KEY ARTICLES AND VIDEOS - START HERE

• 10 ways to be prepared and grounded now that Trump has won, Daniel Hunter, Nov. 6 2024.
  This is the #1 article that I (Bruce) recommend reading first. Section 5, "Find your path", is particularly useful because it makes clear that there are multiple roles needed for resistance - almost everybody can find at least one that works well for your personality! Daniel Hunter is a seasoned nonviolence trainer and the author of Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow. 

• Swept Into the Flood: What history tells us about what comes next, and what to do about it, Andrea Pitzer, Nov. 9, 2024
  Andrea Pitzer is a research journalist and the author of One Long Night, the first comprehensive history of concentration camps. Informed by history, she suggests that the incoming administration will viciously attack these three key groups: undocumented immigrants, the transgender community, and pregnant women in need of medical care. The article is filled with helpful insights and advice.

• On Tyranny, Youtube series by Yale history professor Timothy Snyder, based on his book.
  "A bracing guide for surviving and resisting America’s turn towards authoritarianism".
  Rule #1 is the most important: "Do not obey in advance".

• "Bringing Down a Dictator", 56-minute documentary film with study guide, York Zimmerman, 2001.
  "A priceless history lesson… succeeds most intriguingly as a how-to manual for revolution via civil disobedience."
  - Entertainment Weekly

Topic: how to resist and take down autocracies

• "How we can meet the challenges of authoritarianism", Maria Stephan, Waging Nonviolence, Nov. 13 2024.
  "... autocrats are always weaker than they appear, and we are often stronger than we might think. While authoritarian leaders... seem to be in complete control, they rarely are. Their kryptonite is a reliance on the active and passive support of ordinary people throughout society, who provide them with the resources and other sources of power they depend on to get things done. Power can be given, and power can be taken away."

• "Be Disruptive! What queer history tells us about confronting Trump", Michael Bronski, The Guardian, Nov. 29 2024
  "Direct action and confrontation works. Queer citizens have to be out and vocal. We can’t afford to worry about being “respectable” or “playing nice”. Educating other Americans about who we really are is vital."

• "Authoritarianism is making a comeback. Here's the time-tested way to defeat it", Maria Stephan and Timothy Snyder, The Guardian, June 20 2017.
  "Tyrants’ tactics require the consent of large numbers of people. The first lesson, then, is not to obey in advance."

• "The Fall of Bolsonaro: How Brazil's Civil Society Mobilized to Protect Democracy", Anti-Authoritarian Playbook, Scot Nakagawa, Nov. 14, 2024

• "A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict", six-part case study documentary (total 180 minutes), York Zimmerman, 2000.
  "A Force More Powerful is a documentary series on one of the 20th century’s most important and least-known stories: how nonviolent power overcame oppression and authoritarian rule."

• On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown Books, 2017
  "On Tyranny is a call to arms and a guide to resistance, with invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come."

• From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation, 4th edition, Gene Sharp, The New Press, 2012.
  Free online PDF version available - see the link.
  "From Dictatorship to Democracy” is a serious introduction to the use of nonviolent action to topple dictatorships. Based on over forty years of study by Dr. Gene Sharp."

• Blueprint for Revolution: How to use rice pudding, lego men, and other nonviolent techniques to galvanize communities, overthrow dictators, or simply change the world, Srdja Popovic, Spiegel & Grau paperback, 2015
  The author, Srdja Popovic, is one of the key architects and leaders of  the Otpor! movement which removed Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic from power. 

• "On the need for movements to avoid secrecy and fear", summary extracts from Gene Sharp, assembled Nov. 2024
  -- "Fear interferes with or destroys the operation of most of the processes of change upon which nonviolent action depends..."
  -- Sharp quoting nonviolence expert George Lakey: "[Secrecy] results in inefficiency because you have to cover up much that you do from your own members, authoritarianism because you cannot tell your members what is going on, and mistrust... You should try to plan tactics... which do not depend on secrecy for their value.”"

Topic: what will happen under the second Trump administration

• "What Happens Next: The administrative state under a second Trump term", Don Moynihan, Nov. 7, 2024
  "... coercive power will be deployed on the streets of America. This includes the DHS targeting immigrants, with massive round-ups and camps, supplemented with support from National Guard and local police (at least in red states). If people protest, Trump will be ready to deploy the military to subdue dissent."

• Concentration camps on the way: "Incoming Trump admin is eyeing new immigrant detention centers near major U.S. cities", Julia Ainsley, Laura Strickler and Didi Martinez, NBC News, Nov. 12, 2024.

• Weaponization of the Department of Justice to attack Trump's political enemies: "DOJ and FBI officials reach out to lawyers as potential Trump revenge prosecutions loom", David Rohde and Ken Dilanian, Nov. 17, 2024.

Topic: how to prepare prior to January 20, 2025

• "What to Do Before the Trump Administration Takes Office in January", Brittney McNamara, Teen Vogue, Nov. 14, 2024

• "The Truth", Sherrilyn Ifill, Nov. 15, 2024
  Sherrilyn Ifill is the former president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
  "I have faced the fact that we will not be able to move much forward in the next few years. In fact, I expect things to become so dire over the next two years, that we will scarcely recognize the country we live in. I expect that fear and cruelty will become part of our daily diet."

Topic: local and regional resistance actions

• "LAUSD poised to declare immigrant sanctuary, affirm LGBTQ+ rights as it braces for Trump", Howard Blume, Nov. 18 2024
  "...the Los Angeles school board is moving quickly to reaffirm the nation’s second-largest school system as a sanctuary for immigrants and the LGBTQ+ community"

Training decks

• "Skill-based training modules for Trump era", Daniel Hunter and HOPE-PV. A series of six slide decks, each of which guides a 2-hour training class on a particular topic. See the bottom of the page for the training decks.
  The topics are:
  - "Strategic escalation in the Trump era"
  - "Sense-making and vision: How did we get here?"
  - "Action security and de-escalation"
  - "How to talk with people you might disagree with"
  - "Mutual aid 101"
  - "Harnassing our power to end political violence" (by HOPE-PV, not by Daniel Hunter)

Guidebooks

• "Indivisible: A Practical Guide to Democracy on the Brink: Strategies, tactics & tips for how everyday Americans can fight back together wherever we live", Indivisible, November 2024. 27 pages.
  This is the new, completely revised resistance and local-group creation guide from Indivisible, the national organization that formed immediately after the first Trump election in 2016.
  CAVEAT: Indivisible's theory of change is not based on civil resistance / nonviolent resistance, but rather is based on a traditional, color-within-the-lines approach of petitioning existing powerholders to vote in a certain way. Indivisible's model for how to get rid of a toxic powerholder is to vote that person out of office, whereas strategic nonviolence theory teaches that you can force toxic powerholders out of office if a mass movement refuses to obey them and also undercuts their pillars of institutional support. While Indivisible's ask-your-elected-officials-nicely approach will likely need to be part of our resistance strategy for 2025 and beyond, in my (Bruce's) opinion it won't be sufficient.

Websites and newsletters

• Timothy Snyder newsletter: "Thinking about..."
  Timothy Snyder is a historian specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust.

• Ruth Ben-Ghiat newsletter: "Lucid"
  Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a historian of authoritarians, propaganda, democracy protection.

• Scot Nakagawa newsletter, "The Anti-Authoritarian Playbook"
  Scot is co-founder and Co-Director of the 22nd Century Initiative (22CI), a national strategy and action center that is building a movement to resist authoritarianism.

• Margaret Sullivan newsletter, "The American Crisis"
  Margaret Sullivan is a pro-democracy media critic and the former public editor of the New York Times

• Waging Nonviolence, website: wagingnonviolence.org
  "a nonprofit media organization dedicated to providing original reporting and expert analysis of social movements around the world."

• International Center for Nonviolent Conflict, website: www.nonviolent-conflict.org
  "ICNC focuses on how ordinary people wage nonviolent conflict to win rights, freedom and justice."

Background and academic reading

• Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know, Erica Chenoweth, Oxford University Press, 2021
  "Full of practical lessons and inspiring examples from countries worldwide, Chenoweth’s book is the closest thing we in the US have to a how-to guide for defanging Trumpism" - Deepak Bhargava and Harry Hanbury

• Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination, Walter Wink, Fortress Press, 1992.
  One of the most important Christian theology books of the 20th century, Engaging the Powers "provides an intellectual, historical, and scriptural basis for the truth of Christian nonviolence." (Mairead Maguire)  This is a seminary-level text that assumes some familiarity with the Bible. This is a foundational principles book, not a book that will teach you how to develop nonviolent campaigns.

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A brief selection of "Why Harris Lost" articles

• Framing and media analysis: "Some Lessons of the 2024 Election", George Lakoff and Gil Duran, Nov. 15, 2024
  "In 2024, Kamala Harris tried to move to the right to find the mythical “center.” It didn’t work. Moving to the right doesn't get you to the center – because there is no center. When a Democratic politician moves to "the right" during an election, it erodes their authenticity."

• Economic suffering analysis part 1: "A Couple Charts to Explain a Harris Loss", Stephen Semler, Nov. 6.
  "[Harris'] economic platform was breathtakingly unambitious. And she refused to differentiate herself in any meaningful way from Biden, who people resented for his real or imagined role in causing the cost of living crisis, and his near-total refusal to even acknowledge it. "

• Economic suffering part 2: "The Economy is Fine" (by which he means it's not fine), Stephen Semler, Nov. 7, 2024
  "...the expiration of the [American Rescue Plan's] suite of welfare provisions left a sizable chunk of the US population with little to no recourse during a historic bout of inflation. Key social programs and worker protections were taken away as the cost of nearly everything spiraled upwards, resulting in widespread suffering. No wonder so many voters were livid."

• Economic suffering part 3: "Wall Street Celebrates a Coming Trump Merger Boom", Matt Stoller, Nov. 7, 2024
  "Basically, voters said they distrust Democrats. And they are correct. Wages dropped in 2022-2023, food prices increased at historically large rates, borrowing costs jumped, large swaths of the safety net were cut, and none of these were reflected in the inflation statistics that economists use to judge how the economy is."

• COVID followed by economic suffering: "How COVID Helped Trump Win", Julia Doubleday and Walter Bragman, Nov. 15, 2024
  "The Biden Administration’s approach to COVID was a vaccine-first, vaccine-only pursuit of herd immunity. When herd immunity was not achieved via vaccine, Biden’s administration proceeded, full steam ahead, with their plans to dismantle every pandemic era protection that existed to assist people during the crisis. As people lost healthcare, they also got sicker... As unemployment and student loan programs ran dry, millions of people began experiencing new long-term health problems... As disability numbers continued to climb, so did homelessness, which hit a record high in 2023."

• Social media disinformation at scale: "The Phantom Campaign", Tim Snyder, Nov. 17, 2024
  "This time the oligarch was Elon Musk, and this time the demotivational messages were deceptive to an even higher degree: they were presented as Harris campaign ads... To some audiences, Harris was presented as too pro-Israel, to others as too pro-Palestinian. The degree of precision was extraordinary: white men in the Midwest were told that Harris was going to take away their Zyn nicotine pouches, whereas Black people in North Carolina were told that she was coming for their menthol cigarettes. This was achieved by the familiar phantom combination: oligarchical money + psychographic information about individuals + social media delivery system + demotivational message."

This page: last update Nov. 29, 2024