There is a valuable article in the New York Times today that should be a primer for us:
From Protests Past, Lessons in What Works
1. Pull out the Pillars — remember we are not just trying to solidify the base, we must make inroads into the Republican or Trump base by reclaiming those lost since 2008 and 2012 as well as building on the inroads this election. After all the Trump base is smaller than the Republican base in previous elections and includes some voters we used to be able to claim. Further, with dealing with an authoritarian menace we need to block a consolidation of power which would block a comeback.
Action plans for this would include getting local coverage of the human impact of Trumpian cruelty. Any university community in the country is in shock from the immigration order, not all are in areas like New York and Boston. Can you stimulate a local paper to cover the sad stories? Similarly use social media and social contents that hopefully spill over to independents, Republican breakaways who are wavering back and forth, and even Trump supporters who are approachable. For instance, a decent share of evangelicals support Trump over abortion but are moderately friendly to refugees.
Business — business is torn between fear of Trump policies, joy over others, fear of Trump retaliation, and fear of consumers. Trump can hurt a business by focusing tweets and through the power of government. We need to counteract that. The natural instinct of business leaders is to suck up to Trump — he knocked that trend considerably this week. Where business is caving it may be time to delete your account. On the other hand, don’t forget to reward resistance to evil.
2. Delegitimization and blocking normalization — We’re well along with this. It includes thing like Popular vote loser and President Bannon. Some of the advice about businesses is in the nature of blocking normalization.
3. Small victories — as she point out, any movement needs momentum, which requires small victories. Democratic politicians did us a favor in not immediately leaping to all-out opposition. They gave us a great opportunity to have small victories. The business community is a harder target than Democrats, but easier than Republicans.
4. Localization — I’ve already discussed some of this. Obamacare repeal offers a similar target-rich environment to stir up local (or social media circle) stories about the cruelty to real people to whom folks may see a connection.
5. Reward as well as punish. If your Senator boycotted the committee hearings today, tell him or her how awesome that was. Don’t be too slow to forgive those who see the light a little too late, particularly if their voters aren’t bright blue. This was a huge errors by Republicans in 2010 and 2012 which delayed their takeover of the Senate by four years.
6. Eventually, we will need a positive message (not so much now while we are consolidated out base and our weak supporters). The Super Bowl are the 2018 gubenatorial elections. As the article points out, fear dominated elections usually go conservative or nationalist, hope dominated elections go progressive.
7. Person to person is the most effective.