Today’s Theme:
Your Local Rapid Response Team
I’ve been writing for awhile that we need to prepare action plans and contingency plans to defend our democracy from Trump: action plans to address his incremental encroachments on our civil liberties, and contingency plans to address any attempts to seize emergency powers if there is some national disaster or terrorist attack.
Key Actions Today:
- Read Moore’s description of the Rapid Response Team — here is the relevant section:
3. FORM YOUR OWN RAPID RESPONSE TEAM. By New Year's Day this Sunday, I want you to ask 5 to 10 friends, family members, co-workers, classmates or neighbors to be part of your Rapid Response Team. Pick a name for it -- the "Doyle Family Rapid Response Team", the "Oak Street Rapid Response Team", the "Seabrook High School Rapid Response Team", the "Gilmore Girls Fan Club Rapid Response Team", etc. Set a plan to contact each other online as soon as word goes out on any given day to oppose what Trump and Congress are up to. Your Rapid Response Team will agree with each other to email elected reps, make calls, post on social media, go to protests and/or organize others at work, school or in the neighborhood. . . We need to get prepared and be ready now. If we wait til late January to organize, it will be too late.
- Write down a list of people to invite to an organizing session. Who do you know locally through your other activism, volunteer work or community connections that you’d want to work with side-by-side?
- Contact them to invite them personally to meet with you sometime next week. Use Facebook if you must. It will work better to send out personal invites instead of mass mailings, using your friends’ preferred contact method.
- Find a time and place to meet. I’ll do a shout-out here for Doodle, a free online tool for coordinating calendars to choose the best times for people.
- Finally, if you’re in the DC area Inauguration Weekend, consider joining us on Inauguration Sunday. If you’re not in DC, consider using this day as a retreat for your own Rapid Response Team to plan for the resistance. You can learn more about that in this diary: Defend Our Democracy: Meetup Plans for DC Inauguration Weekend
Y’all get a three day weekend, and then we’re back at it next Tuesday, Jan 3rd.
Why This / Why Now:
The Playbook for Turning Democracy to Dictatorship
After the burning of the Reichstag, would-be dictators have known that a shocking act of terrorism can scare a people into docility, making them susceptible to authoritarian measures that they would not accept at any other time.
The most recent example is Erdogan in Turkey, who has jailed a couple of hundred journalists (along with one of Trump’s business associates) by using a military coup to close down media outlets and protests against his rule.
This Has Happened Here — And Can Happen Again
In our own nation, the most shocking abuses of the Constitution have taken place during unsettled times: Japanese internment camps, Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War, the Alien & Sedition acts.
Putin himself used this to consolidate power, and Putin is one person that Trump listens to. Trump’s inflammatory statements about Muslims and his enablement of white nationalists greatly increase the risk of such an event.
Fortunately, we’ve all read our history books and so we know the playbook that Trump is using. We can plan in advance for this, hoping as we do that we’ll never need these plans, that Trump will prove to be less of a threat than he appears.
A Little Planning Now Will Go A Long Way Later
If we can think through our own response so that any such attempt is met with immediate, massive, nonviolent resistance, then he will have a much harder time convincing the courts and Congress to go along and we will overwhelm whatever systems he tries to put into place to enforce his illegal actions.
This is where we can leverage the strengths of our federal republic to defend our democracy: encourage local governments to refuse to cooperate with illegal orders, let opposition leaders in Congress know that we have their backs, and above all, use the civil liberties we have as free citizens to demonstrate that we won’t be docile, terrorized subjects in the face of authoritarian power grabs.
But this requires some advance planning, and that’s where your local Rapid Response Team comes in.
The Rapid Response Team
Michael Moore posted an article this week that suggested one specific action that would greatly help us prepare: build networks of local rapid response teams.
A rapid response team is a group of up to twelve people who support each other in their activism now, and in the event that Trump escalates. They are local, so that they can meet face to face regularly and organize local events together. They are coordinated, so that they amplify their lobbying efforts.
Moore doesn’t discuss this, but there’s a reason for the size limit: it’s to encourage lots of small groups that build strong relationships and watch each others’ backs. It’s much easier to organize and manage a small group than it is to govern a larger one. It’s much easier to build and sustain trust in a small group. Lots of small groups are much harder to suppress than one large, centralized group.
These small groups may or may not be part of a local network, or be affiliated with a larger organization like MoveOn. They have multiple ways to connect with each other so that a government takedown of Facebook, Twitter or MoveOn.org won’t disrupt their ability to work together.
Before January 20, everyone who is serious about taking part in the resistance against Trump needs one of these.
It will be much easier to organize now than it will be after Trump is in office. We have a lot of opportunities in the next three weeks that we can capitalize on, if we’re prepared. Then we don’t know how fast Trump will act on some of the worst of his impulses.
This builds on some actions from last week, so if you’ve been following along with me, you’ll be a little ahead of the game.
Here are the actions for Friday, December 30 - 21 days before Trump’s Inauguration.
Developments In the Past 24 Hours:
Key Messages Today for your invitations:
- We don’t know what Trump is going to do, which is why we need to start talking now about what we are willing and able to do.
- The Tea Party won by being visible, noisy and even obnoxious at times to put pressure on Republicans; we can do the same on the Democratic side.
- There will be lots of things that need doing — and this is one time in American history when you’ll want to know that you did what you could do.
Tweet of the Day:
Help Spread the Word!
Thank you for all the recommends, shares, callouts and tweets!
If you’re new to this, it’s the 12th in a series of diaries with action items specific to addressing the threat of Russian interference in our election. Here is the first diary in the series: A Ten Point Action Plan for Resisting Putin’s Takeover of America
- Bonus #2: If you are dedicated to this fight, please consider following the Kos Group “Sons and Daughters of Liberty.” I’ll post these Action Lists there, as well as other diaries that offer concrete opportunities to take action. That way, you’ll be able to read them even if they don’t make the Rec List. If you’d like to play a more active role, send me a Kosmail and I’ll add you to the group.
- Bonus #3: Sign up for Twitter and let us know you’re there. If you’re not on Twitter already, consider signing up with your DailyKos handle. My handle is @Kascade_Kat - share yours in the comments so that we can amplify each others’ messages.
- Bonus #4: Share your plans for Inauguration Day and the day after. If you’re going to the protest in DC and want to meet up with other Kossacks, post something in the comments thread. I’m going to DC and I’m bringing two people with me. Parallel marches are happening on other major cities.
Remember - history has its eyes on us this time.