After reading the article “One Year Later,” one might draw the following conclusions:
1. “Resistance” to Trump’s policies is synonymous with support for the Democratic Party.
2. Indivisible is a nonpartisan organization that just happens to consist entirely of Democrats and whose focus is helping to elect Democratic candidates.
3. Protesting is a waste of time. The key to effective social change is electing Democrats.
4. The only issue about which the “Resistance” is deeply concerned is DACA.
5. The Dems and Indivisible are the only groups in Monterey County actively organizing against Trump’s policies (although – other than getting rid of DACA – there is no mention of what those policies are).
Back here on Planet Earth, however, there is a massive volume of empirical evidence and scholarly research indicating that sustained mass protests are absolutely essential to achieving social change.
See; https://cup.columbia.edu/book/why-civil-resistance-works/9780231156820
In the first few months after Trump’s election, there was a promising effort in this community to form a broad-based, diverse, inclusive, organized and unified local movement to resist Trump’s policies. This movement included Democrats and non-Democrats.
Local Democrats paid lip service to this idea, but almost immediately began sabotaging the effort.
They promoted Indivisible as a nonpartisan effort, when in fact it was nothing of the sort. (In other words, they lied.) They systematically excluded and marginalized perspectives which weren’t in line with theirs. They actively discouraged people from engaging in large public protests and actively discouraged Democrats from working with individuals and groups who aren’t loyal to the Democratic Party. They marginalized and excluded antiwar and left-wing (as distinct from liberal) viewpoints. They derailed, fractured and immobilized the budding movement and hijacked whatever energy remained, channeling it into cheerleading for the Democratic Party.
And, if you point that out, you’re being “divisive.”
Phillip Crawford
Monterey
