The Resistance goes quiet
By: Sareen Habeshian (AXIOS)
The so called 'Resistance' even has a plausible psycho-babble excuse to hide its loss of coercive influence and growing irrelevance. Donald Trump has been elected to act as the agent of disruptive change in society. Trump has beaten the Resistance at their own game.
A resistance group only attracts followers by protesting against institutional resistance to change. (See where the name comes from?) But Donald Trump is actually doing what the resistance movement has only promised.
So what is the Resistance to do now? Protest to protect the status quo? Protest to save and defend the institutional walls that prevent freedom to reign? Certainly not the type of resistance that would appeal to young liberals. And a Resistance that relies on old conservatives for its agent provocateurs doesn't seem have much of a political future.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
While President-elect Trump's 2016 win sparked shock, outrage and massive protests, the response to his 2024 victory has been more muted.
The big picture: 2016 birthed The Resistance, a political movement to protest Trumpism online and in the streets. There's still plenty of resistance to Trump across the country, but little mass mobilization.
- That could change as Trump moves to implement his agenda. But experts and activists expect the renewed resistance to come in different forms.
Flashback: Trump won in 2016 despite trailing in the polls, and within weeks of the infamous Access Hollywood tape and multiple sexual assault allegations.
This time Democratic voters, particularly women, were just as disappointed but less shocked, says Lisa Mueller, a political science professor at Macalester College.
- "So they didn't have the same acute trigger to rush to the barricades that they did the first time," says Mueller, who studies why social movements succeed or fail. "It's very likely that there is some disillusionment with activism."
- Mitchell Brown, professor of political science at Auburn University, says one big factor is what cognitive psychologists call habituation.
- "When you first see something unexpected, it's really jarring and you react strongly," she says. "But the more you see and normalize something that was unexpected ... the more habituated you become to it."
State of play: "It doesn't hurt the case to reflect first and resist second," says Mark Brilliant, a history professor at UC Berkeley, adding that prominent Democratic lawmakers "are urging their party-mates to look inward, which is always a good place to turn after defeat."
Zoom in: Some activist groups are working with a new resistance playbook and pivoting their strategies.
- Tamika Middleton, managing director at Women's March, told Axios the organization is trying to find new ways to mobilize people, such as holding local-level training sessions on combating misinformation and sharing strategies for immigrants to protect themselves.
- The group is also trying to build out a coalition with other activist groups working on issues from abortion to immigrant rights.
- "We have been through a Trump presidency before, so we have some sense of what it is that we anticipate, and also some sense of what we need," Middleton says. "We know that we need a bigger, more robust movement, which means that we have to be bringing in as many people as possible."
Between the lines: An event scheduled for January — dubbed "The People's March" — will inevitably be compared to the massive Women's March eight years earlier, which garnered hundreds of thousands of participants and spurred nationwide sister marches.
- Some activists are wary that turnout will be much smaller.
What to watch: A part of the shifting playbook could be a more focused approach, targeting specific Trump policies versus Trumpism as a whole.
- Protests are unlikely to unseat Trump, but they could build momentum around "a specific policy outcome," Mueller says.
The bottom line: "The exhaustion is real" among those who organized against Trump during his first term, only to see him elected again, Middleton says.
- "Part of what is beautiful about what mobilization offers inside of these moments, is that they activate and bring in new people who have new energy."
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What will the People's March slated for January be demanding? Will the Resistance oppose ending the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East? Will the Resistance oppose taking the Federal boot off the neck of local government? Will the Resistance oppose restraints on illegal immigration to promote legal immigration? Will the Resistance oppose removing a host of unelected experts using an alphabet of autocratic Federal agencies to meddle in choices over their health, their education, their lifestyle, their future?
Trump has promised change. Trump has promised disruption. So, what can the Resistance promise to oppose change and disruption? Stay the course? Fearmongering about the loss of a rather conservative status quo? The importance of autocratic institutions in society?
Trump is the resistance now. All your base are belong to us.
Most of them have no clue what they will be demanding. I hope they saved there pussy hats for the occasion.
I expect to see the resistance as soon as Trump's appointments are presented for confirmation.
I recall that Obama got his entire cabinet confirmed by the end of January.
Aren't Trump's nominees intended as a protest against institutional resistance to change? Doesn't that indicate that Trump has beaten the Resistance at its own game?
What freedoms have you lost due to Democrats being in the White House? I have yet to hear anyone articulate that belief.
The freedom to vote for who you want without being called a Nazi.
Thats not a freedom.
Obviously, because it was taken away.
What freedoms have you lost from Trump or any Republican being the the White House?
Sorry, TDS sufferers' sanity doesn't count. That is a self inflicted illness.
As for Democrats being in the White House- how about women and girls freedom from having males in the bathroom, locker room, and competing against them in sports? How about freedom from forced Covid shots for the healthiest men and women serving in our military? Democrats are against controlling anyone's bodies- unless they are the ones trying to control it. How about freedom of association? Democrats shut down not just the economy; but group gatherings during Covid; and interstate travel for vacationing. Yet Democrats and their brown shirts, BLM/Antifa routinely violated their own edicts.
"So what is the Resistance to do now?"
Mostly whine and call people that voted for Trump names