Three Paths to the Future

Best and Worst Outcomes of This Moment

With the passage of the Bloated Disgusting Bill, and the continued assaults on our democracy and everything good it might do, people are feeling extremely discouraged and frustrated. While resistance has been growing during the Trump administration, and we have achieved a number of victories--not the least of which is splitting off Elon Musk from Trump and seriously damaging the Tesla brand--the MAGAts (pronounced ‘maggots’) are still implementing their fascist agenda at furious speed and the guardrails to stop them or slow them down seem more flimsy than ever.

Frustration isn't good for people. It can lead us to turn on our allies, give up in despair, or lash out with ill-considered actions that may help the fascists more than hurt them. It’s hard in a time of such destruction and outrage to think strategically, yet it's more important than ever that we employ our resources well and use our energies wisely.

The late Bob Chadwick, author of Finding New Ground and a renowned mediator for groups and communities in conflict, liked to begin his interventions by asking “What's the worst possible outcome? What's the best possible outcome? What beliefs and behaviors do we need to avoid the worst and achieve the best?”

I see three broad possible outcomes at this current moment. The first and to my mind the worst, is that the resistance turns on itself, fragments, or simply lies down and dies from despair, and the fascists implement autocratic control that will take decades if not generations to break. But we may not have generations to do so, as their policies will so inflame the overheating of the world that climate change may take us all out, and a lot of other key species with us.

The best possible outcome, the one involving the least loss of life and the most potential positive results in what's left of my lifetime, is that the backlash against Trump and MAGAt policies continues to grow, the Republicans massively lose power, the spine-equipped faction of the Democrats gain the ascendance and they move aggressively and quickly to reverse the damage and institute policies that further equity, justice and environmental sanity.

The third possible outcome that is that the elections are so rigged, or that Trump and the MAGAts deploy ICE or the military to prevent or control elections and people massively resist, including some State governments and National Guard, and we have a civil war. Some friends think this is inevitable and seem to be almost looking forward to it, but I’m not sure they’ve looked at the situation clearly. Because I see no clear evidence that the good side will win. Who has more guns? And who is more ruthless? Concerned anti-racist environmentalists? Or testosterone-jacked white supremacists?

So what are the beliefs and behaviors that we need? As long as the first outcome is possible, we should work for that, by strongly supporting outspoken and progressive Democrats, by informing the public about the terrible provisions of this Bill, and by continuing to build a broad and unified resistance. By ‘unified’ I do not mean that we all do the same thing or employ the same tactics. We can think of a movement for justice as an ecosystem with many niches. Some of us may be working legislatively, some working to organize protests, some doing ICE defense, some doing trainings, some putting pressure on their elected representatives, others focusing scrutiny on the elections themselves. Let's avoid the temptation to excoriate our fellow activists who are not taking action in exactly the way we think they should, and continue to bring people into the movement, to welcome MAGA defectors, to avoid splintering and continue to mount an ever-growing opposition.

But what if the elections are rigged? Many theories are floating around on the Internet claiming that Harris actually won the election, and that Musk or someone hacked the voting machines in swing states. Personally, I don’t have the knowledge or the statistical chops to evaluate the charges, although I would certainly like to believe that’s true—I’d think better of my fellow human beings. I also don't see how we would prove it or undo the last election much as I would like to. But if there's even a chance that these theories are true or might become true, we need to find a way to prevent it!

There's another way the elections can be rigged. Greg Palast makes a convincing, evidence-based case that voter supression, mass purges of voters of color, challenges to provisional and mail in ballots, and the many other ways Republican-controlled states make it harder to vote have denied millions of voters their rights, overwhelmingly people of color and likely Democrats. Had all the ballots been counted, Harris would have won.

Republicans have undeniably suppressed millions of votes, and will again. We need a proactive strategy to protect voter rights. So a top priority should be supporting investigative journalists like Palast and the organizations who work on this issue, such as Fair Fight in Georgia.

How do we avert a civil war? If your rage and frustration has risen to the point that maybe you think an all-out fire fight might be a good idea, I certainly understand the feeling, and share the anger. Protest and nonviolent resistance often don’t feel strong enough, and I hear many people discouraged when, while millions have marched, the abuses still go on.

But mass protest never works quickly or instantly. It works in many other ways: by building a broad-based movement with a low entry point that can shift public opinion and involve the masses, by delegitimizing the policies and the actions of the abusers, by undermining the morale and the will of the enforcers. We live embedded in cultural assumptions that strength equals force, but that is the ideology of patriarchy. Real strength might look more like solidarity and courageous care, like veterans accompanying Afghan refugees to their hearings to protect them from ICE, like citizens forming ICE-alert networks and backing down the masked assaulters, like the lawsuits and court judgments that limit the fascists’ power.

At all costs, we must prevent Trump and his minions from deploying the military and the National Guard against U.S. Citizens. One of our grave mistakes back in the Vietnam War days was to vilify the soldiers instead of understanding that they were not the architects of the policies they were asked to carry out. If we have family or friends in the armed services, we can reach out to them. If you’re a veteran, you are an especially qualified spokesperson. We can inform soldiers of their rights and duty to disobey illegal orders, organize and support know-your-rights groups and legal defense funds, and offer moral and practical support for those who do. We can speak to the values and traditions of the military itself, which are strongly against the army being used against citizens to prop up a dictator. And we can continue to broaden the movement against Trump and the fascists. Erica Chenowith, the researcher who has studied the success of nonviolent movements, says that one of the reasons they succeed is that they encourage defections from the ranks of the enforcers, both by building relationships, and by involving such a broad swath of the public that soldiers and police become unwilling to shoot into crowds that may include their own friends and family. (See her interview on Pod Save America.)

These aren’t the only possibilities, and of course there are many variations of each that are possible. But if we are courageous, determined and strategic, we can take the actions that will lead to better outcomes, and avoid the worst. As dire as this moment is, it offers an unparalleled opportunity to build a broader-based movement for social justice than we yet have seen. The frustration is overwhelming, but if we can channel that anger into strategic action, we can build the connections, the relationships and the caring community that will be the basis for the world we want to see.

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