A smarter resistance strategy
Protests are fine. Hardcore politics are better.
Jeffrey Denny
Cheers to the April 8 “Hand’s Off” rally, the nationwide anti-Trump protest.
I live in Washington, DC, an epicenter of the rallies, and just a quick metro ride to the National Mall.
I also fear and loathe how Trump is hurting my fellow Americans, my city, our country, our rights, our democracy, and our economy, jobs, incomes, and nest eggs.
But I didn’t go to the rally.
Why not?
After 40 years in Washington, I’ve seen every major national protest for righteous causes come and go. I’ve worked for many of the causes throughout my career. All for naught, as Trump reversed everything the protests demanded before his first 100 days. Most of America shrugged.
I’m not cynical, defeated, or nihilist. I love if protests make people feel empowered and send a signal.
But Trump and his reich couldn’t care less about our marches, signs, slogans, costumes, and chants. Worse, the Trumpreich loves the protests — the bigger, the louder, the better. The angry sound and fury of grandmothers and children thrills the MAGAs and their media. It also feels a bit performative, like a ’60s Civil Rights reenactment.
If we really want to defeat Trump (cue ’80s Olivia Newton-John), Let’s Get Cynical:
1. Swarm Trump congressmen
Even if they cower from live Town Halls. They all have district offices, often in strip malls, that we taxpayers fund.
Bring local TV camera crews, or bring your own crew or phones. Demand to see the congressman. Don’t let “he’s not available” stop you — demand to know where and when he is. Take a page from Michael Moore’s “Roger & Me” and (politely, legally) stalk them at their lavish fundraisers. Stage a candlelight vigil outside their offices. TikTok the most outrageous footage, like the congressman fleeing his voters.
2. Engage local media
Swarm what’s left of local newspapers, radio, and TV stations that are dying financially and for juicy stories that boost viewership and ad sales. Like how their millionaire congressman is a Trump toady who’s selling out poor believers while getting richer shorting stocks. Make him explain how he’s not.
Tap our best and brightest Democratic PR and political firms, the ones enriching former White House aides or campaign staff with corporate clients, to ply their spin on small-market Fox and Sinclair affiliate TV news teams who feel stuck in Mudville. Carrot the mules by dangling lucrative network jobs in Washington or New York. They’ll sell out the heartland in a heartbeat.
3. Boost giving to nonprofits
Especially foreign aid, minority, women, LGBTQ+ and immigrant rights, free press, and other .orgs that help people Trump is hurting.
While the need has never been greater, the support hasn’t. “The small-dollar online spigot that powered opposition to the first Trump administration has slowed to a trickle as shaken liberal voters withhold their donations,” the New York Times reported in February.
It’s time to take our anxiety meds, open our PayPals, and put our money where our chants are.
4. Support seat-flipping Democratic hopefuls
Several GOP seats are already vulnerable in the 2026 midterms, Cook Political Report tallies, with more ahead as Trump voters feel the pain in the wallet from his inexplicable economic destruction.
Giving to the Democratic National Committee for its new “‘People’s Cabinet’ to Fiercely Counter Trump Administration Chaos and Lies” is fine for what it’s worth.
But like many Democrats, I’ve lost confidence in the national party and its bureaucracy, pandering to hothouse progressives and conceptual buzzwords (“fascist” “oligarch” “Constitutional crisis”) that stir few American hearts and minds beyond the Beltway and dwindling New York Times and New Yorker elite coastal subscribers.
I’m also a bit skeptical of our brilliant campaign consultants — the only Democratic winners in 2024 — who spent the historic $1 billion Kamala Harris raised. Then blamed her and Joe Biden for losing, à la, the customer is wrong.
The “People’s Cabinet” also loses me when it promises to “leverage a deep bench of qualified policy experts,” a sadly hilarious tone-deaf oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one. Aren’t those the same educated elites who lost America, to Trump no less, by being smarter than America yet clueless about America?
Better to heed the hoary adage that all politics is local (and think globally, act locally) by backing local Democrats, in every way possible, to flip the House to make Congress Congress again and challenge Trump.
5. Don’t fudge this up
The tide is turning for Democrats because even die-hard Trumpers are getting defensive with weird rationales as Walmart’s everyday low prices, thanks to imports, surge.
Yet Dems are notorious for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Being highly educated, we’re skilled at research-driven overthinking versus hearing and heeding common gut sense.
Being highly moralistic (while skeptical of organized religion), we love playing the liberal purity game (while secretly eyerolling the progressive excesses).
Putting what’s right over what works, progress over pragmatism, we’re gifted at turning lemons into sow’s ears.
To me, Democrats need a complete mindset reset if we ever want to take back America from Trump. Focus on one goal: To win. Win ugly if necessary. Lie, spin, troll, rig, spread hilarious conspiracy theories — it worked for Republicans; let’s steal their playbook like Southern coaches do. When the GOP goes low, let’s go lower if it wins.
Trump said his MAGAs are stupid. His media counts on it. How hard could it be to fool them?
Bottom line, my fellow Dems, as Golda Meir said, “Don’t be so humble, you’re not that great.”
