There is no better antidote to hopelessness than action in community.

The bright spots of the first Trump era came as movements not only rallied large numbers of people in defensive battles against the White House, but also carried forward popular energy by organizing around a positive vision for change. Here, the model offered by Bernie Sanders was very important. Sanders achieved far greater success in his 2016 primary challenge to Hillary Clinton than anyone in the Washington establishment could have imagined by running on a resolute platform of Medicare for All, free higher education, and confronting the power of corporations and the rich. Whether or not “Bernie would’ve won” in 2016 had he been in the general election, as many of his supporters believe, the senator was nevertheless vital in pointing to a model of how Trumpism could be combatted with a progressive populist vision, rather than a retreat to the center and the adoption of “Republican-lite” versions of policy

Groups motivated to build active support for such a vision — which included progressive unions, community organizations investing in electoral work in a more concerted way than ever before, and new or re-energized formations such as the Democratic Socialists of America, Justice Democrats, Our Revolution, the Working Families Party and the Poor People’s Campaign — entered into contests that gave rise to the Squad at the federal level, as well as an unprecedented number of movement champions taking office locally.

This time around, we must be more clear than ever that our goal is to win over a majority of Americans. Movements should not be afraid to engage in polarizing protest, but they should be mindful of the challenge of producing positive polarization that reaches out to include more people in the fight for justice, while minimizing negative polarization that pushes away potential supporters. Crucial to this is always seeking to expand the coalition of allies, engage in political education to bring in newcomers, and not accept the myth of the righteous few, or the idea that the path to victory is through demanding ever-greater levels of moral purity among those we associate with, even if that means ever-greater insularity.

  • @KeeponstalinOP
    11•1 month ago

    Yeah, learning about the criminalization of peaceful protests, both is severity of crime but also the fines/time was quite chilling. They have really set up the stage to criminalize protests against Fascism. Things are only going to get more grim in the foreseeable future

    Quotes

    I want to turn now to the J20 protests (named in reference to the January 20, 2017, date of Trump’s inauguration), because these are also extremely interesting and troubling indicators of how elites are responding to legitimate resistance through tactics of criminalization and intimidation… This is what becomes particularly troubling about this case. Rather, merely being at the protest itself was a crime, that is they didn’t find specific evidence of anybody particularly doing anything, but just being there now has turned into a crime… The grand jury, secret grand jury, returned a superseding indictment that added inciting or urging to riot and conspiracy to riot to the list of crimes, turning what would, in many cases, have been misdemeanors into potential felonies. The new charges brought the number of felony counts up from one to eight for each person, and the amount of time defendants faced from ten years to more than seventy years in prison.

    The DOJ prosecutors also learned a few lessons from this case. One of the most recent manifestations of those lessons is a bill, H.R. 6054, “The Unmasking Antifa Act of 2018” that was introduced in the last Congress. You can tell by the title it has a fairly specific intent, quite literally unmasking Antifa (that is, the antifascist group). The act now makes it a crime, and includes a prison sentence of up to fifteen years, for anyone who injures, oppresses, threatens, or intimidates any person while wearing a mask or disguise, a bill that telegraphs the government’s future attempts to prosecute the masked protesters they failed to criminalize in the J20 trial.

    As of January 19, 2017, Republican lawmakers in five states had proposed bills to criminalize peaceful protest. Just four days later, that number increased to ten states. Our old friend ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council) is behind many of these bills. They have model legislation on how to criminalize protests, including many laws that involve so-called critical infrastructure, by which they typically mean oil and gas pipelines.

    In some states, nonviolent demonstrating may soon carry increased legal risks, including punishing fines and significant prison terms. Sometimes these are simply put on the books as chilling measures. If people know they’re facing horrific kinds of penalties, the likelihood that they may come out for a protest, even a very peaceful and legal protest, is enormously discouraged, so the new legislation often includes punishing fines, significant prison terms for people who participate in protests involving civil disobedience.

    It will now be an offense to conceal (and this is back to the Antifa unmasking law) voluntarily, totally or partially, one’s face in order not to be identified in such circumstances as would provide fears of a threat to public order. Wearing a mask at a protest was already punishable with a €1,500 fine, but its upper limit will now be increased to a €15,000 fine and a year in prison. Again, you can see the chilling effect this might produce.

    • Chapter 6 of Consequences of Capitalism by Noam Chomsky and Marv Waterstone