competent to deliver prosperity and order. (According to the exit polls, 31% of voters chose the economy as their top issue, and of those, 78% voted for Trump.) If he causes chaos and controversy, and many voters abandon him, he will become toxic for GOP candidates looking toward 2026. If a small group of GOP defectors in Congress join the Democrats, they can block Trump. If he loses the appearance of influence and momentum, he could quickly become a lame-duck (especially if he continues to display cognitive decline). If momentum swings strongly to the opposition, there will be opportunities to make the Supreme Court and other institutions more democratic, rather than less so.

Next, we might brainstorm specific moves that Trump may make in the early stages of his administration and think about counter-moves.

Their most pragmatic option would be to avoid prominent controversies while turning the quieter processes of the executive branch against immigrants and environmental programs. If Trump took that path, he might be able to avoid an energetic resistance and claim credit for the positive economy that he will inherit. He could play golf and retire in four years. But he and his people will be tempted to take riskier actions:

Appoint numerous radical supporters to senior positions. Perhaps give them all “acting” titles and not even request Senate confirmation, thus defeating the norm that political appointees require approval. They will cancel grants and contracts, slow-walk appropriations, fire civil servants, and direct funds to friendly groups and legislative districts. Much of this activity will be unreported, since the executive branch gets little coverage.
Negotiate privately with Putin, without a readout or meaningful public declaration. Offer Russia free scope in Ukraine and promise to block or sabotage US aid. Likewise, communicate privately with Netanyahu and encourage Israel to operate without limits in both the West Bank and Gaza.
Pardon all the January 6th insurrectionists. Convene them on the White House lawn. Possibly deputize them as federal agents or at least encourage them to organize as a private militia. If any of them commit violent crimes against protesters, journalists, or residents, immediately pardon them again. Deploy them to break up marches and demonstrations and to patrol the capital.
Order federal law enforcement and perhaps state national guards to detain immigrants in large numbers, hold them, and physically move them across the southern border.

Some counter-moves:

Large, regular, orderly marches that, as Bayard Rustin would recommend, are aimed at winning mass public support. At first, the main message should not be that Trump is illegitimate, since he won the election. Nor is this an opportunity to advance progressive policies, including those that I passionately support. Rather, the message should be opposition to specific things that Trump does that are both unpopular and illegal. The aim is to establish a legitimate counter-force in support of the Constitution and the rule-of-law. The priority is to preserve a system within which progressives (and others) are able to advocate their goals, not to accomplish those goals immediately. The larger and more diverse the protests, the better.
A mass walkout like the one that defeated the Kapp Putsch in Berlin in 1920 and preserved German democracy for more than a decade. That story makes important reading right now. I could envision Trump provoking a self-coup, much like the Kapp Putsch, even if he doesn’t really plan to do so. This could begin to happen if armed MAGA supporters exercise violent control in DC, perhaps in reaction to peaceful marches. However, a similar attempt failed in 1920 when Berliners refused to work in the face of a coup, the city shut down, and civilian resistance spread to regular military units. The Berlin work-stoppage did not begin with a formal strike but happened organically when frightened Berliners just stayed home.
Building organizations that allow many Americans to take concrete steps to protect democracy in a coordinated fashion.

Finally, some points about the movements that should form:

There should be no expectation that the opposition will coalesce into one big organization. For one thing, the Democratic Party will constitute part of the opposition, but not everyone will want to–or be able to–coordinate with any party. Besides, diversity and choice are valuable. We should expect opponents of Trump to hold diverse beliefs, from radical leftist ideals to genuinely conservative or libertarian values. It is important for people to be able to find groups in which they can feel reasonably comfortable.

On the other hand, the opposition will be weak if it consists of lots of evanescent, hyper-local, voluntary groups that have loose and shifting memberships. Such groups simply cannot accomplish much. In turn, a grassroots opposition will quickly lose momentum and confidence unless it enlists many Americans in tangible work that accomplishes victories.

The middle ground between one big organization and lots of ad hoc meetings is a widespread commitment to organize at medium scales. People need templates for forming small organizations that function and survive, including processes for selecting accountable leaders, making concrete decisions, and recruiting new members. Leaders of small groups should then seek each other out and form coalitions that, in turn, make decisions and elect accountable leaders for larger scales.

A healthy, broad-based nonviolent resistance movement will have leaders, but not just one or a few. It will be “leaderful,” and its best-known representatives will demonstrate some diversity.

I am in the camp that says that Kamala Harris ran a nearly flawless campaign, and she will make a plausible case to be renominated in 2028. But she cannot be the leader of a whole broad-based movement, if only because she is a potential presidential candidate. I would not be surprised to see a range of people from various sectors and walks of life gain prominence as part of a civil resistance. There is no need for them to agree in detail, but we will benefit if they communicate and come together at key moments.

As I have argued, successful movements need scale (lots of people), unity (the ability to coalesce), depth (some activists who develop impressive skills and networks), and pluralism (disagreement and dissent about many issues).

SPUD is hard to attain because combining unity with pluralism requires tolerance and patience within the movement; and combining scale with depth means finding ways for committed activists and peripheral supporters to collaborate. Nevertheless, good movements build SPUD.

One pitfall to avoid right now is debating whether Kamala Harris lost because she didn’t stand for what you believe–whatever that may be. Maybe you’re right (although it is always hard to prove such counterfactuals). If you’re planning a partisan political campaign for 2026 and 2028, you should think about why Trump won this time. But retrospective arguments will not help to build a citizens’ pro-democracy movement that includes people who both agreed and disagreed with Harris on key points.

To put it more bluntly: it’s alienating to be told that Trump won because Harris took a stance that one agrees with, and why alienate people whom we need? This was an election season of shifting “vibes,” and now we need the vibe to shift to unified resistance.

When brainstorming concrete actions for people to take, one option that is always worth considering is to send everyone out to conduct one-to-one meetings. In the tradition of relational organizing, these are not mainly about persuading individuals to endorse, support, or join the group. They are about genuine listening: learning what a range of people believe, experience, and care about. That said, whenever anyone demonstrates enthusiasm for the organization’s current vision, that person should be recruited to join.

I posted the graphic that accompanies this post immediately after the 2016 election, and it went a bit viral. (Thanks to my colleague Alberto Medina for improving its appearance.) Although the name “Obama” should be changed to “Biden,” and some other minor tweaks might apply, I think the diagram remains pertinent and is perhaps even more urgent today.

Peter Levine

A Blog for Civic Renewal

Category Archives: nonviolence

tools people need to preserve and strengthen democracy

nonviolence, state repression, and saving democracy

building power for resisting authoritarianism

the tide will turn

strategizing for civil resistance in defense of democracy