Here’s Your Damn Playbook, Democrats

Instead of listening to these people, Dems might try looking to almost everyone else to learn how to rise to the occasion. Despite everything Trump has done to stop the clean energy transition, renewables have continued to grow, thanks in large part to the actions of regular people who are getting solar panels, installing heat pumps, and taking action however they can. The fight against ICE has been even more instructive: In the weeks since ICE began its assault on Minneapolis, we’ve seen thousands of people organizing—sometimes through established activist channels, but as often as not through churches, neighborhood group chats, and school Facebook groups—to stand up to Trump’s attacks on their neighbors. They’re following ICE officers across the city, honking horns, blowing whistles, recording abductions, and nonviolently disrupting these hateful operations however they can. Other community members are mobilizing to deliver groceries and offer rides to migrants who are afraid to leave their homes.

It’s among the most beautiful examples of real-life antifascism I have ever seen. And it’s why, as deeply horrifying as these last few weeks have been—and as soul-crushing as it’s felt to watch Democrats once again utterly fail to meet the most basic minimum standards for an opposition party—I am actually, right now, feeling more optimistic about the survival of American democracy than I have in a long time.

Over the last year we’ve seen the Democratic establishment, alongside practically every other elite institution in American society, bend the knee to Trump. But regular people all across the country—the people with the most to lose, who are the least insulated against the consequences of their resistance—have consistently refused to give in.