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Title: Who Are the Anarchists?
Author: CrimethInc.
Date: February 4, 2017
Language: en
Topics: anarchist movement, Donald Trump, US
Source: Retrieved on 22nd April 2021 from https://crimethinc.com/2017/02/04/who-are-the-anarchists-why-resistance-is-coming-from-below

CrimethInc.

Who Are the Anarchists?

America is in the throes of crisis. Polling as the least popular

starting President in history, Donald Trump has taken the reins and

intends to force his agenda on the world by brute force. Alongside him,

outright white supremacists are coming out of the woodwork, convinced

that their time has arrived. Millions who once counted on the Democratic

Party are losing faith in the entire political system. Can anything be

done to halt the rise of tyranny?

This is the context in which anarchists are once again returning to the

stage of history and the front page of the New York Times. Neither

voting nor passive protest has worked, and the popular imagination is

shifting towards open confrontation. Even Trump himself is tweeting

allegations about “Professional anarchists, thugs and paid protesters.”

Fancy that—a billionaire who hired actors for his campaign launch,

accusing working-class protesters of being mercenary.

The grassroots resistance that has rocked the US since Trump’s election

isn’t the work of paid or professional protesters—nor, by extension, of

George Soros, the supposed “puppet master” of the anti-Semitic

conspiracy theories Trump is referencing. It hasn’t come from the

Democratic Party, the non-profit sector, or the various socialist

splinter groups.

Resistance to Trump has come from ordinary people taking action on their

own terms without waiting for leadership or instructions. It has come

from the same people who breathed tear gas in Ferguson while facing down

a militarized police force to defend their neighborhood. who survived

freezing water cannons and rubber bullets at Standing Rock to block a

pipeline that Trump is now trying to railroad through. It has come from

those who risked their lives to confront the KKK in Stone Mountain and

Neo-Nazis in Sacramento. It has come from the people who disrupted

Trump’s inauguration on January 20, who shut down airports January 28

and 29 to defy Trump’s Muslim ban, who shut down Milo Yiannopoulos on

February 1.

All of these efforts were organized horizontally according to broadly

anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian frameworks. It’s not just a few

people in masks: the spirit of the times is anarchistic.

This resistance was growing long before Trump. The surge of momentum

that has exploded into the national consciousness over the past two

months has its roots in many years of simmering discontent. The object

of this discontent is not just the Trump regime, but a social order that

generates dramatic imbalances in power and access to resources while

precipitating war, climate change, and ecological collapse. With the

most authoritarian defenders of this order at the helm, only a

thoroughgoing approach to social change stands any chance of having an

impact.

Anarchists are among the only ones offering a clear vision of another

way of living. In organizing networks and community spaces around the

world, we come together to assist each other in meeting basic needs and

building the collective capacity for self-defense. In neighborhoods,

workplaces, and schools, anarchists are fighting gentrification, police

brutality, and exploitation while creating inclusive alternative

infrastructures for survival. Across bioregions, we are organizing to

protect our drinking water and the earth we all depend on for life.

This vision conflicts directly with Trump’s top-down, exclusive,

authoritarian agenda. It is the only real alternative: Obama’s time in

office showed that attempts to improve the state only leave it stronger

and more legitimate, so that the next tyrant to take the helm has more

force at his disposal. Many people are afraid that the regime will crack

down on resistance, but Trump is determined to crack down on all of us

regardless. The more that we come together, the harder we push back

against the authorities, the faster and more courageously we act, the

safer we ultimately will be.

You and your friends already constitute an affinity group, the essential

building block of grassroots anarchist practice. Identify the objective

you want to accomplish, build your skills, make contact with other

groups, and go into action. That could mean disrupting the recruiting

efforts of white supremacists or blocking the infrastructure Trump

depends on to implement his executive orders. It could mean joining

people in defending their homes from eviction or protecting their land

from development. It could mean establishing rapid response networks to

react to attacks or establishing a free clinic to provide the health

care people cannot obtain through the institutions. We are counting on

you to help get us out of this situation, to create the world of

togetherness and freedom that everyone deserves.