did the first resistance work?

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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.

young people’s support for Trump

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The success of Trump’s revolution depends on its popularity. As long as he remains reasonably popular, he will retain the support of Republicans and business interests and assertive resistance will fizzle. If his support sinks badly, other politicians will want to abandon him and more people will join the opposition.

According to the latest CBS News/YouGov poll, somewhat more Americans approve than disapprove of Trump (53% versus 47%). That ratio is poor for a newly inaugurated president but far higher than it should be, and too high–for now–to enable a successful grassroots opposition.

Young people are especially supportive.* Fifty-five percent of respondents under 30 approve of “the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president.” That is the second-highest level among the age groups, just below ages 45-64 (56%). Young people are also least likely to strongly disapprove of Trump, at 32%–compared to 44% of those 65 and older.

Young people are the most likely to agree that Trump is “effective” (63%), “focused” (62%), “competent” (58%), “tough” (71%), and “energetic” (65%), although they are also the least likely to agree that he is “compassionate” (35%).

On policies: young people seem to approve of Trump’s cutting government. They are the most likely to think that Trump is appropriately focused on cutting taxes (45% think he is doing enough on that score and another 37% think he is not yet doing enough) and cutting spending (just 27% think he is cutting too much, the lowest of any age group).

According to the survey, Americans feel that Trump is not doing enough to combat inflation. But young people are slightly more likely than others to think that Trump is already doing enough on that score (although a majority of youth think he is not).

Deportations are quite popular in the sample as a whole, but not especially so among young people. And despite their relatively positive answers on most of the specific survey questions, a smaller majority of young people (56%) than other people say that they mostly like what Trump is doing.

As always, it’s important not to assume that people are seeing the same news that you see and reaching the opposite conclusions. Many Americans see very little political or policy news at all, and what they do see is a small sample of all the possible stories.

Young people are the least attentive to politics: according to the poll, just 34% are currently paying a lot of attention, in comparison to 64% of those 65 and older. The only “trending” video on TikTok right now that involves Trump shows him and Melania taking a “happy walk” together (and looking a lot younger than they do today). The level of attention to news rises steadily with age in this survey. Therefore, if young people see more news, that will probably lower Trump’s support.

It is not appropriate for schools and colleges to advocate opinions about Trump. (And this survey undermines the claim that schools have been turning young people “woke.” If any schools were trying to do so, their attempt backfired.) However, it is proper and important for leaders in politics and civil society to persuade youth to care more about democracy and the rule of law, and young advocates can be particularly persuasive. Their success may prove critical to preserving the rule of law.

[Important update, Feb. 13: YouGov’s latest polling shows a substantial (11-point) decrease in Trump’s support among young people. They are now opposed (57% hold a negative view), and this change is the main cause of a decline in Trump’s overall support. So maybe the critical news is beginning to break through.]

*Some of these comparisons fall within the margin of error (+/- 2.5% for the whole sample, and larger for subgroups). However, some of the differences exceed the margin, and even the smaller gaps reflect the best available information. We should act accordingly.

See also the current state of resistance, and what to do about it; where have lower-educated voters moved right? (a look at 102 countries over 35 years); to restore trust in schools and media, engage people in civic life etc.

examples of resistance by the civil service

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Historical examples of resistance by the civil service suggest that resistance is much more successful when the public is convinced that the stakes are constitutional rather than budgetary.

Jeremy Pressman is tracking various forms of opposition to the illegal and illiberal actions of the Trump administration in this document. Some are actions by civil servants. For instance, on Feb. 1, “Two officials at the the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) refused to provide non-government, pro-Trump individuals (Musk et al) illegal access to USAID security systems, personnel files, and classified information.”

In this context, it is useful to browse historical examples of resistance by civil servants that are collected in the Global Nonviolent Action Database.

In 2010, the UK Public and Commercial Services Union struck in opposition to proposed job cuts and other changes mandated by the Labour Government. I don’t have grounds to assess the unions’ complaints. Job cuts are not necessarily illegal, undemocratic, or even unwise. My interest is the unions’ tactics. In addition to a 24-hour strike supported by less than half of the workforce, the unions also organized protests and a bus tour to gain public support. On the positive side, union membership grew, but the union lost in both the High Court and Parliament, and the job cuts went through.

In 1995, French public employees organized a much larger and longer strike against similar cuts. “While the strikes were having a devastating impact on the economy and on the lives of all ordinary French citizens, [the strikers] still enjoyed public approval.” The Chirac Government came to the negotiating table and offered concessions that particularly spared railroad workers, whose opposition abated. The government’s proposal “remained relatively untouched save for adjustments to placate the railroad workers,” and it passed.

In March 1920, German right-wingers began a coup against the republic, now known as the Kapp Putsch. Heavily armed insurgents arrived in Berlin, set up machine-gun posts and checkpoints, dropped leaflets from military aircraft, and seized the newsrooms of two newspapers.

The coup’s support among local garrisons was mixed. Waiters and other ordinary workers began stalling on the job. Trade unions and elected officials called for resistance. After some civilian protesters were killed in a clash with Putschists, Berliners stopped reporting for work–probably out of fear as well as an active desire to strike. The capacity of the German state withered, and Wolfgang Kapp “resigned” from his self-appointed position. The republic survived for 13 years.

Three examples cannot support general conclusions, but we know from other research that the scale of resistance matters. If a lot of people (not just civil servants but also contractors, grantees, and regular workers) stop contributing to the normal functions of the US government, it will be hard for Trump to proceed. Most Berliners stopped working because the coup was violent and it aimed to overthrow the regime, not just to cut government jobs. Paramilitary violence dramatized the threat and undercut the coup.

If most people see Trump’s civil-service layoffs as means to cut costs, then any resistance–even from those who disagree with him–will be routine and likely to be defeated. I could be wrong, but I see his cuts as unprecedented and unconstitutional attacks on the rule of law. If the public comes to see them that way, then resistance may be broad and effective.

See also: the current state of resistance, and what to do about it (Jan 22), strategizing for civil resistance in defense of democracy (November), tools people need to preserve and strengthen democracy; Why Civil Resistance Works (etc.). The image is from Wikipedia, where it is labeled “Demonstration in Berlin against the putsch.” The caption reads: “A quarter million participants”

was Weber wrong about bureaucracy?

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With the US civil service under attack, it’s worth revisiting classical ideas about bureaucracy. Max Weber begins his hugely influential discussion (Weber 1922/1968) with this paragraph:

Experience tends universally to show that the purely bureaucratic type of administrative organization—that is, the monocratic variety of bureaucracy—is, from a purely technical point of view, capable of attaining the highest degree of efficiency and is in this sense formally the most rational known means of exercising authority over human beings. It is superior to any other form in precision, in stability, in the stringency of its discipline, and in its reliability. It thus makes possible a particularly high degree of calculability of results for the heads of the organization and for those acting in relation to it. It is finally superior both in intensive efficiency and in the scope of its operations, and is formally capable of application to all kinds of administrative tasks (223).

Weber seems to have a kind of Darwinian model in mind. Given a soup of different kinds of organizational forms, the bureaucratic ones will prevail thanks to their superior efficiency. Socialism requires bureaucracy, and Weber even lists soviets (communist workers’ councils) as one of the bureaucracies of his time. He also interprets modern capitalism not as a system of market exchanges but as a space in which corporate bureaucracies grow. “Capitalism in its modern stages of development requires the bureaucracy” (p. 224). In fact, state agencies and corporations use convergent methods. Today, the same Microsoft Office tools can generate similar-looking Key Performance Indicators or org charts for a company, a nonprofit, or a state agency, because these organizations work very similarly.

If you asked people to associate words with “bureaucracy,” I doubt that many would suggest “efficiency.” Quite the contrary: words like “bloat” and “waste” would come to mind. Few would worry that we are trapped in a world in which bureaucracies metastasize because they are so efficient. Their spread would be treated as a sign of declining efficiency and would be blamed on the self-interest of the bureaucrats.

Was Weber right about the bureaucracy of Wilhelmine Germany but wrong to generalize, because bureaucracies tend to become inefficient? In that case, was he wrong to see their growth as inevitable? Or was he right about bureaucracies, and critics mistake bureaucratic systems as inefficient when they actually maximize outputs? Are many people undervaluing bureaucratic work as a calling, in Weber’s sense? Do people dislike the means that bureaucracies use, or resent their inevitable costs, or disagree about their ends? Are bureaucracies efficient for their own goals but not for the public good?

Source: Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, 1922. The translation of this section is by Talcott Parsons (Bedminster Press, 1968). See also in defense of institutions as “garbage cans”; radical change needs institutional innovation; what to do about the guy behind the desk

predicting Trump’s moves

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What explains Trump’s specific choices? For instance, why impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico instead of, say, Japan? Why is USAID such a prominent target?

Tyler Cowen offers a theory. To paraphrase …

  1. Trump is interested in the discourse, the chatter. All his choices are about how he’ll look on Fox News and social media and how he’ll affect those conversations. Choosing Canada as a target for tariffs “is a symbol of strength and Trump’s apparent ability to ignore and contradict mainstream opinion.” Besides, Cowen says, Americans know and have opinions about Canada–negative opinions on the hard right. If Trump had chosen a less familiar country, people “would not know how to debate” his decision to pick a fight with it.

The chatter is highly heterogeneous and segmented. Right now, CBS News’ homepage leads with Trump’s threat to annex Gaza, but a “massive asteroid” gets about as much attention, and CBS offers a prominent story about an orphaned wolf pup who bonded with a shelter dog. Fox News blares a headline about the “panicked” Iranian regime facing off with Trump. Fox buries the Gaza story. The US edition of The Guardian leads with: “Trump’s declaration US will ‘take over’ Gaza Strip sparks global condemnation.” ‘

In short, Trump is driving several distinct conversations in different ways. MAGA is delighted, progressives are furious and flummoxed, and many Americans are oblivious. All of that is probably fine with Trump.

I would add five more explanations of Trump’s choices:

  1. He is pretty canny about his own interests. Big tariffs would damage the economy. Massive deportations would raise prices. So Trump threatens tariffs and then withdraws them and deports people at the same rate as Obama but with much more fanfare. He doesn’t always manage the fallout; for instance, his new Chinese tariffs could raise prices. But it is notable that they are set at 10% (so that any effects will be difficult to assess), not at 60% or higher, as he had threatened. If something would hurt Trump, he is unlikely to do it.
  2. He picks on the most vulnerable: government employees and contractors, people without US citizenship, trans people, and recipients of US aid. These choices are on-brand for him. They are also safer than tangling with anyone who has more clout.
  3. He doesn’t care about outcomes. A threat to impose tariffs grabs headlines. It doesn’t matter if there is no actual tariff. If a federal judge rules against the administration, the policy might be halted, but Trump still gets the fight that he wanted in the first place.
  4. Breaking norms and even laws is useful, because it forces Republicans to support Trump against their own expressed principles–thus increasing their dependence on him–and provokes people like me to defend the norms, which were never very popular to start with. It’s also possible that Trump will win some cases–or get away with ignoring court decisions–and then he’ll have even more power.
  5. Trump provides cover for hundreds of committed right-wing ideologues who are busy making decisions about funding, personnel, and policy that don’t rise to the level of his attention or influence the chatter much. Those efforts will continue.

Applying these guidelines, I doubt very much that Trump would order an invasion of Gaza and begin a long, costly (as well as deeply immoral) imperialistic counter-insurgency war. Since his supporters don’t hold him accountable, he can drop his threats whenever he wants to. His performance yesterday dominated a news cycle, which was the primary goal. Refraining from invading Gaza might also help to legitimize Israeli land annexations.

I could see Trump sending US troops to Greenland to provoke legal and diplomatic challenges, monopolize attention, and demonstrate that he is unfettered by treaties and congressional oversight. The endgame would not be a permanent takeover of Greenland but more domestic power (or at least perceived power) for Trump.

See also: strategizing for civil resistance in defense of democracy (Nov. 6), in which I ventured some predictions. I’m recalibrating my theories, as I think we should.