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Title: Take the Offensive Author: CrimethInc. Date: February 15, 2017 Language: en Topics: resistance, protest, Donald Trump, strategy Source: Retrieved on 22nd April 2021 from https://crimethinc.com/2017/02/15/take-the-offensive-moving-from-protest-to-resistance
It’s time to strategize. Is it more realistic to set out to overturn the
Muslim ban, halt further construction of the border wall, help our
friends and loved ones evade ICE roundups, stop the DAPL and Keystone
XL, protect our drinking water, slow down global warming, tame the
financial sector and stop the police from killing people and defend
abortion access—or to take down the government itself? Should we fight a
thousand defensive battles—or a single offensive one?
In less than four weeks, the Trump administration has accomplished
something that American radicals haven’t been able to do for almost 250
years: it has convinced the majority of the American people that the
government is a public menace. Trump and his cronies have picked fights
with Black people, Latinos and Latinas, Native Americans, Muslims,
immigrants, feminists, environmentalists, radicals, progressives,
liberals, and a swath of federal, state, and municipal employees—in
short, with the better part of the population. For good measure, they
appear to be trying to provoke a major terrorist attack in the United
States in hopes that it would shore up their dubious mandate.
Undoubtedly, I’m forgetting something. It’s been an eventful month.
Furthermore, the administration has antagonized the CIA, the NSA, and
the Mexican and Chinese governments; aligned itself with Russia to such
an extent as to create national security scandals; and threatened to
upset the entire post-Cold War global order. On the public relations
side, it is making up fantastic stories out of thin air and has randomly
gone to war with CNN.
Consequently, the American corporate, political, industrial, financial,
media, military, and intelligence elites are at cross purposes, deeply
divided among themselves. Some factions are betting that neo-fascism is
the wave of the future and that it will be good for business. Other
factions would prefer to return to business as usual. Given the events
of the last twenty-five days, it seems possible that the administration
will overstep its authority and bring about a constitutional crisis at
some point over the next four years, if not sooner. If such a “crisis of
legitimacy” does develop, it is likely that the latter factions of the
ruling class would prefer regime change to dictatorship.
I hate to resort to Game of Thrones references, but Donald Trump and
Steve Bannon are acting the parts of Cersei Lannister and Maester Qyburn
respectively: not only are they playing with fire, oblivious to the
dragons circling on the horizon, but they consider themselves to be very
clever.
If this is really how the administration wants to do things, they can
bring it on. White conservatives and a small number of web-based
reactionary activists versus people of color, white liberals, a seasoned
cadre of radicals and progressives, and the vast majority of
Millennials? Let’s do this. They may have more guns, but we definitely
have more numbers. Home team bats last.
Trump and Bannon have had a few weeks to push people around. In doing
so, they’ve backed themselves into a corner and alienated over half of
the country. Now, it’s time to do like our grandparents taught us and
punch these bullies in the face. Here are a few suggestions for how to
do so—and what comes next.
Protest is so 2003, people. Resistance is the new black. It is all well
and good for thousands or even millions of people to assemble in the
street. However, doing so accomplishes nothing in and of itself, as many
of us bitterly remember from the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq
fourteen years ago. On the other hand, gathering at times and places
where our presence impacts the day-to-day operations of essential
infrastructure can accomplish a great deal, as many of us remember
fondly from the airport occupations two weeks ago. This is the
difference between symbolic protest and direct action, which anarchists
have been pointing out for upwards of 150 years. Less protest, more
action, please.
Seriously, there is no point in pleading with this government or
registering our opposition to its policies. They truly could not care
less what we think. We need to make it impossible for them to govern. We
can do this. For the moment, it may be enough to simply start picking
targets to shut down, sending out calls over Twitter, seeing how many
people show up, and taking it from there. I think that the airport
actions were the right idea—we just need to apply that model to some
part of the government itself.
They always say that the best defense is a good offense, and it did just
work out that way for the Patriots in the Super Bowl. The Trump
administration is trying to send us scrambling in a thousand different
directions at once. It’s a trap. They hope to prevent us from
capitalizing on the fact that their government is out of step with the
values and desires of most American people and holds questionable
legitimacy in the eyes of millions.
It is true that many of us have to stay focused on solidarity work,
mutual aid, and self-defense. There’s no way around that. However, the
time has come to ask ourselves: under an extremely hostile
administration, is it more realistic to set out to overturn the Muslim
ban and halt further construction of the border wall, help our friends
and loved ones evade ICE roundups and stay out of prison, stop the DAPL
and Keystone XL, protect our drinking water and slow down global
warming, tame the financial sector and stop the police from killing
people and defend abortion access all at the same time—or to take down
the government itself?
We may find that the only way to prevent everything from getting
drastically worse is by going all in on revolution.
Huge segments of society are angry and afraid, full of fresh ideas and
energy, open to radical perspectives, paying attention, well informed,
struggling to survive, and ready to fight. I’ve never seen anything like
it in my life.
Resistance to the Trump regime will succeed or fail depending on how
effective we are at finding each other and making the most of our
various strengths. We need great numbers of people to participate if we
are going to prevail. No crack team of specialized activists can do this
on their own. No judge or politician is going to set things right.
Nobody can save us but ourselves. That should be more than enough.
Suppose, then, that there is a crisis of legitimacy ahead for Trump.
What are the likely scenarios, and how do we prepare? Let’s look ahead a
little further since things have been happening so fast lately.
The most likely possibility is still that the Deep State (as represented
by entrenched elements in the CIA, the neoconservatives in the
Republican Party, etc.) will manage to rein Trump in somehow, permitting
him to carry out the ordinary racist aspects of his program but
preventing him from going overboard with economic protectionism,
haphazard foreign policy, and collusion with Russia. Repression will
keep pace with escalating social tensions as the law-abiding Left sells
out protest movements in return for another shot at state power. In this
scenario, we lose, Steve Bannon and the white nationalists lose, and the
Deep State wins, stabilizing capitalism for another four years or more.
Those losses would be temporary, however—throughout such an
administration, anarchists would compete with white nationalists for the
allegiance of increasingly disillusioned sectors of the Left and Right.
In such a scenario, it should be possible to make the case to white
working people that the bankers and businessmen have bamboozled them
once again by getting them to back Trump.
It is less likely—but possible—that Trump will face a real crisis of
legitimacy. In this case, protest movements will rise to a boil, forcing
the Deep State to choose between Trump’s presidency and the stability of
the state itself. If the Deep State steps in to depose Trump, whether
covertly or overtly, real social change may be on the table—but only if
the momentum that drives events is coming from below, beyond the control
of any party with a stake in state power. In this scenario, Steve Bannon
and the white nationalists lose—at least temporarily—and we duke it out
with the Deep State.
This scenario involves tremendous risks. Remember, this is basically
what happened in Egypt in 2013 when the Egyptian military deposed Morsi
and installed the strongman al-Sisi in his place—effectively bringing
the so-called Arab Spring to a close and re-stabilizing totalitarianism
in the Middle East. If we count on elements in the government to take
care of the situation, they will do whatever they have to do to sideline
or suppress radical activity—and people will look to the state to solve
their problems for another full generation or more. On the other hand,
if we proceed into open battle with the Deep State in conditions of
upheaval, we had better have a great deal of the population behind us,
and we had better do so in a way that doesn’t leave any space for white
nationalists to regain their footing in opposition movements while we
are reeling from repression.
Finally, it is possible that there will be a crisis of legitimacy but
Trump will come out on top, using it to purge the opposition and wipe
out protest movements. In this case, Steve Bannon and the white
nationalists will win and everyone else will lose. This seems to be the
least likely scenario—but most of us were surprised by Trump’s victory,
too. In this case, it will be possible for Bannon and his ilk to portray
anarchists as tools of the Deep State at precisely the same time as they
are able to silence us with repression.
Reviewing these possibilities, a few things become clear. It is
essential to organize in a way that distinguishes us from all state
actors and leaves no space for the state to regain legitimacy;
antifascism must mean opposition to the state itself, lest we topple
Trump only to pave the way for an equally authoritarian regime. The
sooner a crisis comes, the better, before Trump, the Deep State, and the
Democratic opposition have the chance to get their feet under them; at
the same time, we have considerable work to do making our proposals
comprehensible to the general public. Last but not least, if regime
change takes place, the momentum must come from the streets, not from
within the halls of power. As usual, we’ll get out of revolution what we
put into it, nothing more.
In any case, our work is cut out for us and the stakes are double or
nothing. We’ll see you at the front.