Did You Ever Think You'd Have To Fight To Keep Our Constitutional Democracy? Get Ready For It

We Let Them Take Over... We— Not Chuck Schumer— Need To Win It Back

I don’t know where this quote comes from. I saw it online; it really resonated and I tried, unsuccessfully, to track it down.

“In the end they had no real fight in them. ‘Home of the Brave’ was a myth like everything else in this plastic land. Tucked away somewhere between John Wayne and that great uncle you never met who stormed that faraway beach. Courage requires constant dues and the people stopped paying. Sated and slumbered by their phones, and their podcasts and their ‘one click’ personalities.”

It isn’t Hunter S. Thompson or George Carlin, Don DeLillo or Chris Hedges. If James Baldwin had written it, it might sound like more like “People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster. We’ve traded conscience for comfort, and comfort has never made a people brave.”

In the new New Yorker, there’s an essay by Julia Angwin and Ami Fields-Meyer, So You Want To Be A Dissident?. “Once upon a time— say several weeks ago,” they began, “Americans tended to think of dissidents as of another place, perhaps, and another time. They were overseas heroes— names like Alexei Navalny and James Khashoggi, or Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi before them— who spoke up against repressive regimes and paid a steep price for their bravery. But sometime in the past two months the United States crossed into a new and unfamiliar realm— one in which the consequences of challenging the state seem to increasingly carry real danger. The sitting President, elected on an explicit platform of revenge against his political enemies, entered office by instituting loyalty tests, banning words, purging civil servants, and installing an F.B.I. director who made his name promising to punish his boss’ critics. Retribution soon followed.”

[T]he American approach to dissent will likely have to evolve in this era of rising “competitive authoritarianism,” wherein repressive regimes retain the trappings of democracy—such as elections— but use the power of the state to effectively crush resistance. Competitive authoritarians, such as Viktor Orban, in Hungary, raise the price of opposition by taking control of the “referees”— the courts, the media, and the military. In the United States, many of the referees are beginning to fall in line.

We analyzed the literature of protest and spoke to a range of people, including foreign dissidents and opposition leaders, movement strategists, domestic activists, and scholars of nonviolent movements. We asked them for their advice, in the nascent weeks of the Trump Administration, for those who want to oppose these dramatic changes but harbor considerable fear for their jobs, their freedom, their way of life, or all three. There are some proven lessons, operational and spiritual, to be learned from those who have challenged repressive regimes— a provisional guide for finding courage in Trump’s age of authoritarian fear.

…The sweeping scope of Trump’s appetite for institutionalized retaliation has changed the threat landscape for everyone, almost overnight. In a country with a centuries-long culture of free expression, the punishments for those who express even the slightest opposition to the Administration have been a shock to the American system.

There is hope, though. Political-science research reveals that autocratic leaders can be successfully challenged. Erica Chenoweth, a professor at Harvard University, has analyzed more than six hundred mass movements that sought to topple a national government (often in response to its refusal to acknowledge election results) or obtain territorial independence in the past century. Chenoweth found that when at least 3.5 percent of the population participated in nonviolent opposition, movements were largely successful. 

Chenoweth’s data also show that nonviolence is more effective than violence, and that movements do better when they build momentum over time— think a long-lasting general strike or wildcat walkouts, rather than a one-time action. Successful campaigns weaken popular support for an authoritarian leader by encouraging different sectors of society— such as business leaders, religious institutions, unions, or the military— to withdraw their support from a corrupt or unjust regime. One by one, the sectors defect, and, eventually, the leader may weaken and their government may fall.

Take South Africa, for instance, where, in the late nineteen-eighties and early nineties, white business owners who were feeling the pain of domestic and global economic boycotts turned their ire toward the ruling National Party government, pressuring leaders to come to the table with Mandela and end apartheid.

…“All power-holders, even the most ruthless and corrupt, rely on the consent and coöperation of ordinary people,” Maria J. Stephan, who co-authored a book with Chenoweth titled Why Civil Resistance Works, said.

The key to challenging authoritarian regimes, Stephan said, is for citizens to decline to participate in immoral and illegal acts. Stephan, who co-leads the Horizons Project, a nonprofit that supports nonviolent movements against authoritarianism, has a phrase for this mind-set: “I think of it as collective stubbornness,” she said.

…Many dissidents we spoke to said that, amid prolonged and cascading political crises, establishing a political home for yourself is a necessary ingredient for nurturing non-coöperation. Think of this as the equivalent of participation in a faith community that meets to worship— a regular practice to guard against loneliness and despair, and check in with others going through a similar experience.

Felix Maradiaga, a Nicaraguan opposition leader, was jailed in 2021, after announcing that he would challenge the dictator Daniel Ortega for the Presidency. Maradiaga had risen to prominence as an outspoken critic of Ortega’s corruption, including his channelling of public funds to his family and close allies through private business ventures and government contracts. Maradiaga, who was released from prison in 2023, says that dissent was most personally taxing when he felt most politically isolated. “I spoke openly against crony capitalism,” he said. “To my surprise, there were very, very few who spoke up.”

Maradiaga credits his ability to advocate against Ortega’s dictatorship in the years before his imprisonment to a community of support that he cultivated— both locally, through family and friends, and globally, through the World Liberty Congress, an alliance of anti-authoritarian activists from regimes, including Iran, Russia, Rwanda, and China. Now living in exile in the United States, Maradiaga serves as the director of the W.L.C.’s academy, which helps train activists fighting authoritarian governments around the world. Among the slate of protest tactics that he teaches, he says, none may be as important as finding your people: “Having a community is a powerful tool of resilience.”

…Taking part in non-coöperation or defiance doesn’t have to mean becoming a martyr or abandoning all personal defenses, particularly in the United States, where we still have plenty of legal and cultural support for freedom of expression. Even so, this moment calls for discretion.

“There’s never going to be zero risk,” Ramzi Kassem, a professor of law at the City University of New York and a co-leader of the nonprofit legal clinic clear, said. “You just have to decide how much risk you are willing to carry to continue to do the work you’re doing.” Worrying about amorphous dangers can be paralyzing. Instead, if you’re considering non-coöperation work, write up a plan for the worst-case scenario— what you’ll do if you get fired or audited, or find yourself in legal trouble. Reach out to a lawyer and an accountant, or others who could help you navigate complicated decisions.

Now is the time to clean up your life— your digital life and even, perhaps, your personal life. Dissidents describe a pattern: autocrats and their cronies use even the most minor personal scandal to undermine the credibility of activists and weaken their movements. “You have to be a nun or a saint,” a prominent Venezuelan political activist, who asked not to be named, told us. “If someone wants to find dirt on you, they will find it, so give them the least dirt possible.”

That includes deleting old social-media posts and using only trusted encrypted-messaging apps. Sadly, cleaning up might mean swearing off dating apps— or at least going the extra mile to verify that potential suitors are who they say they are. The right-wing activist James O’Keefe has been advertising on Facebook and Twitter for people who will use matchmaking platforms to meet with targets and secretly record them. In January, he nabbed a Biden White House staffer, and last month his former organization, Project Veritas, used a similar technique against a U.S. Education Department worker. 

Another key strategy, ironically, is compliance— as in compliance with as many laws as possible. Tax laws. Traffic laws. Sandor Lederer, who runs K-Monitor, a corruption-watchdog group in Hungary, recalled being investigated as part of an inquiry into multiple nonprofits by the government of Orbán, a close Trump ally. Lederer said that the organizations were targeted as part of the regime’s strategy to “never talk about the substance of the issues” that his anti-corruption group has raised but, instead, to find something to disable and distract dissidents. “It’s more about keeping us busy rather than shutting us down,” he added.

Lederer said that he resents having to be paranoid, but that now he does everything by the book. If a Ph.D. student wants to interview him for a project, he requires an e-mail from a university address, a letter from the professor, and other due diligence, to prove the request isn’t some kind of entrapment. “This is a bad way to live,’’ he said. “You always have to think who is going to trick you or fool you.”

That leads to the next strategy: compartmentalization— don’t share information with anyone you don’t really trust. Technically, compartmentalization can mean having separate work and personal devices such as phones and computers, so that if one is searched, the other remains untouched. But it’s a mistake to think technology is the only way that information leaks.

Those who defend women seeking abortions in U.S. states where it is illegal warn that when women are betrayed, it’s usually not through digital surveillance but, actually, through someone they know— a friend, relative, nurse, or current or former partner. This is where code words can be helpful, allowing you to talk about sensitive topics where you might be overheard.

But there is a fine line between discretion and self-censorship. The key is to pick your battles— fight about the speech you want to fight about, not the speech that isn’t important to you. “Be cautious, but don’t silence yourself,” David Kaye, a human-rights lawyer, said.

One night in February, shivering residents of Washington, D.C., gathered  in front of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Performers in drag twirled and twerked in acrobatic formations as the swaying crowd shouted the lyrics of Chappell Roan’s dance ballad “Pink Pony Club.”

The scene was equal parts dance party and street protest. One day earlier, Trump had moved to seize control of the Kennedy Center’s board and programming, citing drag shows held there the previous year as his rationale. Trump had vowed on social media, “NO MORE DRAG SHOWS.”

It’s tempting, amid a mounting assault on the constitutional order, to dismiss revelry as a flimsy— even inappropriate— tactic to meet the political moment. In the combat theatre of American democracy, what meaningful advances could come of a few hundred people gyrating and raising hand-lettered signs on a street corner?

According to Keya Chatterjee, one of the organizers of the Kennedy Center event, there are some critical advantages to gatherings like this. Chatterjee believes that through the rising authoritarian tides, places where people can enjoy one another’s company are a beachhead where organizing can begin. “They want us to be so afraid,” she said. “And the only way to counter fear is with joy.”

…An affirmative vision of what the world should be is the inspiration for many of those who, in these tempestuous early months of Trump 2.0, have taken meaningful risks— acts of American dissent.

Consider Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop who used her pulpit before Trump on Inauguration Day to ask the President’s “mercy” for two vulnerable groups for whom he has reserved his most visceral disdain. For her sins, a congressional ally of the President called for the pastor to be “added to the deportation list.”

“You often need a martyr or someone very committed to act first,” Margaret Levi, a professor emerita of political science at Stanford University, said. As the crowd of dissenters grows, she said, it generates a “belief cascade,” which sweeps greater numbers into a greater sense of comfort and security when participating in acts of defiance.

The price for those who stand directly in the way of Trump’s plans may indeed grow steeper in the coming months and years. But these early acts, as much as they are oppositional, also point to a coherent vision of a just and compassionate society.

Even in their darkest hours, in the late nineteen-seventies and early eighties, when the K.G.B. sent many Soviet dissident leaders to forced-labor camps and psychiatric institutions, the activists continued writing their books, making their art, and publishing their newsletters. And, when they gathered, they raised their glasses in the traditional toast: “To the success of our hopeless cause.”

In 1989, the Berlin Wall came down.

A few weeks’ ago Chris Murphy was a guest on Meet the Press. Presumably aiming not for the public per se, but for his congressional colleagues, he said “If we continue to observe norms, if we continue to engage in business as usual, this democracy could be gone. Are we willing to fight? I admit that it would take some risk-tolerant behavior in order to effectively stand up to this president. And so the question really is for my party writ large, are we willing to do the very difficult things necessary to meet this moment?”

CNN: “Trump’s White House has a threatening message for anyone who might even be perceived to disagree with the president: Don’t. Or else. Even though he has promised to end what he viewed as “weaponization” of the Department of Justice, Trump is treating people who disagree with him more like the ‘enemy from within’ he talked about during the presidential campaign.” Did they forget about Trump’s consistent use of projection?

On Saturday, Bill Pavlovitz wrote that sometimes “sitting on the fence will only get you splinters in your ass and a nightmare all around you. These are such times. Fascism is here and silence and inaction are what it thrives on. Any ‘both sides’ equivalencies right now amount to complicity with it. Both sides are not trying to take away people's healthcare, their right to marry— or the freedoms of speech, religion, and the Press.Both sides are not indiscriminately rounding up human beings based on their pigmentation or intentionally deporting them based on their politics. Both sides are not obliterating funding for children living in food scarcity, for public school education, for cancer research, or for the Arts.”