More planning, less commentary

There are political and legal commentators who I read and learn from. Some, like Dahlia Lithwick of Slate and Anne Applebaum of the Atlantic, have written edifying, if absolutely alarming, pieces since November 5, 2024. But for the most part, commentary isn’t what we need now. We do need to keep track of planned and performed Republican Fascist maneuvers, at the federal level and in the states they control. We also need trusted expert information about the logistics of these. But then, what we most urgently need are people’s thoughts about how to confront these maneuvers.

For example, it is not much use commenting on the Christian nationalism, vaccine denialism, and sexual violence and predation of Trump’s proposed Cabinet secretaries. I strongly doubt such commentary will sway a single Republican Senator from voting to confirm any nominee backed by Trump. The question then becomes: what should Democratic Senators do? They are not going to change a single Republican’s vote on any issue, not in committee nor on the floor. The Republican Party is all in for cult of personality, criminality, and fascism. And right now they have all the power in the federal executive and legislative branches and much of it in the federal judiciary.

In the worst case scenario, Democrats and anybody else opposed to Republican Fascism and the criminal syndicate known as the Republican Party will simply have to refuse to participate in the federal government. If and when governments become completely dangerous to the life, liberty, and flourishing of the residents of their country, their states, or their municipalities, there is no point in participating in those government unless it is to subvert them from within. Any sort of “regular” participation only dangerously legitimates them.

While I think much of the federal executive branch will be in this worst case scenario come January, 2025, other branches won’t so immediately or obviously have reached that point. And some states and municipalities won’t be in the grips of Republican Fascist control. Foes of Republican Fascism who will occupy positions in government come 2025 need ideas about what to do. At the federal level, especially in the Congress, this isn’t going to involve proposing legislation or convincing Republicans not to advance the awful laws they will. Here are some of my ideas - and they are just that, ideas, subject to revision - about what Democratic members of Congress (and their staff) should do with their time come January:

1. Meticulously document every corrupt, anti-democratic, dangerous thing Republican members and their staffs do. Keep personal diaries in offline notebooks and store them. These records will have value in the future, to historians and to those who will need to know just who should be kept from government office or employment in a resurrected small-d constitutionally democratic federal government.
2. Concentrate on aiding their constituents, especially the ones who voted for them. Use whatever resources remain at your disposal as a U.S. Representative or Senator to directly and specifically identify constituents whose health can be improved and whose projects can be strengthened.
3. If your state government is, wholly or partly, controlled by Democrats, develop the closest possible working ties with all the elected Democrats there. Start meeting regularly with them. Find out what they are doing and steer as much money and other resources as you can directly to them. Democratic federal electeds and employees: your mission now is to support the states and municipalities that will attempting legitimate government in service to democratic justice and the public welfare.
4. Organize protest actions in the Capitol. Wherever possible use legislative procedure to disrupt operations and make it clear that this is protest. But also and more so, use sit-ins and other nonviolent measures that are not part of regular procedure. Start a newsletter detailing the civil disobedience and protest that will be occurring in states around the country, print and post it all over the building. Change all the restroom signs to all-gender ones. Hold vigils in the public areas and read out the names of those who the Trump government will be imperiling or killing. Make the Capitol a site and locus of obvious, daily protest.

I’ll keep posting ideas about what Democrats who hold government positions should do. I will also post about what we citizens and residents opposed to Republican Fascism should do. I will keep my eye out for and will share other ideas that seem workable and possibly effective at least in the long run. Ideas are the parents of plans and plans are the start of on-the-ground-operations. On-the-ground operations are the only way to the political and cultural transformations we in the U.S. must effect.