| “the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” Plato is quoted as saying, it is what one does with powerWhat would I do in times of war or in times when resistance to power is the challenge? I have never fought in a war. I did not enlist during the Vietnam War. My number was 335 when the draft lottery was held on Aug. 5, 1971. It would be the last draft lottery. |
Over the years, when discussions among friends have turned to what would you do at times of challenge and controversy, such as a Trump presidency, the recourse has been one of frustration. Move to Canada. Have your passport current and ready.
From all indications, Trump's presidency will be more dire, draconian and autocratic than fathomable. Putting aside the last few weeks of campaign rhetoric, which can be written off as strategic fulminations choreographed for short-term ballot return, what will the next four years really be like? Read Trump's lips. His words, as documented by Axios:
• "Defund any school with a vaccine or mask mandate."
• Impose the "largest domestic deportation operation."
• "Protect innocent life."
• "Investigate every radical out of control prosecutor."
• Reimpose the "Trump travel ban."
• End the "insane electric vehicle mandate."
• Initiate "ideological screening on all immigrants."
• Ensure "immunity for our law enforcement"
• "Obliterate the deep state."
He has pledged each of those measures, at least 5 times or more, again according to Axios.
Or watch a handful of videos:
Project 2025, the transition report blueprint for Trump’s presidency that is spearheaded by The Heritage Foundation, as summarized by the Washington Post, would:
“Remake the federal workforce to be political: Instead of nonpartisan civil servants implementing policies on everything including health, education and climate, the executive branch would be filled with Trump loyalists…Give Trump power to investigate his opponents: Project 2025 would move the Justice Department, and all of its law enforcement arms like the FBI, directly under presidential control….Crack down on even legal immigration: It would create a new ‘border patrol and immigration agency’ to resurrect Trump’s border wall, build camps to detain children and families at the border, and send out the military to deport millions of people who are already in the country illegally (including dreamers)….Slash climate change protections: Project 2025 calls for getting rid of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which forecasts weather and tracks climate change, describing it as ‘one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.’”
Trump has distanced himself from the frightful specifics of Project 2025. He’s no dummy demagogue. Fascism for the people and the power of positive bullying go hand in hand with bluster mitigated by practiced denial and buoyed by drumbeats of propaganda.
The Post’s summary tries to comfort the easily distracted public by noting that “some of these ideas are impractical or possibly illegal. Analysts are divided about whether Trump can politicize the civil workforce to fire them at will. And the plan calls for using the military to carry out mass deportations on a historic scale, which could be constitutionally iffy.”
That is not how dictatorships work when the judiciary has already been coopted, and Republican voters, public officials and media platforms have fallen under a toxic spell. Trump is a master dogwhistler and MAGA supporters are obedient, angry companions. It is ironclad.
Trump has the bedrock go-ahead from 70 million voters.
Instead of shaking our heads in wonderment at how a deranged demagogue could have the support of millions and millions of Americans, do some basic math in assessing our fellow Americans.
Despite the political cant that clings to American exceptionalism, that punishes political-speak for recognizing "deplorables" for what they stand for, that cringes at the "garbage" in our midst, whether they're on stage demonizing people and cultures or whether they're the "garbage" itself festering among 70 million people, we are now about to usher in a leader who slings putrid mud with the rousing support of millions. Interview after interview have MAGAs say Trump either doesn't really mean what he vents (it's just an attention getting act) or he's refreshingly welcome because he says what's on his mind. He's their führer, their generalissimo, their strong man. Why again is democracy preferable to patriotic authoritarianism? If it were only a self-evident truth. It's not. I try at this juncture to abide by Franklin Roosevelt's 1933 inaugural admonition that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. If what that means, though, is that we don't have to fear fear-mongers, I'm not so sure. There appear to be millions of fear-mongers among us.
No name calling needed. Yet, they turn to deplorable instincts, they spew hateful garbage. They can be entranced and mesmerized. They’ll follow orders. Among us are segregationists whose response to the end of slavery during the end of the 19th century and most of the 20th century was to impose Jim Crow laws and fight civil rights legislation and protests with seething anger, fists in the air and bulldogs.
Count off the Nazi sympathizing isolationists during the 1930s and World War II who linked arms to foment anti-Semitism.
Add in the anti-Communists of the 1950s and ‘60s who were the thought police of that era. They cancelled culture through blacklisting that got people fired and rendered them unemployable. They burned books.
Don’t forget the White and Christian nationalists who use immigrant-phobia to keep the country from slipping into the clutches of the other.
Toss in the anti-abortion activists whose beliefs and methods have spilled over to instill fear in women and doctors who aren’t even contemplating abortion.
Hail to Huey Long, Bull Connor and Lester Maddox, hail to Charles Lindbergh and Father Charles Coughlan, hail to Joe McCarthy and hail to Donald Trump. Leaders with bullhorns and bully pulpits matter.
So do the offspring of ardent segregationists, isolationists, Nazi sympathizers, anti-Communists, White and Christian nationalists, anti-abortion activists. Take out a ledger. Subtract the many, many offspring who have disassociated from their parents' beliefs. On the other side of the ledger, account for the biblical fruitfulness and multiplication that has repopulated each generation with revitalized venom.
If you do some simple math allowing for overlap in the millions and for margins of error, you’d still have 50 million + people who constitute the willing followers of Fascism Trump-style. It is intoxicating. Trump is not a stand-alone nemesis. His legions are legion. They have a push-pull relationship and they mean business.
As Project 2025 sets out in its opening paragraph [emphasis theirs]:
“It is not enough for conservatives to win elections. If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need both a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on Day One of the next conservative Administration.”
Project 2025 is driven by a 180-day playbook. Whether it’s Trump’s agenda or Project 2025’s playbook or a marriage made in heaven forbid, there’s work to do now that Donald Trump is president-elect.
As promised, the Trump administration will bolt out of the gate with a governing agenda and the right people in place.
I’m not moving to Canada, as fond as I am of the place.
So what to do and how to go about it? In Kamala Harris' campaign closing argument the night before she lost, she pointed to communities and coalitions as cornserstones of what would have characterized her administration. They're in place.
Robert Reich published a blog, The Resistance Starts Now, in which the former Secretary of Labor suggests that "our first responsibility is to protect all those who are in harm’s way" - women and girls who may now fear that they’ll be forced to give birth or be denied life, trans people, anyone who faces prejudice and marginalization, people who've stood up to Trump, those who may be weeded out for deportation, political dissenters, and soldiers who may be asked to arm against demonstators. As a Jew whose grandparents were slaughtered in a Nazi concentration camp, I’m sensitive to the direct consequences of the demonization of the other and to the Righteous role models whose selfless sacrifices in resistance saved Jews from capture and death.
Resistance is a controversial concept and undertaking. Even Wikipedia recognizes that. It is not something I know how to engage in. I have no playbook. When I think about it, it seems like a dystopian fantasy or the musings of a savior complex. When it goes beyond organized peaceful protests or legal strategies, its actions can’t be publicly shared or disseminated. Texts, email and social media would be mostly off-limits.
If peaceful protesters are arrested, would I and others join in to swell the ranks to make arrests less feasible? If immigrants are rounded up for deportation, would I and others hide people in our homes? Would I and others seek out churches, synagogues and mosques for sanctuaries, solidarity and moral guidance? Do undergrounds form organically?
I’m in uncharted waters here. For starters, if you have thoughts, answers or time to mobilize, please get in touch with me at j-doppelt@northwestern.edu.
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