What will the resistance look like?

Donald Trump has just been elected and has begun naming his cabinet, a frightening collection of rightwing ideologues and conspiracy theorists. The first small demonstrations against the new Trump regime erupted almost immediately in a dozen cities across the United States. A variety of organizations have issued statements, warnings, and call for solidarity. This Trump, in his second presidency, will be better organized, better staffed, and more aggressive than the Trump of 2016. What can we expect the resistance movement to look like? What is the role of the left in this movement?

The left itself, the few thousands in socialist organizations and the broader social movements of women, LGBTQ activists, Blacks, Latinos, and community organizations, are not well enough organized in themselves at this time to create a resistance movement. Labor unions are large enough and well enough organized to play a role, but their leaders do not have the desire to take the initiative. The left’s experience in fighting fascism has been limited to Antifa networks organizing protests that sometimes became street brawls or at others mass demonstrations confronting the police in cities such as Portland, Oregon. While such street resistance will be necessary at some point, it will not be sufficient.

Those that have political weight, influence, and some power to resist Trump that have so far stepped up are governors, state attorneys general, state legislators, civil rights organizations, and lawyers’ groups. Many such individuals and groups such as these have pledge to defend women’s rights to abortion and contraception, immigrants’ rights to reside in this country, and the rights of others to freedom of assembly, to protest, to publish and to speak.

Govs. JB Pritzker of Illinois and Jared Polis of Colorado have convened a group called Governors Safeguarding Democracy that plans “to coordinate resources across state lines to protect state courts, elections and laws against encroachment from what they expect to be a hostile federal government.” As Pritzker said: “And together, what we're doing is pushing back against increasing threats of autocracy, and fortifying the institutions of democracy that our country and our states depend upon.”

At the same time, California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has called called a special legislative session for lawmakers to, as he put it, “protect California values.” In particular, he wants more money to fight the federal government in court. During Trump’s first term, California filed over 100 lawsuits “on things from climate to health care to immigration.” Democratic Party attorneys general in Arizona, Minnesota, and Washington State are planning similar action. They plan to defend immigrant rights, reproductive rights, the LGBTQ community, and the environment and climate. New York’s Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James have also said that they will “protect New Yorkers’ fundamental freedoms from any potential threats.”

A non-governmental group called Democracy Forward has been organized to respond to the Heritage Foundation’s rightwing plan called Project 2025 with their own Project Democracy 2025, bringing together 800 lawyers at 280 organizations to deal with “priority legal threats” that may arise.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a historic defender of civil rights in the United States, will also be central to legal efforts to resist Trump. It has already filed a law suit demanding more information on Trump’s mass deportation plan. The ACLU says it will build a “firewall for freedom” to defend vulnerable groups.

Yes, almost all of these are either Democrats or have strong ties to the Democratic Party. I understand that today the left is disappointed in and in many cases also angry with the Democratic Party that failed to build a campaign that could defeat Trump. The list of the broad left’s grievances against the Democrats is long, and rightly so.

Kamala Harris campaigned to the right, participating in joint events with former Rep. Liz Cheney, who brought support from her mass murdering father, former Vice-president Dick Cheney, rather than with Shawn Fain, the head of the autoworkers union. Harris failed to speak out on Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinians. And as Bernie Sanders said, “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.” Going forward we certainly don’t want to subordinate ourselves politically to the Democrats. Yet, despite our hurt and anger, we will have to find a way to work with these Democratic Party- dominated organizations.

Should we trust such state-level Democratic Party officials to protect us? No. But when they say that they will, we should pressure them to do so. Take for example the work of Democratic politicians and reproductive rights groups in putting abortion rights on the ballot in several states and winning. We can work with the Democrats until it is necessary to break with them or even work against them. But we can mobilize around their lawsuits and legislative proposals, even while remaining critical and independent.

This unfortunately is not a revolutionary or even a very radical program. But the power of the far right requires us to play defense as we begin this coming period. As the resistance goes on our forces should grow and the movement will likely become more radical, given Trump’s attack on our rights. We must be present in it from beginning until our victory.

• Dan La Botz is co-editor of New Politics and a member of Solidarity and author of many books, and was a co-founder of Teamsters for a Democratic Union