The Civil Rights Movement involved active training. There are still many silos. Can Indivisible, The Third Act, etc. work together? Many see enemies and use shame and blame which only increases the divide. I wish Smart Politics could train members of these groups. We need to see the humanity in everyone. I receive hope from the saying, “ The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.” Nelson Henderson A culture of being active to sustain our democracy and our natural environment is needed with the understanding that we not give up if we don’t get immediate results.
I recognize a lot of what is said here in my local community. But my local community is one rooted in liberal tradition and the culture is founded on the '60s tradition of community activism. I feel for people who are in places where such values aren't fundamental to the community's culture. In the last month or two, everything that was stated above has been happening in my community, and it is truly effective. For people who live in places without these aspects embedded in their culture, all I can say is it is important to realize that they actually work. Just getting together with like-minded people on a regular basis, physically together in a room, makes everything better.
We need a culture of resistance, but also, borrowing from Timothy Snyder's On Freedom, we have to talk about more than "resistance." We have to enact "freedom" in the fullest sense of the word. Freedom is about building community, as he describes. Because only by building community, supporting one another, speaking out when necessary, enacting good legislation and knowing the truth can we all, from little babies to the most elderly citizens, be truly free. I suggest that we all wear eagle pins or stickers, to symbolize this embrace of true freedom in all our actions. Whatever symbols we use, however - I do believe that our time is quite short - that the crucial action right now is to join whatever resistance group is in your community (or start one of your own), get to know fellow members well, and build membership through speaking out and holding public events. If we don't show a huge resistance in the next 50 days, Trump/Musk/Vought/Miller will keep on rolling over our rights in more aggressive ways. We also have to prepare, now, for the "Reichstag Fire" moment, and be ready to push back against it. We can do both - resist mightily in the short term, AND build towards true freedom in the long term.
I'd prefer a culture of assistance, not resistance, where cooperation and mutual support--community building--serves as a bridge between people and communities. Assistance speaks to unity, resistance perpetuates division. Opposition is still in play, but we simply move around the obstacle and make it irrelevant. Devolve and decentralize economic life with entrepreneurship and vibrant local/regional economies where everyone has an opportunity to live a dignified life. The giant feeding tubes of centralized monopolies like Amazon tgat suck the wealth from people znd communities can be replaced--we don't need permission@
This is an exceptionally helpful piece! It helped me understand why I wasn’t drawn into current modes of resistance, and helped point to better methods.
This culture of resistance is a great idea. I love the idea of circles of support for this moment we are in. In fact I had been looking online for such a thing and had found nothing.
At the end of the article you asked for ideas and I do have one that I am not sure how it would work out. I was thinking that making resistance fun may help. My idea was a fun run/walk for democracy where people dress in their best pro-democracy gear and then maybe proceeds go to support Ukraine or something like that. I find sometimes when dealing with tough moments like these, physical movement can be helpful at least for me to deal with all the energy from the emotions.
I really needed to read this. I’m already feeling the burn-out as I work on The Real Story—Part 3, the timeline for the Resistance Project 2026, and protesting every weekend. Your newsletter is spot on about the importance of building community and embracing the Arts. Thank you for the reminder—this is a marathon, not a sprint, and your perspective is exactly what I needed to hear right now.
I think you are exactly right to use the Civil Rights movement as the model for the Democracy movement. The movement's focus on training and developing resilience to the different forms of attack is especially important. We need to get past our unrealistic requirement for "safe spaces" and such, and face the reality that we now live in a difficult environment.
My only suggestion is that the element of hope needs to be coupled with vision. What is the world we are working towards. Resistance is useful for specific issues, but what consistently get's us up in the morning? You touch on it, but I think it needs to be more central to a movement.
It involves turning TOWARD each other, living and giving generously of our time… in our society, we have become very standoffish, isolated, motivated by “independence” rather than meaningful connection. Competitive, and status oriented. People confuse cliques with community. People need to be WARMER. KINDER.
We have lost how you be together. And how to have real conversations about important things. How to build TRUST.
To understand our relative isolation, we must recall that our normal social/community networks were torn asunder when the first Trump administration force mandated us to socially isolate in 2020. When they ordered us to close our churches, schools, every civic organization. Ostensibly to prevent us all from dying from a ruthless brutal virus. Now, in order to resist a ruthless brutal president, we need to rebuild those fractured social networks… and never again allow them to isolate us.
The Civil Rights Movement involved active training. There are still many silos. Can Indivisible, The Third Act, etc. work together? Many see enemies and use shame and blame which only increases the divide. I wish Smart Politics could train members of these groups. We need to see the humanity in everyone. I receive hope from the saying, “ The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.” Nelson Henderson A culture of being active to sustain our democracy and our natural environment is needed with the understanding that we not give up if we don’t get immediate results.
I recognize a lot of what is said here in my local community. But my local community is one rooted in liberal tradition and the culture is founded on the '60s tradition of community activism. I feel for people who are in places where such values aren't fundamental to the community's culture. In the last month or two, everything that was stated above has been happening in my community, and it is truly effective. For people who live in places without these aspects embedded in their culture, all I can say is it is important to realize that they actually work. Just getting together with like-minded people on a regular basis, physically together in a room, makes everything better.
We need a culture of resistance, but also, borrowing from Timothy Snyder's On Freedom, we have to talk about more than "resistance." We have to enact "freedom" in the fullest sense of the word. Freedom is about building community, as he describes. Because only by building community, supporting one another, speaking out when necessary, enacting good legislation and knowing the truth can we all, from little babies to the most elderly citizens, be truly free. I suggest that we all wear eagle pins or stickers, to symbolize this embrace of true freedom in all our actions. Whatever symbols we use, however - I do believe that our time is quite short - that the crucial action right now is to join whatever resistance group is in your community (or start one of your own), get to know fellow members well, and build membership through speaking out and holding public events. If we don't show a huge resistance in the next 50 days, Trump/Musk/Vought/Miller will keep on rolling over our rights in more aggressive ways. We also have to prepare, now, for the "Reichstag Fire" moment, and be ready to push back against it. We can do both - resist mightily in the short term, AND build towards true freedom in the long term.
I'd prefer a culture of assistance, not resistance, where cooperation and mutual support--community building--serves as a bridge between people and communities. Assistance speaks to unity, resistance perpetuates division. Opposition is still in play, but we simply move around the obstacle and make it irrelevant. Devolve and decentralize economic life with entrepreneurship and vibrant local/regional economies where everyone has an opportunity to live a dignified life. The giant feeding tubes of centralized monopolies like Amazon tgat suck the wealth from people znd communities can be replaced--we don't need permission@
Thank you! Keep writing. I’m sharing with my women’s support group of 8.
This is an exceptionally helpful piece! It helped me understand why I wasn’t drawn into current modes of resistance, and helped point to better methods.
Most helpful. Good looking out.Thanks
This culture of resistance is a great idea. I love the idea of circles of support for this moment we are in. In fact I had been looking online for such a thing and had found nothing.
At the end of the article you asked for ideas and I do have one that I am not sure how it would work out. I was thinking that making resistance fun may help. My idea was a fun run/walk for democracy where people dress in their best pro-democracy gear and then maybe proceeds go to support Ukraine or something like that. I find sometimes when dealing with tough moments like these, physical movement can be helpful at least for me to deal with all the energy from the emotions.
I really needed to read this. I’m already feeling the burn-out as I work on The Real Story—Part 3, the timeline for the Resistance Project 2026, and protesting every weekend. Your newsletter is spot on about the importance of building community and embracing the Arts. Thank you for the reminder—this is a marathon, not a sprint, and your perspective is exactly what I needed to hear right now.
I think you are exactly right to use the Civil Rights movement as the model for the Democracy movement. The movement's focus on training and developing resilience to the different forms of attack is especially important. We need to get past our unrealistic requirement for "safe spaces" and such, and face the reality that we now live in a difficult environment.
My only suggestion is that the element of hope needs to be coupled with vision. What is the world we are working towards. Resistance is useful for specific issues, but what consistently get's us up in the morning? You touch on it, but I think it needs to be more central to a movement.
It involves turning TOWARD each other, living and giving generously of our time… in our society, we have become very standoffish, isolated, motivated by “independence” rather than meaningful connection. Competitive, and status oriented. People confuse cliques with community. People need to be WARMER. KINDER.
We have lost how you be together. And how to have real conversations about important things. How to build TRUST.
To understand our relative isolation, we must recall that our normal social/community networks were torn asunder when the first Trump administration force mandated us to socially isolate in 2020. When they ordered us to close our churches, schools, every civic organization. Ostensibly to prevent us all from dying from a ruthless brutal virus. Now, in order to resist a ruthless brutal president, we need to rebuild those fractured social networks… and never again allow them to isolate us.
Thank you, Locke Peterseim, a lot to think about.