Now that the Electoral College has spoken and completed the installation of President Drumpf, we need to focus on the goal of totally and completely blocking and opposing his agenda and administration, which includes but is not limited to the following items:
- His nominees for cabinet and key positions need to be vigorously opposed, exposed and blocked as often as possible.
- His policy initiatives need to be filibustered and if that’s not possible defanged.
- Current conflicts of interest, foreign lobbying and corruption by anyone including himself, his family and his administration officers—from Steve Bannon to Michael Flynn on down—need to be investigated and FOIA’d like crazy and prosecuted if necessary.
- Any holdings or business deals made by his sons, daughter and son in law—as well as any of his previous ongoing deals and assets—need to be investigated by the SEC and Federal Ethics Office for insider trading, special access, favors and gifts from foreign governments.
- If he knowingly violates the Emoluments clause, Impeachment proceedings should be considered.
- He’s needs to be incessantly called out for his ridiculous, divisive and ludicrous comments—particularly those that continue to incite and inspire racial/ethnic hate or police violence—and his judgement challenged at every opportunity.
- The potential of campaign collusion if not treason with the support of Russia needs to be seriously investigated, particular the possibility that dropping the sanctions over Crimea, while being an incredible windfall for former Exxon CEO/SOS pick Rex Tillerson may also be financial payback to Russia for their interference in our election.
- FBI collusion to hold back information about the Weiner/Abedin emails for nearly a month in order to deliberately sabotage the Clinton campaign needs to be investigated.
- He needs to be sued for each and any of his policies which are based on, or implemented bigoted results.
- His past practices and tax issues need to be publicized—from his bribery of State AG’s not to sue him over Trump U, to his links to foreign criminal organizations and governments in his business dealings and his skipping out of payments to his subcontractors— as contrasted with his practices as chief executive.
This is some of the “what,” but the next issue is the “how” and fortunately a set of former congressional staffers have put together a detailed document—“Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda”—which describes how the opposition tactics used by the tea party can be adapted and utilized to block the agenda of Trump.
Yes, we lost the election, but we have only just begun to fight and the battle rages on.
First there is the basic summary.
One Page Summary
Here’s the quick and dirty summary of this document. While this page summarizes top-level takeaways, the full document describes how to actually carry out these activities.
Ch. 1: How grassroots advocacy worked to stop Obama. We examine lessons from the Tea Party’s rise and recommend two key strategic components:
-
A local strategy targeting individual Members of Congress (MoCs).
-
A defensive approach purely focused on stopping Trump from implementing an agenda built on racism, authoritarianism, and corruption.
Ch. 2: How your MoC thinks, and how to use that to save democracy. Reelection, reelection, reelection. MoCs want their constituents to think well of them and they want good, local press. They hate surprises, wasted time, and most of all, bad press that makes them look weak, unlikable, and vulnerable. You will use these interests to make them listen and act.
Ch. 3: Identify or organize your local group. Is there an existing local group or network you can join? Or do you need to start your own? We suggest steps to help mobilize your fellow constituents locally and start organizing for action.
Ch. 4: Four local advocacy tactics that actually work. Most of you have 3 MoCs - two Senators and one Representative. Whether you like it or not, they are your voice in Washington. Your job is to make sure they are, in fact, speaking for you. We’ve identified four key opportunity areas to pressure MoCs that just a handful of local constituents can use to great effect. For each of these always record encounters on video, prepare questions ahead of time, coordinate with your group, and report back to local media:
-
Townhalls. MoCs regularly hold public in-district events to show that they are listening to constituents. Make them listen to you, and report out when they don’t.
-
Non-townhall events. MoCs love cutting ribbons and kissing babies back home. Don’t let them get photo-ops without questions about racism, authoritarianism, and corruption.
-
District office sit-ins/meetings. Every MoC has one or several district offices. Go there. Demand a meeting with the MoC. Report to the world if they refuse to listen.
-
Coordinated calls. Calls are a light lift but can have impact. Organize your local group to barrage your MoCs at an opportune moment and on a specific issue.
Then there are more details in how these tactics were built up from the grassroots.
The Tea Party’s two key strategic choices
The Tea Party’s success came down to two critical strategic elements:
1) They were locally focused. The Tea Party started as an organic movement built on small local groups of dedicated conservatives. Yes, they received some support/coordination from above, but fundamentally all the hubbub was caused by a relatively small number of conservatives working together. To summarize:
-
Groups started as disaffected conservatives talking to each other online. In response to the 2008 bank bailouts and Obama’s election, groups began forming to discuss their anger and what could be done. They eventually realized that the locally-based discussion groups themselves could be a powerful tool.
-
Groups were small, local, and dedicated. Local Tea Party groups could be fewer than 10 people, but they were highly localized and dedicated significant personal time and resources. Members communicated with each other regularly, tracked developments in Washington, and coordinated advocacy efforts together.
-
Groups were relatively small in number. The Tea Party was not hundreds of thousands of people spending every waking hour focused on advocacy. Rather, the efforts were somewhat modest. Only 1 in 5 self-identified Tea Partiers contributed money or attended events. On any given day in 2009 or 2010, only twenty local events - meetings, trainings, townhalls, etc. - were scheduled nationwide. In short, a relatively small number of groups were having a big impact on the national debate.
2) They were almost purely defensive. The Tea Party focused on saying NO to Members of Congress on their home turf. While the Tea Party activists were united by a core set of shared beliefs, they actively avoided developing their own policy agenda. Instead, they had an extraordinary clarity of purpose, united in opposition to President Obama. They didn’t accept concessions and treated weak Republicans as traitors. To summarize:
-
Groups focused on defense, not policy development. The Tea Party took root in 2009, focused on fighting against every proposal coming out of the new Democratic Administration and Congress. This focus on defense rather than policy development allowed the movement to avoid fracturing. Tea Party members may not have agreed on the policy reforms, but they could agree that Obama, Democrats, and moderate Republicans had to be stopped.
-
Groups rejected concessions to Democrats and targeted weak Republicans. Tea Partiers viewed concessions to Democrats as betrayal. This limited their ability to negotiate, but they didn’t care. Instead they focused on scaring congressional Democrats and keeping Republicans honest. As a result, few Republicans spoke against the Tea Party for fear of attracting blowback.
-
Groups focused on local congressional representation. Tea Partiers primarily applied this defensive strategy by pressuring their own local Members of Congress (MoCs). This meant demanding that that their own personal Representatives and Senators be their voice of opposition on Capitol Hill. At a tactical level, the Tea Party had several replicable practices, including:
-
Showing up to the MoC’s town hall meetings and demanding answers
-
Showing up to the MoC’s office and demanding a meeting
-
Coordinating blanket calling of congressional offices at key moments
Building the grassroots infrastructure for this mostly requires people willing and motivated to push their members of Congress (MoC) in the right direction when specific issues arise and to stay on top of them so they constantly feel the pressure.
All the people who’ve been marching in the streets are a potential resource, they are the Energizer Bunnies behind this counter-movement against Trump. We need to organize, we need to plan and implement that plan—using this basic blueprint which has shown itself to be effective. Republicans now hold the Senate, House and White House because of it. There’s no good reason we can’t use their own tactics against them.
Also I think this can go beyond being merely defensive but can move toward advocating specific policies if—after two years—the plan has its desired effect and we’re about to recapture one or both houses of Congress, but first things first. We have to do everything we possibly can to mitigate the very serious damage that Trumpism can, and very likely will, do to this nation and the world. If that means blocking any and all of his legislative efforts, so be it. If it only means we’re able to scrape off the worst parts of his agenda to blunt their impact, that’s still a win compared to the alternative. Every bit of pushback we can achieve, is a positive development.
We should also reach out to existing advocacy groups from AARP to VoteVets, IAVA, Common Cause, the Anti-Defamation League, Black Lives Matter, the Water Protectors, the Dream Defenders, Americans Against Fracking, 9/11 Health Now, Planned Parenthood, the Sandy Hook Foundation, the Brady Campaign, the NAACP, Urban League, CAIR, NCLR and all viable others where possible to coordinate our efforts for maximum effect.
This won’t be easy, it won’t happen overnight—but if we want to win back the nation we. need. to. fight. for. it.
We are the Resistance.
