Resistance to Trumpest Fascism grows. Discussions, phone calls and emails, meetings, rallies, marches, and soon occupations and encampments. Desires, demands, confrontations, and disobedience. As all this unfolds, awareness of ills and also of their underlying causes will grow. Participants will broaden their views and commitments. Resisters will debate various differences. Young and curious and indeed even some older resisters will read up, listen up, and look up and If their experience in coming months bears any resemblance to yesterday’s experiences that we much older folks have known—which is far from certain given how different today’s conditions are—among other issues that will arise one difference of opinion and also of orientation likely to emerge is that some will advocate reform while others will advocate revolution. Will one side be right and the other wrong? Will both sides be right and both wrong? And between these emerging inclinations will there be compatibility or friction? 

To sensibly address these issues their various proponents will have to agree on what is reform and what is revolution. If that much is achieved, then perhaps when the two approaches will be compatible and when the two will clash will become clear. And at that point perhaps these contending proponents will determine why they care about any of this and what their answers imply about their current choices.

These matters repeatedly arise whenever anguish, anger, and angst engender rapidly growing resistance to oppressive social circumstances. More, each time these differences arise they yield actors who sometimes rail at one another almost as much as they rail at the unjust and oppressive social circumstances they oppose. But is such a confrontation of orientations inevitable or might we avoid it? And would avoiding it be desirable? If one side is right and one side is wrong, which side is which? If both sides are part right and both sides are part wrong, can they productively cooperate?

A reform is a change in social circumstances. Bernie Sanders favors various progressive changes in social circumstances. Free health care. A wealth tax. A higher minimum wage. Green energy. They are all reforms. Donald Trump favors various reactionary changes in social circumstances. Vaccine removal. A tax cut for the rich. Child labor. More drilling. Decimation of public schools. These are also reforms.

Revolution is trickier to pin down. Some say it is a fundamental change in government. Others say it is a fundamental change in culture, kinship, or economy. A few say it has to change all these sides of life. Despite such differences, everyone who offers an opinion on how to organize tends to agree that a reform changes a particular policy or situation on its own account while a revolution changes underlying institutions that establish the setting in which all policy and situations are sustained, maintained, or changed. We could quibble more, but let’s settle on that basic point. Understood in such a manner, what then is the cause of confrontation between reform and revolution? 

Some revolutionaries say that reforms necessarily accept rather than reject society’s defining relations. As such, such revolutionaries add that reforms intrinsically mislead participants away from revolutionary aspirations to maintain or at any rate to only modestly mitigate oppressive circumstances. Those revolutionaries say that to seek reforms blocks winning revolution. Other revolutionaries disagree. They say, no, progressive reforms reduce suffering and can also orient us toward and even bring us closer to future revolution. To seek reforms can be compatible with winning revolution.

Reciprocally, some who seek to win reforms say that advocating revolution intrinsically distracts from winning real and worthy immediate gains because it wastes energy on hopeless wishes. They say to seek revolution can rhetorically block winning reforms. Others who seek to win reforms say no, to seek revolution can strengthen resolve and sustain hope and in so doing ensure that the trajectory of immediate efforts at winning limited gains now will continue on to win more gains later.

Do we already see these divisions among us as our resistance grows to Trump and fascism? Will these differences grow or diminish in coming weeks and months? Will revolutionaries castigate people only seeking reform and vice versa? What underlying thinking and behaviors would tend to foster such mutual hostility? What underlying thinking and behaviors would tend to instead foster mutual compatibility and aid? 

Those who seek reforms because they feel that revolution is impossible or they feel that things just can’t be vastly better—need to contemplate that perhaps they are wrong. Wouldn’t they agree it would be nice if fundamental change is possible and could be incredibly worthy? If one doesn’t think it is likely, and therefore doesn’t want to orient toward it, should one also reject those who do try? What if those who seek revolution are eager to help win immediate reforms and then, down the road, see where things lead? Couldn’t having their energy, and even their longer run optimistic outlook on board be positive, as long as they do not alienate what could support immediate gains? The revolutionaries want to beat back Trump. Those who seek immediate reform also want to beat back Trump. Can each disagree with and yet respect the other’s intent and welcome the other’s efforts?

At the same time, can those who feel that just reforms will not be enough and, in any event, will not even persist unless underlying structures change acknowledge that to seek reforms is to be on the side of justice whereas to forego or even castigate reforms is callous toward those in need and ignores that it is by way of such immediate struggles that people can expand their horizons up to and including desiring more fundamental gains? Can we all seek to win reforms together and in time see whether moving on from there follows naturally? Can we all work to beat back Trump and then to keep winning more together, later?

Suppose both those seeking immediate changes and those who also want more fundamental gains were to agree that an inclination to win reforms with eyes only on one or another short run gain and to go home and celebrate upon winning that immediate gain instead of continuing to struggle for more would be inadequate. And suppose both were also to agree that to have eyes on an ultimate prize but be oblivious to actual current possibilities and conditions would be counter productive now and later too. Might we then all agree to disagree about ultimate likelihoods while we together militantly pursue immediate necessities? 

I am not saying this will be easy. But I do think it is possible and that it would be desirable. But there is a complicating matter I should not ignore. Those doubting revolutionary aspirations will not wish to spend any time discussing them much less offering vision for new relations. They will see such endeavors as “utopian” in the worst sense. Those with revolutionary aspirations will in contrast want to keep ultimate aims in mind and even grow support for them in the present while feeling that to do otherwise will hurt future prospects and also diminish immediate hope and desire. So even with all the above verbal wrangling toward arriving at shared definitions, an issue remains. Being on the revolutionary side of this coin, I would like to talk directly to my side, first, and only then to those who doubt our agenda. 

So on the revolutionary side, we seek fundamental change. In my own case, I think that such change needs to address all life’s many essential dimensions and for that reason I seek fundamentally new ways of living, producing, deciding, celebrating, dealing with violations of shared norms and much more. But I also live in the here and now. That is, I live not after all such fundamental aims are achieved or even when they are imminent because massive movements consciously share the vision and pursue its fulfillment. I live instead at a time when it is essential to derail a reactionary project that seeks to impose fascist rule. And I know that we relatively few who desire revolutionary changes can’t remotely stop fascism alone. To win our immediate battle will depend on huge numbers of people who consider revolution-seekers deluded to act against Trump and Co. For that reason, I know that for revolutionaries to relate to those who think revolution is a pipe dream as if they have views they even reject much less to castigate them for their views, won’t grow immediate resistance so I need to refrain from such inclinations. 

On the other hand, I believe that immediate resistance to stop Trump and immediate reforms to mitigate serious suffering need a sense of hope and I also feel that for their energies to persist beyond beating Trump is essential. I therefore do want to urge positive program consistent with long run continuity. So what do I propose that those who desire and wish to contribute to fundamental change ought to do now to immediately resist Trump and fascism?

I propose that we respect every sincere defensive move to resist that comes from any direction and that seeks to obstruct new or to reduce existing oppressive circumstances of embattled constituencies. But I also propose that when opportunity makes it comfortable and not antagonistic or distracting to do so we humbly advocate positive aims that can motivate and then also fuel involvement beyond the immediate moment into an on-going trajectory of worthy changes in the future.

And what do I propose for those who feel that we who advocate for revolution are, well, delusional? That you acknowledge that resistance may benefit from not just defensive but also positive aspirations, that you hope fundamental change is possible even if you doubt we can attain it, and that you welcome those who seek to move toward fundamental change as long as we do so intent to not reduce support for immediate change. 

When all is said and done my point here is that reformism that ignores or worse denies anything beyond an immediate campaign is counter productive. But to win reforms is essential. And, reciprocally, revolutionary commitment that ignores or worse denies the importance of winning reforms and that otherwise denies existing reality is counter productive. But we do need sober and thoughtful attention to long run fundamental aims able to inspire and inform today’s commitments into an on-going trajectory of worthy changes in the future.

So, a reform and/or revolution bottom line: No to reformism. Yes to Sustained reform struggles. No to mindless revolutionary posturing. Yes to wise visionary long term commitment. As resistance grows and as views proliferate, stay together. We need each other.

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