Hi Max,

Congratulations again on the run. I have a number of observations below. Most were provoked by your latest column, “A Path to Pushing MAGA out of Power.” 

I should begin though by saying that your analysis was well presented and argued. I hope it gets widely read. Sure is needed, given the steady march of MAGA toward dictatorial rule. 

I would have sent you a response sooner, but I was away for two weeks. Part of the time in Maine visiting old friends and the rest in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where I met many Canadians who are unhappy with Trump. 

Below are a few thoughts.

1. I’m not telling anything you don’t know, but the assault on immigrants is only going to get worse. Trump seldom retreats. He doubles down in most instances, even in the face of declining support for his policies. And then there’s Stephen Miller, the mad executioner of this diabolical scheme to drive those policies. Moreover, Congress, thanks to the Republican majority, passed a bill that appropriates $170 billion to ICE, more money than it can likely spend.

If there is one thing that the Trump administration is doing that smells like fascism, it is this massive, illegal, and inhumane roundup, incarceration, and deportation (to who knows where) of immigrants and the breakup of their families. Thus it needs to be, in my view, at the top of the anti-MAGA agenda.

One final thought: it is hard not to wonder if the script/mission of this masked ICE gang might expand as the confrontation between MAGA and anti-MAGA grows in scope and intensity. It doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to see ICE agents, like brownshirts in Nazi Germany, running roughshod over any opponents  — and there are many — of Trump’s agenda. Needless to say, such a possibility would present a first class challenge to the entire anti-MAGA movement. 

2. The growing activity of the working class and labor movement shouldn’t obviate the imperative of strategic alliances between labor and communities of color. And yet, too many articles authored by writers in the left and progressive camp, not to mention too many organizers of mass actions against Trump, give little attention to this ABC of politics and political organizing. Politics in the view of many of them, is all about economic populism. 

As you well know (and have written on numerous occasions) if we hope to successfully contest MAGA (as well as envision a place in which we want to land down the road), this underappreciated requirement of defeating MAGA must be lifted up.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m for a “class/class struggle approach” but to be viable it has to avoid the trap of “workerism.”

Nor can it avoid the disturbing fact that a substantial number of white workers, including in the trade union movement, and especially the industrial unions, are attracted to Trump and MAGA. If this were happening on the edges of the working class it would be one thing, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.

One other observation: I find the call for a general strike at the time of the contract negotiations in 2028 can easily become a distraction/diversion from addressing the failure of labor to act more aggressively and substantively in the here and now. 

3. In my view, Trump’s vendetta against Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen, and other celebrities aren’t distractions from MAGA’s overall drive toward dictatorship, but serve a political purpose for Trump and Trumpists. What seems to any rational person idiotic and counterproductive on its face, that is, attacking popular global artistic icons, is red meat to Trump’s base. It is part, I would argue, of the larger tapestry in which “cultural grievances” figure at the center of Trump and MAGA’s ideological/political mobilization of their supporters.

4. What strikes me about Trump is his conceit that he is the smartest person in the room and possesses the power to shape domestic and world events in whatever way he desires. To him the world is his oyster. Moreover, Trump believes that when he speaks, “everybody listens” and then modifies their behavior accordingly. 

But, as we know, this isn’t the case. Few countries have bent to his tariff demands. Putin, who has a massive military industrial complex at his command, ignores his peace overtures, while the EU and BRIC countries are elaborating their own independent political and economic strategy. China warily watches from a distance and continues its national development project and its Belt and Road Initiative. Even the courts don’t always cooperate with him. And, despite his claims, it is becoming clear to millions that there is no Golden Age around the corner. 

Nevertheless, Trump continues to believe that he is the maestro of the world. Such a mindset, to say the obvious, is exceedingly harmful and dangerous.

5. I agree that a range of actions – legal challenges, boycotts, civil disobedience, etc. – are absolutely necessary in the struggle against MAGA, but it seems to me that we have to lift up coordinated mass actions that reach scale and happen  with greater frequency. Such actions in addition to leaving an impact on larger political processes, lift, like nothing else, people’s spirits and confidence in our/their struggle. And that is crucial.

It’s obviously too late for mass actions on the anniversary of the 1963 Civil Rights March, but that would have been an important occasion to organize multi-racial marches against Trumpism. We miss Jesse Jackson at this moment.

6. I would include climate justice and a Green New Deal to the programmatic demands for “racial and gender justice, proworking class economic reform, and an end to forever wars.”  

7. I like the concept and practice of “co-governance.” If that practice had been embraced during the Biden presidency, more could have likely been won legislatively. Instead, the broad left and progressive movement after electing Biden and securing a Democratic controlled Congress, albeit narrowly in the Senate, were for the most part observers of the legislative process. More critics than active partisans and co-governors of Build Back Better as well as other legislation. 

As far as I know, neither in Washington nor across the country were there any major mobilizations for BBB. No massive descent on Washington. Or state capitals. Or major cities and towns. I’m sure that the network of progressive organizations inside the Beltway lobbied for BBB, but that’s co-governance lite at best. 

As a result, neither Biden nor Congress felt any popular pressure (or support) from the co-governor — people and people’s organizations across the country — to pass BBB, thus guaranteeing that the bill would be stripped of many of its best features.

Or to put it differently, without co-governance, an increasingly frail president, hunkered down in the White House and faced with two recalcitrant Democratic Senators, predictably reverted to horse trading, and we know what the outcome of that was. 

In addition to a stripped down bill, the ground was also laid for Kamala Harris’ losing presidential run. Imagine if Kamala had been able to run as one of the architects of a robust BBB. The outcome of the elections could well have been different.

Such happens when co-governance, as I understand it, isn’t a practical part of the DNA of the progressive movement.  

8. We need a more nuanced, textured view/appraisal of the Democratic Party and the various currents within it, especially at this moment when maximum unity against MAGA is necessary. 

The notion of a corporate dominated or controlled Democratic Party unless qualified occludes what in my mind is the most significant development in the Party: a center of gravity that leans in a liberal-progressive-left direction. 

Otherwise, political-legislative-electoral passivity can easily become the operating principle of a section of the anti-MAGA coalition.

9. The critical nature of the elections next year can’t be overstated. But I don’t know if everybody on our side of the divide shares that point of view. Most see the importance of electing a Democratic Party majority to Congress in 2026, but it isn’t necessarily at the top of their to-do list. Even if only the House turns Democratic, it would still be a repudiation of Trump, lift the spirits of the anti-MAGA coalition, and give Democrats blocking leverage that they don’t have now to contest Trump and MAGA.

10. Some unraveling of the MAGA movement seems to be taking place. That process is largely something that is beyond the control of the anti-MAGA coalition. Nevertheless its significance can’t be overstated. Up to now the cracks in the MAGA movement have been few, making our struggle all the more difficult. 

11. David Brooks of all people writes in the NYT:

“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.”.

“Peoples throughout history,” he goes on to write, “have done exactly this when confronted by an authoritarian assault.”

“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.” 

Drawing from the work of Erica Chenoweth and Zoe Marks, he tells us that such movements require “one coordinating body that does the work of coalition building.”

Which brings me 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.” Neither the Democratic Party nor the labor movement nor the African American community have filled that vacuum and show no inclination to do so. How to change this 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. 

Second, a look at the civil rights movement in the 1960s and the labor-liberal alliance in the 1930s would yield some insights in this regard. In each instance, a “coordinating body” that moved millions into the matrix of the class and democratic struggles at crucial historical junctures took shape.

12. The place of left and progressive people is in the organizations and coalitions that mobilized millions for the NO Kings Day rallies. It is there that they will find the anti-MAGA coalition as well as the political wherewithal to further deepen the anti-MAGA coalition and defeat Trump and MAGA. It is also a place to further build the broad left.

This doesn’t preclude the left’’s own independent political formations and initiatives. Quite the opposite. But it does underscore that left formations will take on life, gain in strength, and find a more resonant voice to the extent that it is engaged with this emerging mass, militant coalition of millions and its organizations. 

13. The fielding of a left-progressive presidential candidate in the Democratic primary, I agree, has a lot of merit. AOC would certainly generate enthusiasm and energy. Her politics are great — analytically, strategically, and tactically. More so, I believe, than Bernie’s. I suspect though she won’t be the only candidate in the primary field that moves in a progressive direction. 

14. I like the concept of a Third Reconstruction. As I understand it, today’s challenge isn’t only to alter class relations, decisive as they are, but also to complete the unfinished democratic tasks of the past and present, while crushing the ascendant white neoconfederate state and nation. To ignore the latter — unfinished democratic tasks — history reminds us will derail the former — class struggle politics.  As Marx wrote (if memory serves me), “Labor in the white skin will never be free as long as labor in the black skin is branded.”

Finally, if we aren’t a full blown fascist state, it feels like we are somewhere beyond a deconsolidated democracy. As encouraging as the resistance is, it still has to catch up with the pace of MAGA’s push/rush toward fascism.