Recommendations and Resources for Opposition and Resistance
I've been collecting links to articles on how to oppose extreme, un-American policies while the Democratic Party is out of power in all three Federal branches. I hope you find some of them useful. If you'd like to add your links, just jump right in and add them!
Practical Recommendations
- Days until the 2018 general Congressional elections
- Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda. As distributed by Ada, Dec 2016. New and better-updated version at https://www.indivisibleguide.com/
- Call-storm resources, as recommended by Todd St Vrain of DA-Australia, 23 Jan 2017: http://thesixtyfive.org/home and https://www.5calls.org/
- One Daily Kos writer's ideas. Definitely a mixed bag – have you found anything better?
- Resist Trump Tuesday. From Working Families Party, occasionally a competitor to the Democratic Party in some states, sure, but until the Dems do something...
- Here's Why You Should Call Not Email. NYT, Nov 2016. Also see DailyAction.org
- Safety Pin Box. Resist by supporting resisters. Or not – one of several dissenting views. We progressives do make this complicated, don't we?
- If you're going to Washington DC, listen to local organizers. Also, this might be worth following up: Movement House in DC.
- Save Kansas Coalition. Some Democrats in fully Republican states have been experimenting for years with opposition and resistance in an American context. Listening to them sounds like a good idea.
- Inaugural Week of Action PDF document posted by DA Women's Caucus.
- Robert Reich's First 100 Days Resistance Agenda, linked by DA Social Media.
- 5 Ways to Be a Silent Trump Protestor, linked by DA Social Media.
- Make a 2016 Dumpster Fire Ornament. If you need a rest from activism...
- CrypoParties and Surveillance Self-Defense. If you are a long-term planner...
- Tell All Your Friends and wall-of-us. No idea how sound these are (in source or in content), but promising ideas even if only to help direct stateside allies. Also Sister Districts.
- What Do I Do about Trump? and Action Alliance: online aggregators for actions!
- Five minutes: archive of 5-minute actions every day
Practical Resources
- Tentative 2017 Schedule for US Congress
- Senate Committee Hearings - Schedule
- Senators' Official Contact Information
- Big List of Resistance: DA resource about brainstorming for local activism from abroad
Opposition Information
- Corrupt.af - notorious, continuously-updated site focused on Trump's corruption.
- Trump is Gaslighting America. Teen Vogue (newest source of honest journalism), 10 Dec 2016.
- House Freedom Caucus Wish List. 14 Dec 2016.
- An Angry List of Cabinet Appointees. Current as of 20 Dec 2016, now out of date. Need to find replacement.
- The best we know about Trump's debts. Mother Jones
- Resistance Manual – another wiki with regular updates on lots of political issues.
Principles and Strategies
- Autocracy: Rules for Survival. Masha Gessen, NYRB, Nov 2016.
- Rule #1 (of 6): Believe the autocrat. He means what he says. Whenever you find yourself thinking, or hear others claiming, that he is exaggerating, that is our innate tendency to reach for a rationalization. ... Rule #2: Do not be taken in by small signs of normality. ... Rule #3: Institutions will not save you.
- Follow-up: The Putin Paradigm. Rolling Stone, 13 Dec 2016.
- Handling Trump's Lies. The Atlantic, 28 Nov 2016
- An Individual's Guide to Resisting Authoritarianism. Dallas News, 21 Nov 2016
- Voting Law vs Trump. Thomas Geoghegan, In These Times, 9 Dec 2016
- Buck Up Democrats, and Fight Like republicans. NYT, 14 Dec 2016
- Now is the time to talk about what we are actually talking about. New Yorker, 2 Dec 2016
- Can Trump be checked and balanced? OpenDemocracy, 3 Dec 2016
- Network of Rebel Cities. Medium, 25 Nov 2016.
- Why Anti-Trump Protests Matter. Rolling Stone, 15 Nov 2016.
- Overview of why 2018 matters so much. As distributed by Bill Barnard, Nov 2016.
- A Note to My Fellow White Women about the Barred Inauguration March. The Establishment, Dec 2016.
- If you’re out to get the respect of these terrible systems, re-evaluate your goals. That’s one way the government controls our dissent. ...
Get behind and learn from women of color who already know all this, and follow their lead. Most of us know diddly about fighting for liberation. The organizers I work with in DC have taught me these systems won’t give us an inch. We have to demand it, to take it. We have to identify the ways white supremacy has conditioned us to politely cooperate and unlearn that nonsense. Permits be damned. Let’s not get held up for a moment by white supremacy. Y’all ready to shut it down? We can do this.
- If you’re out to get the respect of these terrible systems, re-evaluate your goals. That’s one way the government controls our dissent. ...
- Reading List: Risk of Democratic Erosion. Brown University, Nov 2016.
- Jaime Raskin rally on Dec 1. There are elected Democrats who see the need to rally the party's workers.
- Congressional Black Caucus not waiting to see. Politico, 2 Jan 2017.
Tangential Stuff
- Quality podcasts for progressive ears: The Majority Report; This is Hell!; CounterSpin
To be sorted
- Want to add something but not sure where to put it? Stick it here!
- Not entirely live yet: https://www.sisterdistrict.com
- Counterprotests/day of action on PP planned for Feb. 11, in response to this: http://protestpp.com/locations/
- March for Science, date forthcoming: https://www.facebook.com/marchforscience/posts/318185075242480
- Tax Day March, April 15: https://www.trumptaxmarch2017.com/current-marches
- People's Climate March, April 29: http://peoplesclimate.org/
- https://votespotter.com/
- https://www.resistancecalendar.org/
- style