228) Resisting Authoritarianism: It is time to get more involved

Hi friends,

In light of the recent American election, and the authoritarianism that is to follow, I know many of us are upset, demoralized, and frankly, don’t know what to do.  I feel this, deeply.  In a sense, I have felt this for my entire adult life, having been studying climate change and biodiversity collapse since the 90s.  My approach, thus far, has been to learn, to share information, and to trust in the common decency of people.  All of these are necessary, but as I’ve learned over the decades, these are not sufficient.  And the recent election shows us this, incontrovertibly.

So I’m changing my own approach and how I invest my time.  It’s time to accept that we are living in the onset of a huge wave of North American (and indeed, global) authoritarianism.  But instead of just hand-wringing, bitching on social media, and feeling angry and despairing, I encourage us all to begin learning how to take more effective action.  I expect this will be new for many of us.  It will REQUIRE us to get out of our comfort zones.

But it’s not new for people who, around the world, have been resisting, and indeed, overthrowing, authoritarian regimes throughout history.  It’s not new for those of us whose ancestors lived through Nazi-occupied European countries in WW2, or who lived through authoritarian regimes in central and South America, or who hail from African countries who experienced apartheid and paramilitary regimes, or who are from Middle Eastern and Asian countries who have struggled with theocratic and authoritarian regimes to this day.  In short, people all around the world have faced, and continue to face, this same problem.  And indeed, more will face this in the near future.

We are now being called to do what our own ancestors, our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents did, to join “the Resistance”, in a real and tangible sense, not just in terms of being keyboard warriors from the comfort of our living rooms.  It’s time for us to learn more, and to do more. 

For me, Step 1, this week, was to begin to learn more ardently about how “the Resistance” begins, grows, and becomes successful.  I’m attaching here an excellent resource to begin learning about this — an article written by two political scientists at Harvard University, who in 2022, saw this American authoritarian wave coming, and wrote this article to help people understand how to resist it.  They foresaw that we likely wouldn’t stop it from happening, and instead, have focused on how to get through the dark times ahead, and how to organize ourselves, effectively, to resist the authoritarian take-over of our societies.

I’ve cut and pasted key sections of this article below, and if you’re interested, you can for free, download the whole thing from the link provided.

And then, it’s up to you.  I encourage you to get involved in pro-democracy movements in your own community.  And I’ll share what I learn about effective organizations that are doing good work.  There are lots of them, from food security networks at a local scale, to anti-poverty organizations, to public health coalitions, to communication and education networks.  There are lots of ways to get involved.  So choose one.  Choose whatever resonates with you, whatever aligns with your values and strengths and professional expertise.  And get involved.

Like it or not (and truly, nobody likes this…), this IS the challenge of our time.  Don’t look back in the future and “wish you had done more”.  Seriously, fuck that.  Who wants to look back on their lives with regret for choosing complacency and passivity, for not having the courage to stand up and speak out for what you KNOW is right?  

Instead, look back at yourself someday as a goddamn hero, and be proud of what you did when the dark times came.  Because truly, they are on our doorstep.  And history shows us, over and over again, just how dark things can get.  Let’s do what we can to prevent that from happening, and instead, to transform this time-of-shit, into a time of neighbourliness, strong communities, and the revitalization of true, people-powered democracy.  No one person can do this; there’s no Great Hero who is going to save us.  But all of us, can.

We can emerge from this much stronger than before.  And you can be a key part of that happening, in your family, in your neighbourhood, in your town or city, and indeed, in the world as a whole.  

It’s time to be a hero.  Just like the movies we’ve been watching for our entire lives.  The Rebel Alliance already exists. There are tons of organizations, and they cut across racial, class, gender, and cultural lines. Everybody has roles to play. So get involved. 

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“How to Build The Resistance” — excerpts from ***https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/pro-democracy-organizing-against-autocracy-united-states-strategic-assessment***

The world is in the midst of a “Third Wave of Autocratization.”1 Countries swept up in the current “democratic recession”2 follow a pattern: nationalist, right-wing populist leaders win electoral power, either by seizing control of established parties or by creating their own parties, which become electoral juggernauts. Once in power, they consolidate control in the executive branch and abuse power persistently and incrementally in a way that “divides and disorients their opponents.”3 They use divide-and-rule tactics within their own parties and nationally to secure their hold on power, particularly by manufacturing and exploiting identity-based cleavages and by attacking and weakening other institutions, such as the news media, legislature, courts, and civil service.4

Importantly, such autocratic leaders are often deeply popular, obtaining formidable electoral support and emboldening anti-democratic extremists within the country to mobilize on their behalf. In cases where countries began to backslide into authoritarianism but reverted to democratic rule, this was largely due to effective mobilization by pro-democratic civil society.5

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Political scientists generally agree that the current polarization within the United States is largely caused by radicalization within the Republican Party, whose MAGA faction unapologetically— and with few exceptions—has promoted an exclusionary vision of a white nationalist, Christian, patriarchal nation.9

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If the US began to careen more precipitously toward authoritarianism at the national level, the country would most likely resemble an electoral autocracy – one in which semi-competitive elections take place to preserve a semblance of constitutional legitimacy, but in which other features of democracy such as rule of law, separation of powers, press freedom, and civil rights are weak or nonexistent. 

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We explore what might be needed in a potentially more repressive, volatile, and geographically complex context, focusing primarily on noninstitutional and movement actions, such as mass mobilization, civil disobedience, various forms of noncooperation, and ways to use state and local government power to protect peoples’ and communities’ rights, freedoms, and security. .

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Histories of resistance within countries that did succumb to fascist rule are sobering. In the immediate aftermath of far-right autocratic takeovers, these regimes commonly invoked emergency powers to ban opposition parties, expel opposition politicians from existing offices, jail or kill politicians, union leaders, and minorities in mass detentions, censor the press, and centralize command over police, paramilitary, and military forces, from the village level up.19

Vigilante denunciations of suspected “enemies of the state” became common. In the case of Nazi Germany, the national government quickly and effectively upended the federal system by eliminating independent state governments and bringing all administrative and security services under the direct control of the central government.

The current far-right movement in the US is likelier to turn to electoral autocracy rather than the totalitarianism of the Nazi regime. At the national level, this could include emergency decrees banning protests and certain forms of speech, or invoking security forces for domestic policing; lack of legal redress and consolidation of executive power, including loss of Court independence; and persecution of party insiders and outsiders. At the state level, MAGA-aligned politicians and legislative majorities could also further diminish the influence of opposition party officials; persecute oppositionists; pass laws that criminalize speech, assembly, and protest; further cut state funding to programs and services to harm and disempower poor and marginalized communities; and turn a blind eye to hate crimes and vigilante violence directed at oppositionists and marginalized individuals and groups. Such measures accord with the US’s own history with prior waves of nascent democratization and authoritarian backsliding in the Deep South, along with contemporary trends in numerous US states that have experienced a wave of democratic backsliding since 2010. 20 

However, it is prudent to prepare for many eventualities, including the possibilities that emergency powers could be invoked by aligned state and national leaders to bar the Democratic Party from competing in elections; to abolish state governments or bring them so closely aligned with the federal government that they are no longer autonomous from it; to jail or kill key opposition, media, labor, and religious figures; and to censor or shut down independent media entirely. It is also possible that law enforcement and armed forces become more centralized and overtly aligned with authoritarian figures at state and national levels.

Yet it is also important to note that resistance has existed and endured in every authoritarian regime in the world–even in Nazi Germany. There, the resistance was fully underground and often was carried out by people whom the Nazi regime viewed as “protected” (such as Aryan women).21

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In Chile under the fascist regime of Augusto Pinochet, organizers and activists discovered ways to build alternative, underground sources of power that were difficult for the regime to detect and suppress. Despite widespread repression against organized opposition parties, labor unions, and leftist political organizations, pro-democratic forces built a coalition of families of the disappeared, striking workers, clergy, small business owners, and independent political groups. Rather than march in the streets, they banged pots and pans within their homes; built mutual aid networks, legal assistance, strike funds, and support for families of the disappeared; engaged in work stoppages and slowdowns; developed communications networks and political education; and waited for opportunities to oust Pinochet from power. Women whose brothers, sons, fathers, uncles, and other loved ones had been disappeared by the regime engaged in subversive performances of Pinochet’s patriotic national dance (“la cueca”) in front of the presidential palace.

The opportunity to oust Pinochet came when he decreed a national referendum to revise the constitution to extend his term in power. The pro-democratic coalition seized on the opportunity and drew on this coalition’s resources and relationships to successfully organize a decisive “No” vote. Pinochet attempted to convince his inner entourage to simply ignore the results of the referendum and allow him to stay in power. Seeing the writing on the wall, however, his military advisors told him that he was finished.

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Similarly, the white supremacist apartheid regime in South Africa prevented black South Africans from voting, excluded black South Africans from most land ownership, banned formal pro-democratic political parties such as the African National Congress (ANC), killed or imprisoned prominent opposition leaders, and committed numerous massacres against black students and protesters who were demanding their rights. But over several decades, a coalition of trade and labor organizers, civil rights groups, journalists, and other pro-democracy forces began to wield people power against the regime. The coalition put economic pressure on potential reformers within the ruling party to defect from it and to support an orderly transition to more democratic, representative rule. 

This approach involved an international strategy of mobilizing transnational solidarity networks to pressure multinational corporations to divest from South Africa’s economy, pressure countries and international institutions to sanction South African government officials, and encourage countries to ban goods imported from South Africa. Over time, the country became so economically isolated that it became extremely reliant on domestic markets for economic viability.

However, the coalition also implemented a domestic strategy of boycotting white-owned businesses; mobilizing general strikes; establishing alternative institutions such as economic and food cooperatives in black townships; and organizing marches and parades to maintain an oppositional culture. In time, the anti-apartheid coalition succeeded in eliciting defections within the white business community and, ultimately, within the ruling party, which elected a reformer. He unbanned the ANC, initiated negotiations with the ANC and other opposition groups, and ultimately agreed to hold the country’s first elections in which black South Africans could vote. These developments resulted in a landslide victory for the ANC, which saw its erstwhile-imprisoned leader Nelson Mandela sworn in as the country’s first democratically elected president.

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Effective, pro-democratic nonviolent resistance movements therefore typically build four key capacities:

• large-scale, diverse participation;

• the ability to elicit defections among the opponent’s pillars of support;

• the ability to maintain organizational discipline and resilience as violence against the movement escalates;

• and the ability of the movement to innovate new tactics beyond protest—especially methods of noncooperation and the establishment of alternative institutions.26 

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Pro-Democracy Mobilizing and Organizing in the US Today

The United States has a well-established tradition of resisting authoritarianism and promoting multiracial feminist democracy, particularly during the 20th Century. Feminist, antifascist, Black, Chicano, Indigenous, labor, queer, and immigrant rights movements have all achieved numerous successes over the past 150 years. What progress has occurred in terms of gender and racial equality flows largely from these movements; the backlash to such movements shows how threatening they have been to white supremacist, patriarchal visions of the nation.

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….the far-right dominates a robust informational and media ecosystem. Social media algorithms promote enclaves or “bubbles”, and disinformation and conspiracy theories spread to a greater degree than accurate information through social media platforms. In most rural areas local newspapers are gone, and even TV news can be blacked out. As a result, internet or radio may be the only information that people get, particularly if they work in sectors that require them to drive, work in shops, or work outdoors all day. The far-right has mastered the use of these information ecosystems by creating faux-news content (e.g. they mix immigration “news” and Big Lie propaganda with traffic reports, local sports scores, notices about lost dogs, and other information that is useful for locals). Moreover, few organizations are prepared for the possibility that companies like Meta or Twitter could turn their apparatuses over to the government, or the extreme vulnerabilities this development would create across their networks.

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Summary

1) The first element of the strategy would be to build and maintain a large-scale, multiracial, cross-class, pro-democracy united front, and to use scheduled elections as an opportunity to engage, organize, and mobilize an even larger pro-democracy base of participants.

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2) ***THIS ONE IS PROBABLY THE MOST RELEVANT TO ALL OF US***
A second element of the strategy is to build community power through alternative institutions, which ultimately render authoritarian institutions and forces irrelevant in day-to-day life. 

Many dissident movements in Eastern Europe, organized under Soviet occupation and Soviet-backed authoritarian regimes, used this strategy. In Poland, for instance, opposition groups resisted the state’s propaganda and control over education by organizing “flying universities,” or underground schools, to build popular education free from autocratic influence. The more opposition groups are able to establish and maintain political autonomy, prevent the local enforcement of unjust laws and policies, and provide services directly to their communities, the more obsolete authoritarian forces will become relative to pro-democratic ones. 

Effective organizations build community power, meet people’s immediate needs, and occupy governance vacuums where they exist. Here, the primary work of pro-democratic forces will be to gradually yet decisively build alternative institutions–such as economic cooperatives, fresh food provision, public health institutions, mutual aid, community safety, strike funds, and other forms of cooperation–that dramatically reduce the reach, impact, and legitimacy of the authoritarian state.

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3) The third core element of the strategy is to continually divide and pull apart the authoritarian coalition by inducing defections within its pillars of support–corporations, business and economic elites, media, party officials and staff, civil servants, security personnel, cultural influencers, foundations and philanthropists, religious authorities, organized labor, and the like. 

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4) Under electoral autocracy, violence will undoubtedly increase, since it is a key tool of authoritarians who seek to suppress, subvert, and terrorize potential oppositionists through state or paramilitary violence and harassment. The fourth core element of the strategy therefore involves maintaining resilience and momentum even as violence escalates. 

… The movement should document and publicize paramilitary networks, document and publicize abuses by police, and demand local accountability for crimes.It should also build a local capacity for rapid response to arrests (e.g. mobilizing legal assistance and protests at incarceration sites), extrajudicial violence (e.g. mobilizing journalists, medical teams, and legal assistance), and succession plans (e.g. clearly-designed lines of effort for movement organizers and leadership, as well as processes to replace them if compromised).

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However, the organizational infrastructure to develop and implement a coordinated but nimble strategy in the event of an authoritarian transition does not currently exist in the United States.

We therefore recommend developing a united front–a resilient, nationwide, pro-democracy coalition of local, state, and national left and center-left forces. This will require a general secretariat with a federated structure that takes full responsibility with a clear, central, and relational glue. It will also require a large-scale organizing of resources to create a resource bank that can fund legal support, strike relief, training, political education, and other support for chapters to organize and mobilize people.

***ONE KEY STRATEGY THAT IS RELEVANT TO ALL OF US***
Develop a large-scale popular education and training apparatus, involving basic information about how to stop a coup, the strategic logic of nonviolent resistance, how to participate in nonviolent action, and conflict de-escalation. Such trainings should explain clearly and convincingly the way that nonviolent resistance can be effective in a highly polarized society, and they should emphasize the futility of using armed struggle to fight an authoritarian regime. There should also be training on information literacy, encouraging people to avoid sending or falling for clickbait, verify sensational news before taking action, and pursue measured and useful analysis and calls to action. Finally, trainings should be available for making sure internal systems are as secure as possible among key united front organizations and operatives (e.g. using VPN, multi-factor authentication, and keeping knowledge management systems upgraded). There are numerous existing guides and resources available to build an effective training infrastructure; these could be collated and disseminated immediately.

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In closing, thank you for reading this. Please share your thoughts and ideas, and for sure, your feelings, in the comments. Much, much appreciated.