The Atlantic just published an article that is both scary and reassuring.
Protests Won’t Be Enough to Stop a Coup
Resistance requires a lot more strategy.
Casting a ballot by Election Day is just the first thing Americans have to worry about. What if President Donald Trump and his allies stop the counting of ballots, or delay vote certification until Republican state legislatures can play hanky-panky with the electors? What if civil war breaks out? “We’ll take to the streets,” Joe Biden supporters tell one another. Isn’t that what people do?
Protesting is certainly what a lot of people will think of doing, and will do. It’s what Protect the Results, a coalition of more than 100 grassroots groups, is recommending, at least for now. Of the more than a dozen election-protection organizations that have popped up over the past two months, Protect the Results is probably the best-known. As of this writing, you can find more than 450 events around the country on its website, many scheduled for the day after the election. I signed up for one in New York City and got an email telling me to be ready to report to an address on Fifth Avenue on November 4 in the “highly likely” event that national protests will be necessary.
The author of the piece in The Atlantic, Judith Shulevitz, has really done her homework. “Protests alone won’t be enough to stop what might be coming, and to be effective, they should be timed just right. Early in October, I came across a webinar called “How to Beat an Election-Related Power Grab” being offered by a then-obscure group named Choose Democracy. “
CHOOSE DEMOCRACY:
Democracy is fragile. We have reason to worry that this fall we may see an undemocratic power grab — a coup. We also know that the people can defend our democracy. Nonviolent mass protests have stopped coups in other places, and we may have to do the same in this country.
Together, we choose democracy.
The article outlines some of the basic parameters that are key to any successful protest:
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Practice Nonviolence — The first imperative of civil resistance is nonviolence—that is, maintaining the discipline not to strike out or strike back.
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Aim for the Center — In that sense, nonviolence undergirds the second rule of a winning protest strategy: It must pull in the mainstream. A robust movement will be “diverse and multigenerational,” Erica Chenoweth told me, with children and grandparents, civil servants and judges as well as radicals.
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Hit Them Where It Hurts — As essential as the first two laws of grassroots regime change may be, the third one makes it stick: Whatever the movement looks like, it will have to cause economic pain. If worst comes to worst, victory will hinge on consumer boycotts and strikes...
We are building a coalition of voters ready to mobilize if Trump undermines the results of the 2020 presidential election.
(These events are tentative and dependent upon activation of the Protect the Results coalition if Trump takes action to undermine the results. For safety reasons, Protect the Results opposes any events beginning after dark or planned at ballot counting locations.)
FIND AN EVENT NEAR YOU
These two groups are organizing as we speak. We need to be prepared to fight for the democracy we know the other side will try to lie, steal and cheat to destroy.
Being prepared for the worst will help us through these next days, and there will be no time for dawdling.