Social Activism in the Age of Trump: What To Do and What We Are Doing

One thing anti-Trump activists need to prepare for is the apparent willingness of Trump to use violent force against any opposition. Given his cheerleading at his rallies in favor of his supporters beating up protestors and his supporters' consistent attitude that anyone who opposes trumpism is not a legitimate American, I think we can expect an atmosphere of violence and intimidation that only stiffens in the face of resistance, just as there were millions of Americans who vocally insisted that the students shot dead at Kent State "had it coming".

This kind of violent polarization was rampant in the 1960s and 70s and has only been about one inch below the surface of politics for the three and a half decades since then. Don't be shocked when it fully emerges, be prepared.

violent force against any opposition

the left is p used to this ime

ust as there were millions of Americans who vocally insisted that the students shot dead at Kent State "had it coming"

One of these being my own mother, who didn't exactly say it in these words, but voiced shockingly irritated sentiments about her fellow students getting straight murdered by the State, as she was a Kent State student teacher that year.

Without saying that anything identical to Trump has happened here before -- of course it hasn't -- people who think none of what we expect to see has, at least in the last 50 years, might wanna start with reading Nixonland.

and

https://theintercept.com/2016/03/04/trumps-policies-are-not-anathema-to-the-u-s-mainstream-but-an-uncomfortably-vivid-reflection-of-it/

i plugged jonathan schell's the time of illusion in the ilb reading thread a while back but should have brought it up in a pol thread or two, hardly my first trip to nixonland but it absolutely blew my mind and is v relevant imo

The Nixon men used the language of the theatre--"scenario," "script," "players," "orchestration"--to describe the way they ran the country, but perhaps the most apt analogy would be to the state of dreaming... A waking person confronts a world that is given, but a dreamer confronts a world that is of his own creation. He is the author not only of his own actions but of the world in which he acts. In him are united subject and object. It is he who arranges to be attacked from behind and he who jumps in surprise. The beast that chases after and the "I" who runs away are the products of a single mind. President Nixon, using the great powers of his office, organized his waking life on the same principle... The President was becoming the author of his own environment. He manufactured events and then he "responded" to them. He invented enemies and then he went to war against them. He gave the speeches and then he applauded them. He threw the rocks and then he ducked. He invented crises and then he made "great decisions" to resolve them. As for the rest of us, it became our fate to live for half a decade inside the head of a waking dreamer.

http://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/blog/2017/01/04/the-anatomy-of-anti-trumpism-ten-thoughts-and-reconsiderations/

a bit more in line with other threads than this one but well formatted to serve as a check on impediments to activist impulses?

http://peterlevine.ws/?p=17892

the democrats and religious americans

I liked that Burke post.

he's good

he's good at taking over a thousand words to say five obvious things two times each?

professional educator

https://my.pcloud.com/publink/show?code=788otalK

so yesterday was the day for voting for California Democratic Party delegates to the party's state convention - they vote on which ballot initiatives to support, endorsements, etc. Previously unaware of this entire process, I only found out about it because I follow my District's former Supervisor (David Campos) on Twitter. So I was all set to go over the union hall and vote for the Reform Dems slate of candidates (as opposed to the "Corporate Democrat" candidates, I guess) and there was not just a line out the door, there was literally a line all the way around the block and around the next block. In the rain and semi-freezing wind. Voting was for 2 1/2 hours at 2 locations in the city and this was one of 'em. I wasn't expecting such a turnout and had my kids with me so opted not to stand in line in the rain, especially since voting was only going to be open for another hour. So I ended up shirking my Democratic duty, but hoping all the people who were actually in line were die-hard Berniebros or whatever (which seems likely). Dunno how/when I would find out about results anyway...

:)

had my kids with me so opted not to stand in line in the rain

i knew it, you are actually anti-solidarity :)

haha don't tell lex

interesting - Reform Democrats prevailed, ultimately: http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/SF-s-Democrats-keep-up-the-internal-warfare-10846122.php

i find it very pleasant to put on my grumpy old man voice and complain to the polite intern who answers my GOP senator's phone about his spineless behavior

perhaps this is because i have actually become a grumpy old man

anyway, i do this every day, i recommend it

This is ingenious:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/amplifierfoundation/we-the-people-public-art-for-the-inauguration-and?ref=thanks_share

Eight years ago, the artist Shepard Fairey made the iconic image that captured a period of HOPE in America. Today we are in a very different moment, one that requires new images that reject the hate, fear, and open racism that were normalized during the 2016 presidential campaign. So on Inauguration Day, We the People will flood Washington, DC with NEW symbols of hope.

This art has been already been commissioned by the Amplifier Foundation. Some of the greatest activist artists working today, including Shepard, Ernesto Yerena, and Jessica Sabogal, have collaborated with photographers to create a series of images that capture the shared humanity of our diverse America.

Now the tricky part: printing and distributing these images on a massive scale in time for Inauguration.

Much of Washington will be locked down on Inauguration Day, and in some areas there will be severe restrictions on signs and banners. But we've figured out a hack. It's called the newspaper! On January 20th, if this campaign succeeds, we're going to take out full-page ads in the Washington Post with these images, so that people across the capitol and across the country will be able to carry them into the streets, hang them in windows, or paste them on walls.

Every dollar you put into this campaign will buy six ads printed and distributed for us.

Amplifier will also distribute these images as large placards throughout DC at Metro stops, out the back of moving vans, at drop spots to be announced in the coming week via our social media feeds, and, on January 19, as free downloads for you to print and share as you like.

And so on. Brilliant, subversive form of protest, imo.

https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/015/118/482/dfe05c277f6d784b0eae2c21c9a04958_original.png?w=680&fit=max&v=1484036228&auto=format&lossless=true&s=69efe5fac7f63bcb5edc3499782f1668

Awesome. Love the newspaper angle.

And they're ten times over their goal already. Pledged.

How much money would it take to supplement the income of the womens rights and climate change government employees whose salaries Congress is going to cut to $1 a year?

That would depend entirely on how many of them there might be.

You can't supplement their pay. It's against the law. You can probably figure out why.

We'd be bribing them to do their jobs and uphold the law of the land? Sinister!

Balloon Juice put up some list with like 40 items of to-dos for people planning to protest on Inauguration Day. I refuse to read it bcz prepper shit annoys me to no end.

Overheard some folks at brunch talking about prepping for Friday, buying up extra food etc. and I couldn't figure out if they were joking or not.

We need more of this:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/will-see-more-of-this

GOP only responds to angry town hall blitzes.

That Amplifier Foundation K$ project is now over $1million for an initial $60k request.

I went to my first meeting with a congressperson today, a friend organized a group of about ten of us from the neighborhood to arrange a meeting with an agenda and everything. Our congresswoman is awesome and totally on our side so it was more of a "what can we do, how can we stay in touch" kind of thing.

It was interesting talking to all the other urban professional types at the meeting both the good and the bad -- on one hand we have this really sharp, organized group of people ready to roll up their sleeves and do something. On the other hand I feel like there is so much focus on social media, "messaging," advertisements, etc. because that's our world. After the meeting in a discussion with a few of them I was talking about really building up the local parties with people on the ground even in deep red areas and I felt like I got blank stares.

yeah social media is such a weird hypereality that people have trouble conceiving of anything outside it as being effective or meaningful

some thoughts
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/15/books/lie-to-me-fiction-in-the-post-truth-era.html

From its beginning, the novel has tested the distinction between truth, fiction and lie; now the collapse of those distinctions has given us the age of Trump. We are entering a period in which the very idea of literature may come to seem a luxury, a distraction from political struggle. But the opposite is true: No matter how irrelevant hardheaded people may believe it to be, literature continually proves itself a sensitive instrument, a leading indicator of changes that will manifest themselves in society and culture. Today as always, the imagination is our best guide to what reality has in store.

THE MISTRESS
by Danielle Steel
The beautiful mistress of a Russian oligarch falls in love with an artist and yearns for freedom.
Buy

5 WEEKS ON THE LIST
A DOG'S PURPOSE
by W. Bruce Cameron
A canine narrator undergoes a series of reincarnations.
Buy

NEW THIS WEEK
BELOW THE BELT
by Stuart Woods
The New York lawyer Stone Barrington faces danger when he finds himself in possession of a retired C.I.A. agent’s explosive memoir.
Buy

33 WEEKS ON THE LIST
A MAN CALLED OVE
by Fredrik Backman
A curmudgeon's gruff exterior masks a generosity of spirit. Originally published in Sweden in 2014.
Buy

11 WEEKS ON THE LIST
THE WHISTLER
by John Grisham
A whistleblower alerts a Florida investigator to judicial corruption involving the Mob and Indian casinos.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/?_r=0

fight the power

#notallliterature

yeah social media is such a weird hypereality that people have trouble conceiving of anything outside it as being effective or meaningful

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, January 18, 2017 3:30 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, I've been thinking about the potential power of actual printed matter in the social media age. Broadsides and pamphlets and newsletters, old school shit, posted on walls and handed out on street corners. Clearly the scope would be strictly local and I don't know how effective it would be but it seems like a way to circumvent the noisenoisenoise of a constantly-moving, impermanent social media landscape that operates at cross purposes with the slow and intentional consideration of ideas.

zines
my bandmate* made a first amendment-for-protesters FAQ booklet/zine/pamphlet/whatever and I have been leaving copies everywhere I go at work and sometimes on the train/elsewhere
i've seen people pick them up and say "what's this?" (not knowing that i am the person who put it there) and i tell them and they almost always take it with them

*also a civil rights lawyer

I'm very much a print-era creature. I went to journalism school and made my living as a print journalist for 20 years. I subscribe to several newsletters and magazines as well as a printed daily newspaper. My grandfather was a newspaper publisher. My grandmother, my mother, both of my sisters, and my wife were/are print journalists.

But if I see somebody on a street corner passing out pamphlets, I become extremely interested in the sidewalk and my hands become fused in my pockets.

fwiw i don't stand around and pass them out. i guess what i am doing is leaving pieces of paper everywhere but it's important to know our constitutional rights so

they are neatly folded and totally legible
written in easily comprehensible language and without flourish
no images, just info

LL, your tactic is pretty much exactly what I was thinking of utilizing myself. Take the 'individual trying to give me something and probably wanting something in return and who I'm going to use all of my avoidance skills on right now' out of the equation altogether. Because god knows I'm personally allergic as hell to the Clipboard Brigade.

Since Paul Ryan has shut down his phone and fax, a friend is suggesting that he be swamped with postcards at home.

Am I bad for thinking that writing to him is a total waste of time and energy?

I spoke to a nice Cuban lady at Rubio's local office on Tuesday.

I take small pleasure in knowing that the inundation of voice mail, fax machines, and email inboxes has had some effect on the Senate's posture, especially in stiffening the spine of Dems.

OTM

I realize this sentiment may seem quaint and naive in these times, but I don't like the idea of people writing/faxing/calling representatives that are not their own. Those channels of communication are really there for people who live in the district to reach their own representatives. That's why they're called representatives.

However everyone should bother the hell out of their own reps/senators, even if they're already perceived as being on the right side of an issue.

doesnt apply to Speaker of the House and other leadership tho surely

xp

(doesn't necessarily -- i still think civil disobedience and lying on the gears of the machine are gonna work best this time)

I cant wait til Trump becomes the first President to be banned from Twitter

Morbz otm guys in leadership positions are different from the rank n file