Excerpts:
If you think Trumpism will simply end in three years, you are naive. Left unopposed, global populism of the sort Trumpism represents could dominate for a generation. This could be the rest of our lives, and our children's, too.
So why are we doing so little? Are we just going to stand in passive witness to the degradation of our democracy?
By this past spring, Trump's actions had become so egregious that I concluded that the time for a mass civic uprising had arrived. On April 17, I published a column in The New York Times arguing that all sectors of America needed to band together to create an interconnected resistance coalition.
That column got an enormous amount of attention and support. For a moment, I thought the mass civic uprising I was hoping for was at hand. So where is it? Yes, there were the (very good) "No Kings" rallies in June. But for the most part, a miasma of passivity seems to have swept over the anti-Trump ranks. Institution after institution cuts deals with the Trump-administration extortion racket.
Other peoples have risen up to defend their rights, their dignity, and their democracies. In the past 50 years, they've done it in Poland, South Africa, Lebanon, South Korea, Ukraine, East Timor, Serbia, Madagascar, Nepal, and elsewhere.
To beat a social movement, you must build a counter social movement. And to do that, you need a different narrative about where we are and where we should be heading, a different set of values dictating what is admirable and what is disgraceful. If we fail to build such a movement, authoritarian strongmen around the globe will dominate indefinitely.
We all understand the first reason many people and institutions have remained quiet: intimidation. Leaders say, If I speak out, it will cost my organization millions. Acquiescence to the government begins to seem prudent. So instead of a mass movement, we have separate institutions each drawing up a self-preservation strategy.
Some history we all forgot:
1700's, the democratic tide swept across the West, producing the American and French Revolutions and eventually the democratic revolts of 1848.
1880s massive political corruption, astounding concentrations of corporate power, huge inequality, and lynchings and other racial terrorism. Americans responded by building the Populist Progressive movement.
1900's: At the turn of the 20th century Populists and Progressives formed an alliance. The Progressives of that era, then as now, were concentrated in the highly educated neighborhoods of big cities. The Populists, then as now, were concentrated in the smaller towns of the Midwest and the South.
Both believed in using government to reduce inequality and expand opportunity. Populists and Progressives worked hard to keep rural and urban insurgencies in harmony. Together, they built big things—the antitrust movement, the FDA, the Forest Service, the Federal Reserve.
1960's - The tide of liberation, which produced the decolonization movements, the civil-rights movement, and the feminist movement.
2000's - Populists and Progressives formed an alliance. The Progressives of that era, then as now, were concentrated in the highly educated neighborhoods of big cities. The Populists, then as now, were concentrated in the smaller towns of the Midwest and the South.
But both the Progressives and the Populists wanted to help those who were being ground down by industrialization.
Today,:
Populists and progressives generally occupy opposing political parties.
The Populist Progressive movement made social mobility—the American dream—the core of its vision, and it launched a crusade against the concentration of corporate power that was crushing economic and social mobility.
Populists and Progressives needed each other—and still do. Without populists, progressives can turn into a bunch of affluent, out-of-touch urbanites who have little in common with regular Americans. Without progressives, populists can turn into anti-intellectual, paranoid bigots. The progressive valorizing of cultural diversity is balanced by populists’ emphasis on cultural cohesion.
Conventional politicians don't have the vision or power to reverse a historical tide. Chuck Schumer is not going to save us. Large anti-Trump rallies attended exclusively by NPR listeners in blue cities do not impress rural voters. That's mostly Useless.
We all understand the first reason many people and institutions have remained quiet: intimidation. Leaders say, If I speak out, it will cost my organization millions. Acquiescence to the government begins to seem prudent.
What to Do now:
But the spirit of the country, although perhaps dormant, still lives. Trumpism is ascendant now, but history shows that America cycles through a process of rupture and repair, suffering and reinvention. This process has a familiar sequence. Cultural and intellectual change comes first—a new vision. Social movements come second. Political change comes last.
Other peoples have risen up to defend their rights, their dignity, and their democracies. In the past 50 years, they’ve done it in Poland, South Africa, Lebanon, South Korea, Ukraine, East Timor, Serbia, Madagascar, Nepal, and elsewhere.
For their 2011 book, Why Civil Resistance Works, the political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan looked at 323 resistance movements from 1900 to 2006, including more than 100 nonviolent resistance campaigns. What Chenoweth and Stephan showed is that citizens are not powerless; they have many ways to defend democracy.
The traditional American story is built on hope and possibility. The MAGA story is built on menace and threat
Link. Needs an Atlantic account or access with library aps:
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/11/autocracy-resistance-social-movement/684336
Temporary copy: