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. 

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