America may need another revolution
Historians often say there have been two American revolutions. The first was against the British monarchy. The second was against Southern slavery. On my more pessimistic days, I think we may soon need a third, against Trumpian fascism. I wonder if my electoral turn in the 2010s was a mistake.
Change through the ballot box seemed possible then. On the economic front, self-declared socialist Bernie Sanders ran two robust campaigns in the Democratic presidential primaries. In terms of animal welfare, my political priority, legislative bans against fur and circuses were picking up steam.
All that potential progress is disappearing before my eyes. President Donald Trump and his fascist cronies are rapidly dismantling American democracy. The opposition party is nowhere to be seen. I try not to be too much of a doomer in my writing, because it’s demobilizing, but the situation is very bleak.
Recently, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer appeared on All In with Chris Hayes to explain his surrender to Trump on the Republican funding bill. It was infuriating appearance, as Schumer didn’t believe the chaos we’ve been experiencing has yet risen to the level of a constitutional crisis.
Further, the senator acted as if he were a passive observer of looming authoritarianism, and not a nominal leader of the anti-fascist coalition. Schumer didn’t seem to have any role in confronting Trump. If a constitutional crisis were to take place, he said, it would be up to the American people to rise against tyranny.
In the absence of a fighting Democratic Party, Schumer is correct. The American people would be the last line of defense. Perhaps we need to begin to plan accordingly, while not abandoning the political and legal arena. How, hypothetically, might we overthrow a dictatorial regime, which has dispensed with democratic niceties?
With elected leadership missing in action, I suppose it’s up to their progressive base to start thinking these things through. While the idea will surely be dismissed by many, since it doesn’t come from a prestigious source, I thought a Bluesky user called John Brown Stan Account put forward a simple and practical plan.
“If we could get 5% of the country to show up in DC and refuse to leave until this government falls, it will fall,” the Bluesky user wrote, before addressing a potential objection. “Even if the army [was] chock full of people eager to gun down unarmed American protesters, 17 million people is just way too many.”
John Brown Stan Account went on to argue you wouldn’t actually need 17 million people to topple an authoritarian regime. The same goal could be accomplished with 500,000 people, or even 50,000, if they were willing to take risks and show up unexpectedly. Perhaps there were lessons to be learned from the January 6 riots.
“One that everyone refuses to acknowledge is that a small number of dedicated people who are willing to coordinate and are in the right place at the right time can come very, very close to overthrowing a government,” the Bluesky user wrote. Of course, the January 6 rioters had the backing of President of the United States.
Still, the point is well taken. Another Bluesky user posted an infographic showing more than 60 million people live within a 300 mile radius of Washington, D.C. Again, hypothetically, I believe a determined, sustained movement of a sufficient size could topple a fascist regime. The entire Army National Guard has 325,000 troops.
The anti-fascist coalition has a wide variety of goals. For instance, I want to see a massive infusion of public funding into cultivated-meat research, which I view as the most promising means of advancing animal welfare. However, none of our aims can be achieved under a right-wing authoritarian state.
The Trump administration appears intent on cutting off avenues for democratic reform in the United States. They haven’t accomplished this yet. So long as electoral and legal means of change are available, we should use them. But maybe it’s time to start planning what to do if these are blocked.