Civil Resistance

"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." ~ David Brooks

David Brooks wrote in the New York Times on April 17, 2025: What’s Happening Is Not Normal. America Needs an Uprising That Is Not Normal. He said:"A civic uprising has to have a short-term vision and a long-term vision. Short term: Stop Trump. Foil his efforts. Pile on the lawsuits. Turn some of his followers against him. The second is a long-term vision of a fairer society that is not just hard on Trump, but hard on the causes of Trumpism — one that offers a positive vision."

Brooks cited Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan's 2012 book: Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. which found that "campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts... Successful nonviolent resistance movements usher in more durable and internally peaceful democracies, which are less likely to regress into civil war."

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Listening to Timothy Snyder is an experience of being dazled by a creative genius and an intellect of the ilk of Ilia Delio. His April 1, 2025 lecture at the New York Public Library makes an argument about the state of our political world.

He makes the point that "if resistance and opposition is all tedium and repetition, then it won't happen!" - "As we are resisting, it cannot be just in the name of against, but in the name of for... we need to have a clear vision of what we are resisting for."

"The way that authoritarnism is progressing in America is pretty generic. This is not the first time it has happend in the world. It behoves American institutions to get advice from places like Ukraine, Poland and Slovenia where there has been progress and regress, but where there has also been progress in coming back."

Institutions need to work together or they will be picked off one by one. You break civilization by breaking one part of society at a time. You have to preemptively band together and you have to be prepared that "somebody is going to take a hit" and when that happens be prepared to help.

Realize that you never, ever persuade people in a one-off conversation. Try to find a way in the conversation for them to remember that you are a human being - that your concerns have to do with something normal, human, everyday.

#DavidBrooks #TimothySnyder #Resistance #Non-Violence