Chris
05-12-2017, 11:32 AM
So how's that Resistance going?
The Path of Most Resistance (https://newrepublic.com/article/142425/path-resistance-promise-perils-democrats-fight-against-trump)
https://i.snag.gy/hPO1vB.jpg
The Resistance, as it’s come to be known, was born of anger and abandonment.
The anger began the day after the election. Donald Trump, rejected by a decisive majority of voters, had been declared the next president of the United States. Republicans controlled all three branches of the federal government, as well as 32 state legislatures and 33 governor’s mansions—their strongest lock on power in nearly a century. Liberalism had been dealt its most stunning and consequential defeat in American history.
But around sunset that evening, the protests began. In New York and Chicago, demonstrators stormed Trump’s buildings. In Los Angeles, they beat orange piñatas to a pulp and spray-painted anti-Trump obscenities on the Los Angeles Times building. In Oakland and Portland, fires and fights broke out; dozens were arrested on riot charges. In at least 50 cities and towns, protesters blocked traffic, burned Trump in effigy, and scuffled with his defenders. And night after night that first week, they just kept coming out. “We! Reject! The president-elect!” they chanted. In a display of partisan fury, they took their hashtag slogan—#Notmypresident—from the Tea Party’s racist campaign to discredit Barack Obama.
...The first 100 days of opposition to Trump could not have gone better if liberals had scripted them. Democrats desperately need a movement like the Resistance to shake things up and mobilize neglected constituencies and experiment with a variety of new approaches. But to harness the wrath and discontent that inevitably accompany such movements, the left must take stock of what has been accomplished so far, and where the pitfalls lie. Unless we find a mechanism to resolve the very real differences within the party and turn our initial success into coordinated action, the Resistance will prove as fleeting as Occupy Wall Street or the Rainbow Coalition. It is up to us, in short, to determine whether the Resistance will succeed where so many other uprisings have failed.
The Path of Most Resistance (https://newrepublic.com/article/142425/path-resistance-promise-perils-democrats-fight-against-trump)
https://i.snag.gy/hPO1vB.jpg
The Resistance, as it’s come to be known, was born of anger and abandonment.
The anger began the day after the election. Donald Trump, rejected by a decisive majority of voters, had been declared the next president of the United States. Republicans controlled all three branches of the federal government, as well as 32 state legislatures and 33 governor’s mansions—their strongest lock on power in nearly a century. Liberalism had been dealt its most stunning and consequential defeat in American history.
But around sunset that evening, the protests began. In New York and Chicago, demonstrators stormed Trump’s buildings. In Los Angeles, they beat orange piñatas to a pulp and spray-painted anti-Trump obscenities on the Los Angeles Times building. In Oakland and Portland, fires and fights broke out; dozens were arrested on riot charges. In at least 50 cities and towns, protesters blocked traffic, burned Trump in effigy, and scuffled with his defenders. And night after night that first week, they just kept coming out. “We! Reject! The president-elect!” they chanted. In a display of partisan fury, they took their hashtag slogan—#Notmypresident—from the Tea Party’s racist campaign to discredit Barack Obama.
...The first 100 days of opposition to Trump could not have gone better if liberals had scripted them. Democrats desperately need a movement like the Resistance to shake things up and mobilize neglected constituencies and experiment with a variety of new approaches. But to harness the wrath and discontent that inevitably accompany such movements, the left must take stock of what has been accomplished so far, and where the pitfalls lie. Unless we find a mechanism to resolve the very real differences within the party and turn our initial success into coordinated action, the Resistance will prove as fleeting as Occupy Wall Street or the Rainbow Coalition. It is up to us, in short, to determine whether the Resistance will succeed where so many other uprisings have failed.