Many people are skeptical that the grassroots resistance to Donald Trump in 2017-18 was successful. I have argued that it could have been considerably more potent if the grassroots groups had taken stronger and more durable forms.

That said, it is not true that resistance failed. As Theda Skocpol argues, grassroots efforts saved the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and began the Blue Wave that returned the House to Democratic control in 2018, thus freezing Trump’s agenda and preventing him from changing federal legislation very much at all.

I would distinguish between two forms of resistance, although some individuals worked on both.

One was a set of social movements that aimed to transform the US fairly radically. Black Lives Matter (BLM) was the largest, but there were also significant LGBTQ+, environmentalist, and pro-immigration movements. Of course, these had started before Trump’s election.

I aligned with most of these efforts, and I discuss BLM as a positive case in my most recent book. None of their struggles are over. However, these movements faced popular backlash and were defeated (for the time being) on most policy fronts. For example, my former student and two colleagues show that BLM protests were associated with increases in police budgets. If these movements contributed to Trump’s reelection, that is a disturbing fact about how the American people received them, but it may still help to explain our situation.

The other kind of resistance was what Skocpol refers to when she mentions “2,000 to 3,000 grassroots Resistance groups” that defended the ACA and then often helped Democratic candidates in the 2018 election. Their goal was not to change American society but to preserve its current institutions. And they largely succeeded during the first Trump Administration. Theirs could be described as a conservative movement in the sense that they intended to conserve what was most valuable in the status quo.

I have no interest in sidelining the radical movements. At least some of their goals are urgent, and their participants have the right to participate fully. Successful resistance will depend–in part–on them. But I do want to highlight Trump’s other kind of opponents because success will also depend on these Americans. I have lately been talking about “Alarmed Complete Newbies” (ACNs)–people who are activated by Trump’s outrages and want to hold them off. My current priority is to provide as much guidance and support as I can for the ACNs.

See also: What our nation needs is a broad-based, pro-democracy civic movement; the current state of resistance, and what to do about it; BLM protests and backlash; strategizing for civil resistance in defense of democracy etc.