XPost: alt.tv.pol-incorrect, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.democrats   
   XPost: alt.politics.trump, alt.politics.usa   
   From: weberm@polaris.net   
      
   John Doe wrote:   
   >On 10/30/2024 7:05 PM, Ubiquitous wrote:   
      
   >> By now America is well versed in the predictions of the political right’s   
   >> potential response should Donald Trump lose on Nov. 5: Anxiety boils about   
   >> another stop-the-steal effort to contest the outcome.   
   >>   
   >> Far less scrutinized: How might the left reckon with a Kamala Harris defeat?   
   >> How would the Democrats handle a result that many have for months proclaimed   
   >> is an existential threat to democracy itself?   
   >>   
   >> As polls narrow, some Democratic stalwarts are trying to temper the sense of   
   >> despair and the occasionally apocalyptic forecasts sweeping through their   
   >> party. Jim Hannon, a psychotherapist and seasoned liberal organizer in   
   >> Massachusetts, counseled calm in an open letter last week, noting Harris’s   
   >> campaign strength, while urging a broader perspective.   
   >>   
   >> “Trump could win. So, panic then? No,” he wrote. “A Trump presidency would   
   be   
   >> awful but not the end of history.”   
   >>   
   >> Democrats have been here before. In 2016, their bewilderment at Trump’s   
   >> victory gave way to an ersatz resistance that spawned the Women’s March that   
   >> drew nearly half-a-million protesters to Washington, D.C., and millions more   
   >> to related rallies nationwide.   
   >>   
   >> This time would differ, many veterans of that movement agree. Trump is no   
   >> longer an unknown entity. Moreover, the possibility of his victory,   
   >> unimaginable to many eight years ago, is now as good as a coin toss.   
   >>   
   >> Resistance regroups   
   >> Across America, more than a dozen progressives in various positions of   
   >> influence told The Wall Street Journal that they are dreading the prospect   
   of   
   >> Trump’s return to power, and dismayed that half the country might see a   
   >> completely different reality than they see. Some are bracing for unrest. On   
   a   
   >> recent evening, more than 200 people joined a Zoom meeting titled Mass   
   >> Training For Women’s Safety Teams—hosted by a Women’s March veteran who   
   noted   
   >> its timing amid “escalating political violence.”   
   >>   
   >> Others are channeling their nervousness into action: They are planning to   
   >> attend Women’s Marches scheduled in Washington and beyond on the Saturday   
   >> before the election. In Boston, they are joining pill-packing parties, where   
   >> volunteers fill boxes with abortion kits to mail to women in red states with   
   >> strict limits. “We feel like we’re doing something,” said Erin Gately, a 47-   
   >> year-old physician assistant who last time took to the streets to protest   
   >> after Trump’s election, but says this time she would focus on tangible   
   >> actions like protecting reproductive rights.   
   >>   
   >> Danielle Deiseroth, 28, the executive director of Data for Progress, a   
   >> liberal research group, said she has been talking with leaders of other   
   >> progressive nonprofits about how to push back if Trump is elected and   
   >> fulfills his promise to exact revenge on his political enemies, including by   
   >> weaponizing arms of the federal government.   
   >>   
   >> She anticipates progressives will look to Democratic governors as political   
   >> torchbearers and Democratic attorneys general to contest Trump initiatives,   
   >> similar to how their Republican counterparts have challenged the Biden   
   >> administration.   
   >>   
   >> Laurie Woodward García, a South Florida activist, founded People Power   
   United   
   >> during Trump’s presidency to champion progressive causes, and, in her words,   
   >> “stand up to fascism.” Her biweekly online seminars, some scheduled for   
   after   
   >> the election, explore the consequences if a President Trump were to enact   
   >> Project 2025, a conservative policy agenda he has distanced himself from.   
   >> Each session has drawn about 500 viewers.   
   >>   
   >> “We’ve got to be optimistic and fight like hell,” she said.   
   >>   
   >> That might be complicated by the uncertain trajectory of the Democratic   
   >> Party, which would be at a generational inflection point with Barack Obama,   
   >> the Clintons and President Biden all off the stage and no clear heir   
   apparent   
   >> should Vice President Harris lose.   
   >>   
   >> “We’ll be in rebuilding mode,” said state Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter of   
   >> Orangeburg, S.C., the rare Black female progressive legislator in a deep red   
   >> state.   
   >>   
   >> Finding a way forward   
   >>   
   >> Already, the resistance movement born of Trump’s 2016 victory has   
   splintered,   
   >> with clashes between hard-edge progressives and moderates driving out some   
   >> key leaders.   
   >>   
   >> In January 2017, Vanessa Wruble, then living in Brooklyn, was a prime mover   
   >> in the Women’s March held the day after Trump’s inauguration as a way to   
   >> register profound opposition to his administration.   
   >>   
   >> This time, Wruble expects to stay home with her assortment of dogs, emus,   
   >> pigs, peacocks and other rescue animals in the California desert if he is   
   >> inaugurated again. Now 50, she is off the mainstream political grid and   
   >> living on a ranch-turned-animal sanctuary at the edge of Joshua Tree   
   National   
   >> Park.   
   >>   
   >> “Do I think it will be a f—ing nightmare if Trump gets elected? Absolutely,”   
   >> she said.   
   >>   
   >> But in the intervening years, Wruble has been ground down by disputes with   
   >> former Women’s March comrades, a pandemic and her own uneasiness with a   
   >> younger generation of progressive activists. She also confesses uncertainty   
   >> over the central task: how to confront Trump and Trumpism? Marching seems   
   >> milquetoast, she said.   
   >>   
   >> “I wish I could say, ‘Oh, we can join together and do this, that and the   
   >> other thing.’ But I think the problem is we don’t know how to be effective,”   
   >> Wruble said.   
   >>   
   >> Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of Women’s March, acknowledged   
   the   
   >> organization had suffered typical early growing pains, including internal   
   >> conflicts, but said Women’s Marches remain the “biggest on-ramp to the   
   >> movement on the left.”   
   >>   
   >> To Jeremy Varon, a professor at the New School in New York City who has   
   >> written extensively about political violence and extremist groups such as   
   the   
   >> Weather Underground, the paucity of concrete options to confront Trump   
   >> reflects a longstanding weakness on the American Left.   
   >>   
   >> “You can put as many millions of people in the street saying ‘We’re upset!’   
   >> but that doesn’t change the institutional reality,” he said.   
   >>   
   >> ‘Stay here’ and cope   
   >>   
   >> Six months ago, Melissa Fiero, a lonely Democratic activist living in a deep   
   >> red corner of Appalachia, began peeling the political stickers off her truck   
   >> in hopes of sparing it from further abuse by vandals, who had already keyed   
   >> it and bashed the tailgate.   
   >>   
   >> She and her husband also stopped leaving their dogs outside unattended after   
      
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