We Shall Not be Moved!

The Response to Authoritarianism is Nonviolent Resistance

by Gwen R.

Tear gas, flash-bang grenades, “less-lethal” munitions, and federal troops deployed on city streets here in our state. Heavily armed ICE agents dragging people off the streets while protesters try to intervene. Thousands of tanks and military vehicles arriving in Washington D.C. for Trump’s military parade on Saturday. 

This is a chaotic, frightening moment. Let’s keep our eye on the ball.

History is a good guide to what’s happening right now. Robert Reich reminds us that the authoritarian playbook involves manufacturing an emergency in order to justify clamping down on civil liberties to consolidate power. That is exactly what Trump is doing now — and it is almost certainly illegal and unconstitutional.

The brutal, terrorizing ICE raids were absolutely a provocation – in California, with our non-white majority; in Los Angeles, a city that is nearly 50% Latino. Thousands and thousands of Angelenos came out in nonviolent protest to stand up for their neighbors, colleagues, and friends. Predictably, some among them were less peaceful, but well within the capacity of containment by local law enforcement, according to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. And yet, for the first time since 1965, the National Guard was deployed by the federal government without the consent of the governor, with a mandate so broad that it has alarmed those in military circles, greatly escalating tensions and incidents of violence in the city. Governor Newsom called the deployment “purposefully inflammatory” and said, “We didn’t have a problem until Trump got involved.” 

Escalating matters further, Trump has now deployed Marines to Los Angeles — an act that Newsom described as “a blatant abuse of power” that his administration would sue to stop.

History also offers a good guide to what we must do now. Erica Chenoweth, one of the country’s foremost scholars on nonviolent civil resistance movements, has found that sustained, broad-based nonviolent resistance is twice as likely to be successful as violent resistance in creating lasting governmental change, even in authoritarian contexts. History professor Timothy Snyder spells out twenty lessons for fighting tyranny in his book On Tyranny. Particularly appropriate to this moment are lessons 13 (Practice corporeal politics), 18 (Be calm when the unthinkable arrives), and 20 (Be as courageous as you can).

In this moment of escalation, we do not back down. We show up in the streets, in our enormous numbers, with peace and with courage. Ezra Levin of Indivisible National wrote in today’s newsletter, “We know that courage is contagious. When the fascists crack down on small-scale nonviolent protest, we need large-scale nonviolent protest. That’s what works. Leaders, institutions, and people currently on the sideline need to know that the defense of democracy is inevitable, overwhelming, and irresistible. They need to see it with their own eyes.” Rebecca Solnit wrote in her Substack today, “Solidarity is our first duty and most profound rejection of [the Trump] agenda.”

So we will keep coming out, in solidarity with each other and with deep commitment to active nonviolence, even in the face of whatever provocation may emerge. Together, we will demonstrate the courage and commitment to liberty and justice to which our nation has always aspired.

Now, more than ever, this commitment is critical. Anti-ICE protests are expanding beyond Los Angeles — across the entire nation. And, of course, this Saturday is Indivisible’s No Kings mega-event — including IEB’s rally in Oakland.