In the abject chaos of the aftermath of the 2024 election, there is one extremely stark contrast from 2016: The liberal response to the results. There were very few election night mass protests, if any. The events that went forward the day after were smaller than in 2016, and organized almost exclusively by left-wing groups. For now, the mass liberal revolt against Trump appears to be a thing of the past.
The fact that Trump’s victory was decisive, with mass rightward shifts across all regions including blue-state metropolitan areas, might be one factor. You can claim that 2016 was an aberration. But to be honest in looking at 2024, you have to be honest that Trump is popular and voters overwhelmingly chose him. This fact exists alongside the successes of socialist candidates and left policies, including multiple ballot initiatives that protected abortion access in red states.
Across social media, I’m seeing many well-meaning liberals and progressives state their desire to become “internal émigrés,” a term for a person living under a repressive government who chooses to disconnect from politics altogether. Many Americans have already chosen to “check out,” to focus on themselves and their families. There is little interest in #resisting this time around. People got what they wanted and they deserve what they’re going to get.
This, frankly, is an unacceptable attitude that will get people killed.
People simply do not have the luxury of checking out right now. Trump is promising mass deportations on Day 1 of his second term. Biden is refusing to use the expansive new powers granted him by our rogue Supreme Court to commit “official” acts as President to delay and complicate the transfer of power. You cannot claim your opponent is a fascist and then send a congratulatory call and aid and abet his transition. This means that Biden either doesn’t believe Trump is a fascist or he thinks fascism is good and normal. Every guardrail is broken. Everything is up to us.
Trans people scrambling to figure out HRT access during a Trump administration do not have the luxury of “checking out.” Working parents with trans children desperately trying to make the math work on a sudden move to a sanctuary state don’t have the luxury of “checking out.”
Immigrants of all statuses do not have the luxury of “checking out”. Yes, that includes the ones who voted for Trump who are going to be targeted by his policies.
Teenage girls subjected to pro-rape taunts from right-wing Gen Z boys do not have the luxury of “checking out.”
Palestinians across the world do not have the luxury of “checking out.”
Parents with disabled students who rely on the IDEA Act do not have the luxury of “checking out.”
“Authoritarian regimes rely heavily on
self censorship and popular demobilization
to exercise control over society.“
Anyone engaging in public-facing left organizing does not have the luxury of “checking out.” Because guess what, folks? We’re targets, too. Take Trump’s threats to go after political enemies seriously.
It is important to prevent burnout, know your boundaries, and be selective in what battles you choose to fight in order to preserve yourself. But that is profoundly different than retreating to false pastoralism because it finally dawned on you that right wing politics has mass appeal. I saw this attitude firsthand growing up in a conservative town during the Bush years. Instead of retreating into apathy, I used that experience to change minds and dedicate my life to fighting for people I don’t know.
Authoritarian regimes rely heavily on self-censorship and popular demobilization to exercise control over society. One person is easy to single out for harassment, arrest, or worse. Such tactics are logistically impossible to use against a million people standing together. The far right wants us to cede the political sphere to them. Conscious disengagement from struggle to preserve oneself is a gift to the fascists. Uniting to protect one another, to defend our democracy, and ultimately to win the world we deserve is the only way forward.
The answer to this crisis isn’t unilateral disarmament. The answer is organizing together to throw every bit of sand into the gears to keep as many people safe as possible. It means having very awkward water cooler conversations with your coworkers who aren’t convinced that Trump will do all the bad things he says he’ll do. It means telling your daughters and nieces that they should beat up any boy that taunts them – and having their back when they face punishment for doing so. It means not throwing trans people under the bus in order to score midterm victories. It means mass meetings and making phone calls and writing postcards and thinking seriously about the fights we pick at the ballot box–and organizing to win those fights. It means meetings with legislators and making demands. It means sharing Know Your Rights information around ICE and CBP. It means all of the unglamorous and tedious work that goes into resisting fascism.
And above all, it means doing this without flinching and apologizing for our politics. Now is not the time to rationalize anti-trans rhetoric as legitimate concern about equity in school sports. Nor is it the time to be border hawks. If immigration and trans rights are unpopular, our task is to make them popular through constant education and agitation.
In 2004, a number of gay men and women made the case for marriage equality on Fox News and in conservative media. While this strategy involved a great deal of respectability politics, it worked. People understood that gay people were in fact just like them, and people explaining in plain language about all the ways not having access to marriage impacted their daily lives to mass audiences did in fact move the needle and built popular support for marriage equality. There has not been any recent attempt to publicly identify asylum seekers, immigrants, or trans people as people simply seeking dignified lives without government scrutiny in the US. And the liberal “resistance” movement has zero interest in doing so. Likewise, when Hurricane Katrina destroyed the Gulf Coast there was no gloating that residents “got what they voted for”. There was mass outrage and efforts to save lives and fight a deliberately incompetent FEMA. Both of these examples, from Bush’s second term, show that mass action and constant agitprop do force change in a politically hostile environment.
This time around, the organizations I see immediately moving to host mass meetings, rallies, skillshares, and logistical planning events are all socialist or firmly to the left of the Democratic Party. It will be up to us to lead the resistance, to absorb both the disaffected people who did not vote (mainly in “safe” blue and red states), and the people who do want to polish off their knitted beanies and get back to work. The path ahead starts with fighting a return to isolation and a mentality of “protecting me and mine.” And it starts now.
