Many people have been wondering what shape mass resistance to Donald Trump will take. Of course it’s far better to be the resistance rather than wait for it and so on Saturday millions of people across America and the world took to the streets to protest against actions taken by the American president and his right-hand man Elon Musk. I happened to be in Ottawa where I took part in an enthusiastic though rain-drenched event at the U.S. Embassy.
According to the organizing group called “Hands Off,” protesters “demanded an end to the authoritarian over-reach by Trump and Musk.” They called it “the largest day of collective action since’s Trump’s inauguration,” in defence of “healthcare, wages, education, civil rights, and democracy.”
Passionate yet peaceful protests are an important part of democratic life and it is certainly encouraging to see people coming out of what seemed like a prolonged slumber somehow created by the shock of America having elected this horrible man once again.
Yet one day of protests does not a movement make and it will be interesting to see what the structure of a truly effective opposition movement could look like. People will protest for an idea but it is far easier to motivate those whose day-to-day existence is adversely impacted. Bizarrely, Trump seems hell-bent on doing real damage to the very citizens he was elected to serve, which should be enough to create a sustained movement.
American history is full of effective mass organizations created to supports policies and ideas for the greater good, though as Robert Putnam pointed out over 20 years ago, we are much less likely to be joiners now. Let us hope Americans will buck the trend lest they put themselves in the unfortunate position of being “hanged separately” as they say.
Saturday was a start.
Retired political staffer/civil servant. Dual U.S./Canadian citizen writing about politics on both sides of the border. Twitter @Richard05569297, cross-posting at PhantomPublic.org