“It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power.”.

So wrote David Brooks, who’s no radical, in a oped article in the New York Times. 

“Peoples throughout history,” he goes on, “have done exactly this when confronted by an authoritarian assault. Drawing from the work of Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, Brooks goes on to write, “These movements used many different tools at their disposal — lawsuits, mass rallies, strikes, work slowdowns, boycotts and other forms of noncooperation and resistance.”  

“These movements,” he continues, “began small and built up. They developed clear messages that appealed to a variety of groups. They shifted the narrative so the authoritarians were no longer on permanent offense.” 

But Brooks, citing “Chenoweth and Stephan again, tells us that such movements require “one coordinating body that does the work of coalition building.”

Which brings me back to the present resistance movement. 

While massive and far flung, the present opposition to Trump and MAGA lacks, as I see it, a “coordinating body.” How to change that is a first class challenge and above my pay grade.

But I would offer two observations: first, it won’t happen without the participation and leadership of a broadly representative mix of organizations and leaders, not least from Black and Brown communities and the labor movement. And, second, a look at the the civil rights movement in the 1960s and the labor-liberal alliance in the 1930s would yield some insights in this regard. Given the challenges of those times, a complex of mass organizations in each instance acted as a “coordinating body” that moved millions into the matrix of the class and democratic struggles at a crucial historical juncture.

The success of the Mamdani campaign should be approached as a opportunity to do some fresh thinking on the part of Democrats, not a moment to circle the wagons, to seek shelter from the storm, to distance themselves from Mamdani. So far the jury is out.

As for Trump and the Republicans they will, without a doubt, respond in predictable ways to Mamdani’s electrifying campaign and victory, that is, cast Mamdani in the most negative light possible and make threats against him. Such cyncial, anti working class, and racist posturing on MAGA’s part is its stock and trade and should be vigorously rejected.

The place of broad left is in the organizations and coalitions that mobilized milllions for the NO Kings Day rallies. It is there that they will find the anti-MAGA coaliton in all its diversity as well as the political ground to deepen and widen the anti-MAGA protests. This doesn’t preclude its own independent initiatives, but they will take on life to the extent that they are an organic part of this mass, militant movement of millions and its organizations.

The overarching challenge of this moment is to further build a multi-class, popular people’s coalition to the point where it has the capacity to throw Trump and the MAGA movement on the defensive and ultimately decisively defeat this incubus of evil and American style fascism.

Such a turn of events and fortunes will take sustained initiatives and struggles on multiple levels. Crucial in this regard are the special gubernatorial elections this fall in New Jersey and Virginia, not to mention the elections in some major cities around the country. Their outcome will give us some measure (for better or worse) of where we stand in the overall struggle against Trump and MAGA.

Obviously, anti MAGA activists should engage in these struggles.

Sweeping negative characterizations of the Democratic Party that fail to take into account the diverse trends/groupings that exist under that tent as well as the overarching challenge of broad unity at this moment are not only analytically shortsighted, but also tactically wrongheaded insofar as they narrow down the potential and necessary opposition to Trumpism.