{"id":30511,"date":"2023-12-09T13:14:51","date_gmt":"2023-12-09T21:14:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=30511"},"modified":"2023-12-09T13:14:52","modified_gmt":"2023-12-09T21:14:52","slug":"we-know-that-wannabe-dictator-trump-can-win-in-2024-so-what-is-to-be-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/12\/09\/we-know-that-wannabe-dictator-trump-can-win-in-2024-so-what-is-to-be-done\/","title":{"rendered":"We Know That Wannabe Dictator Trump Can Win in 2024\u2014So What Is to Be Done?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Trump\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in support of Republicans Doug Mastriano for governor of Pennsylvania and Mehmet Oz for U.S. Senate at Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre on September 3, 2022. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Photo: Ed Jones\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With only 11 months to go, this feels like the political crisis of our lifetimes. Where is the resistance we need?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

WILL BUNCH<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dec 06, 2023The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/a> (CommonDreams.org)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I finally put up my Christmas lights on Saturday, in a T-shirt with no jacket on a warm December afternoon \u2014 a fitting finale to Earth\u2019s hottest year on record<\/a>. Meanwhile, the world\u2019s life-or-death climate summit is presided over by an oil dictator who insists there is \u201cno science<\/a>\u201d to support phasing out fossil fuels. For those who wonder if humankind is taking global warming seriously, the joke of holding COP28 in the United Arab Emirates is your answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearly seven years later, it\u2019s easy to forget how remarkable<\/strong>the first Women\u2019s March<\/a> that occurred on Jan. 21, 2017, truly was. The most incredible thing was the size of the protest that occurred on the first full day of Donald Trump\u2019s presidency. It\u2019s believed that at least 470,000 people<\/a> attended the main event in Washington, D.C., but satellite protests across the United States and globally drew an estimated 5 million, likely the largest one-day event in American history<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That success resonated for the next four years, as thousands went back to their hometowns and organized political groups that loosely were hailed as \u201cthe Trump resistance<\/a>\u201d \u2014 not only staging local protest events but ultimately knocking on doors<\/a> and sending out postcards by the millions as Democrats reclaimed the House in 2018 and the White House and Senate in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there\u2019s also something else worth remembering about that initial Woman\u2019s March and the early days of those resisters. Their movement was born <\/a>in the early morning darkness and frustration of Nov. 9, 2016, amid the shock realization that a dangerous demagogue had somehow been elected the 45th president of the United States. The rage that flowered on a chilly January day in a field of pink \u201c(p-word) hats<\/a>\u201d was in part regret that more had not been done to stop Trump before the election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Trump is back, and no one calls him a demagogue anymore \u2014 because that\u2019s too polite. The 47th presidency he envisions is tyrannical, even dictatorial<\/a> \u2014 siccing zealous MAGA prosecutors on his political enemies<\/a> and the media, pardoning<\/a> 2021\u2032s insurrectionists, mass detention camps <\/a>for deporting migrants, and calling out troops<\/a> to put down protests, perhaps as early as his Inauguration Day. And yet he is all but guaranteed the GOP nomination, and an even-money bet against President Joe Biden next fall. Even a normally cautious mainstream media is starting to get it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy a Second Trump Presidency May Be More Radical Than His First,\u201d blared Monday\u2019s headline<\/a> across the New York Times homepage, describing how Team Trump has learned from the failures of its leader\u2019s more outlandish ideas in 2017-21. A super-long Washington Post essay<\/a> from neocon scholar Robert Kagan \u2014 \u201cA Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending.\u201d \u2014 was that paper\u2019s most-read article. Not to be outdone, The Atlantic dropped a special issue<\/a> with 24 separate stories about the dangers of a Trump 47.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s great journalism, but will it make any more difference in 2024 than the supposedly fatalAccess Hollywood<\/em> tape<\/a> did in 2016? What about the millions of casual voters who don\u2019t know The Atlantic from Popular Mechanics, who\u2019ve convinced themselves<\/a> that America was better during Trump\u2019s somewhat constrained first term than under Biden in a moment of global chaos?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even more to the point: Where is \u201cthe Trump resistance,\u201d now that we know how truly dangerous the man is \u2014 and that he can win again?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Few will argue that some groups have faded and some disappeared after the Democrats\u2019 2020 victories. Here in Philadelphia, for example, Tuesdays with Toomey<\/a> is gone, its mission of flipping a Pennsylvania Senate seat accomplished. The American University sociologist Dana Fisher \u2014 author of 2019\u2032s American Resistance: From the Women\u2019s March to the Blue Wave<\/em><\/a>\u2014 told me \u201cI have been tracking many of the groups and some are shells of what they were\u201d \u2014 such as the Women\u2019s March organization \u2014 \u201cand others are limping along trying to keep funding.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But some groups are still going strong, three years after Trump left the White House. Vicki Miller, the group leader of Indivisible Philadelphia<\/a>, told me her members still chat regularly on Zoom. Although there is the occasional protest \u2014 including a boisterous street-corner condemnation on the Jan. 6 insurrection anniversary \u2014 the focus is heavily on voter turnout, including postcards and phone banking around last month\u2019s Pennsylvania Supreme Court race won by Democrats<\/a>, as well as lobbying the state\u2019s U.S. senators. Miller said members still sign up for Door 35, a pledge to knock on at least 35 neighbors\u2019 doors to woo undecided voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s sad,\u201d Miller said of those early polls showing Trump tied or narrowly ahead, but she was quick to add, \u201cit doesn\u2019t change what we are doing, which is working our tails off to get Joe Biden and Senator [Bob] Casey elected.\u201d She also believes talking to voters about the things that affect them personally, like reproductive rights or, if done the right way, the economy, is most important \u2014 more so than hyping the Trumpian threat to democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe. But with only 11 months to go, this feels like the political crisis of our lifetimes, and I can\u2019t stop wondering if there is more to be done before Election Day. Voter turnout is indeed the most critical, but should there be protests or maybe teach-ins to raise awareness for that true sliver of undecideds? Should there be boycotts of companies whose CEOs support Trump (also known as the Yuengling spit-take<\/a>)?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I write this on Monday night, \u201cdictator<\/a>\u201d is a trending topic on X\/Twitter. It could be trending nightly if the too-silent majority of Americans who believe in democracy don\u2019t take a more forceful stand. The moment for resisting Trump is right now, not waiting until Jan. 21, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a9 2023 Philadelphia Inquirer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WILL BUNCH<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will Bunch is the national columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer — with some strong opinions about what’s happening in America around social injustice, income inequality and the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Bio ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in support of Republicans Doug Mastriano for governor of Pennsylvania and Mehmet Oz for U.S. Senate at Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre on September 3, 2022.  (Photo: Ed Jones\/AFP via Getty Images) With only 11 months to go, this feels… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1584],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30511"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30511"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30512,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30511\/revisions\/30512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}