“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 challenge and above my pay grade. But I would offer this observation: 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.