The Proper Way to Resist Trump

January 20^th has come and gone, and discussion of both what is currently happening and what lies ahead under President Donald J. Trump has completely taken over the airwaves.  Nearly all political discourse now is dedicated to determining what his agenda will be, what Congress’ agenda will be, and how we will deal with everything.  This is somewhat normal, as a new president naturally means changes in policies, but Trump is not a normal president, or even a normal human being.  His campaign has divided us in ways not seen since the Civil War, and, as such, there is virtually no agreement on how we should approach a Trump presidency, or on how we should react to his policies and plans.

Republicans and Conservatives, particularly those that voted for/supported him, are trying to be a voice of reason in this confusion.  They are mostly suggesting a “wait and see” attitude, which, generally speaking, isn’t a terrible idea.  Liberals and Democrats, on the other hand, loathe everything about Trump, and many have pledged to oppose every word out of his mouth, to refuse to work with him on ANYTHING.  So who is correct?  Which is the right path to follow?

I say neither side is correct, at least not entirely.  The problem is that both approaches ignore the concerns of the other side.  Republicans have more power than they have had in decades (they now control Congress, the Presidency, and nearly two-thirds of governors (not to mention their respective legislatures), something that hasn’t happened since 1928), and they are eager to flex that power by passing laws that Democrats have, until now, had the power to block.  But this urge to push their agenda blinds them to the concerns of Liberals and Democrats (which, to be fair, also happened when Democrats had a supermajority during Obama’s first term).

Liberals and Democrats are equally guilty of ignoring their opponents concerns, especially given their opposition to Trump.  They spent most of the last two decades slamming Republicans for Bush’s incompetence and then for gridlock in Congress during Obama’s presidency.  Now that they have lost nearly all their power, many are suggesting that they employ the same tactics that Republicans did under Obama; that they simply refuse to work with Trump or the Republicans.  But, in doing so, they not only ignore the concerns of their opponents, but the interests of their own constituents and the country as a whole.  In addition, by opposing Trump and the Republicans, they become hypocrites.

I, like most Democrats and Liberals, loathe Trump.  I believe him to be an arrogant, pompous ass who is unfit and unqualified to be president.  Many people share this view, and there are many who don’t.  But this doesn’t endow us with the right to refuse to work to better this country.  A blanket opposition on every word out of Trump’s mouth will do no one any good.  It will make Democrats look worse than they already do, and it will make it even more difficult for them to push their agenda.  It will also further divide us, making any chance at cooperation or compromise even slimmer than it already is.

So what is the answer? 

I don’t think there’s a simple one, but I do think that one exists.  Trump won the election on a campaign of hatred and bigotry, and his policies will bankrupt us morally and financially.  But that doesn’t mean we should resist the way that Republicans resisted Obama.  Rather, I think we need to take a very careful middle ground.  We should carefully listen to everything he and Republicans suggest and thoroughly analyze it before reacting.  Knee-jerk reactions are one of our worst problems right now, and we must fight the urge to comment on everything we see and hear.  This is a tall order, particularly in the age of 24-hour cable news and social media, but we must do this.  Reacting instinctively, without a true understanding of what happened, leads only to divisiveness.  We see that more than ever with the increasing prevalence of fake news and conspiracy theories.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t react to things, or that we shouldn’t react strongly.  But we must be more calculated in how we react, and working only to resist is contradictory and counterproductive.  It leads to animosity and divisiveness, which in turn lead to hatred and violence.  That’s why we’re in such a mess now; decades of pure resistance by the minority against the majority have divided us to the point that the threads that interconnect us have frayed almost beyond repair.  During the Clinton administration, Republicans fought against him tooth and nail, to the point of impeaching him simply for lying about having an affair, and that resistance switched sides with each succeeding administration.  But it has accomplished nothing except hurting the American people and the world by creating gridlock and widening divides.

Unfortunately, this isn’t even new.  For nearly the entire history of our country, political parties have let their differing viewpoints divide both themselves and us.  George Washington foresaw this exact problem, and wrote the following plea in his farewell address:

“They serve to organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common councils and modified by mutual interests. However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

Washington’s writing is eerie in its prescience.  Since the creation of the first political parties in this country, progress has consistently been stymied by pointless political bickering, which has led the problem we have today: hating for the sake of hate.

Being more careful in how we react to things is a good start to combatting this.  Having more measured reactions to things that we have a better understanding of will be less likely to create division and tension.  But there is another factor in this, and it is one that few people seem to realize even exists; while we must occasionally battle (be it by word or by gun), we must choose our battles carefully.  

Sun Tzu, in his Art of War, wrote that “to fight and conquer in all your battles in not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”  It was his belief that continuous fighting would solve nothing, and that even decisive battles would not solve problems as they would sow resentment and dissention.  Rather, it is better to find a way to solve the problem without ever firing a shot, without ever raising a fist.

There is perhaps no better example of this than the actions of Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights movement.  He was, by nature, a nonviolent man.  But he was also passionate.  He wanted equality for all, and he knew it would be a long, difficult road to achieve this (and I argue that, while we have made miraculous progress towards this achievement, we have yet to truly obtain it).  He knew the odds against them were high.  But he also knew they could win if they made the right decisions, if the movement was run in a proper way.  That is why he always eschewed more violent and radical tactics, much to the chagrin of those who wanted faster progress (as well as those who simply wanted to create chaos).  Groups like the Black Panthers were largely borne out of resistance to King’s tactics from within the movement, and they are part of the reason we have yet to achieve King’s dream.

King saw what so few people saw: in order to win the battle, the best tactic is often to avoid the battle entirely.  He realized that you could accomplish far more through peaceful tactics such as sit-ins and marches than you ever could by taking up arms.  In one of his most famous quotes, he said, “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.  Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”  He knew that anything even resembling hatred would do nothing but harm his cause.  He knew that the best way to achieve his goal was to ensure a continued presence that could not be ignored or dismissed.  Sit-ins, large-scale marches and boycotts were his tactics of choice, and it is undeniable that they worked.

We would all do well to learn from Dr. King’s example now.  His teachings are what will lead to a better country and a better world for everyone.  Many are already employing these teachings right now.  This past weekend, millions of people marched in cities around the world (it is estimated that three to four million marched in America alone) to protest Trump’s treatment of women, minorities, and the LGBT community.  I was not able to attend the march myself, but I stand with them because this is, as King himself believed, one of the best tactics we have at our disposal.  We wanted to show that we will not stand idly by while he threatens rights that people had shed blood, sweat, tears, and given their very lives to attain.

These are the kind of battles we need to focus our effort on.  If we react negatively to every single word out of Trump’s mouth, it will serve only to create further division and to hurt our cause.  Moreover, it will make us hypocrites; it is a well-known fact that Trump is a remarkably thin-skinned individual, raging on Twitter at the slightest provocation.  Reacting negatively to every single thing he does is precisely the same thing.  We must be better and stronger than that. 

There’s another reason we must avoid this behavior, though, and it’s one that people tend to be ignorant of.   Arguing about useless trivialities (such as the size of the crowd at his inauguration) is exactly what he wants us to do.  For centuries, a favorite tactic of those in power, particularly tyrants, dictators, and monarchs, was to keep the commoners distracted.  Many did it by keeping the masses uneducated, some did it through religious or nationalistic fervor, and some did it by keeping them focused on pointless minutiae.  By attacking Trump for everything he does, by constantly arguing with his supporters, we are falling into this trap.  We run the risk of not noticing him or somebody else in our government take a truly terrifying action, and that is far too big a risk to take.  For example, a few days before Trump took office, Congressional Republicans held late-night meetings to attempt to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics, a non-partisan, independent office tasked with weeding out corruption in Congress.  An uproar erupted over this, and they ended up backtracking on it after being shamed by, of all people, Trump.  But it wasn’t until a few days later that we learned there was another, more insidious measure embedded in their attempt, one that would have prevented the Congressional Budget Office from reporting on the potential financial and economic impact of repealing the Affordable Care Act without replacing it.

Just think about that for a moment.  In their attempt to remove one of our few safeguards against corruption in Congress, Republicans also attempted to keep information about the potential consequences of repealing the ACA from being released to the public.  That is a direct contradiction to the vision our founders had of a government of the people, for the people, and by the people.  And we almost missed it because we distracted ourselves with another issue.

What it comes down to is this: we must open our eyes, ears, minds, and hearts instead of blinding ourselves.  The importance of keeping an open mind cannot be overstated.  It minimizes the risk of missing potentially terrible actions like Congress trying to hide information, and it gives us a better ability to empathize with others.  Our ability to empathize is now more important than ever, and it is one we must use to help heal the divide that is tearing this country apart.  People want to be heard, to know that they aren’t forgotten.  Trump was able to win the election by appealing to that desire, as many politicians do.  The difference is that, unlike Trump, we can actually be for the people and for the country as a whole.  Liberals and Democrats lost because we refused to be receptive to the concerns of Conservatives and Republicans.  We can change that now by ending the pointless bickering that has taken over political discourse, the airwaves, and social media.  We have the chance to effect real change by keeping our minds open and choosing our battles wisely.

For the last eight years, half of the political landscape attacked our president at every turn simply because they didn’t like him.  Our country simply cannot take four more years of this.  We must end the insults, barbs, hypocrisy, and snarky retorts, and focus on real discussion, real debate, and real solutions.  We must stop distracting ourselves by trying to discredit those we dislike.

As kids, our mothers always told us “If you don’t have something nice to say, it’s best not to say anything at all.”  Well, I don’t think Mom was necessarily wrong, but there’s a difference between slamming someone and offering criticism.  As such, I would amend Mom’s advice to say “If you can’t say it without being rude, insulting, degrading, or in any way offensive, it’s best to just not say it.”