It’s Time for a (Nonviolent)
Uprising
It has come this far. It has come to this. The United States of America is in crisis. A substantial number of Americans have so lost their way, have become so fearful and prejudiced, that they elected Donald Trump President of the United States. Donald Trump. A dishonest New York real estate wheeler dealer who claims to be a brilliant businessman but who loses millions of dollars and repeatedly files bankruptcy. A man who cares nothing for truth but only for what he thinks benefits him. A man who very probably either has a borderline personality disorder or who is sociopathic. He has debased our political culture with his dishonesty and his bigotry. He disparages our alliances and our allies while cozying up to murderous dictators like Kim Jong-un. He has an inexplicable affection for Vladimir Putin, the authoritarian President of the Russian Federation who no commitment to democracy and civil rights and who imprisons and even kills his political adversaries. He dummies up a crisis on our border with Mexico to work up his ignorant supporters and get them to support him though his policies harm rather than benefit them. He has instituted brutal policies at our southern border, policies that destroy families and treat innocent children like hardened criminals. There is nothing too dishonest or too cruel from him to do. He and his Republican allies enacted a tax bill that benefits only the very wealthy and harms the rest of us. He and the corporate shills he puts in his cabinet deny the science of climate change and implement policies that make global warming worse. He accepted and even solicited the help of the Russian government in his election campaign. He attempted to commit and indeed did commit obstruction of justice in connection with the Mueller probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, the election that thanks to our archaic federalist system made him president though he did not win a majority of the votes. He has loaded the federal courts from top to bottom with extremist ideologues who seem to care not one whit about the wellbeing of ordinary Americans. The list of outrages from him and his administration is virtually endless. Donald Trump is an unmitigated disaster for our country and for the world. What makes matters even worse is that there is every possibility that his fanatical, unthinking supporters will reelect him next year. He has even suggested that he might refuse to leave office even if he loses that election. We must do everything we can peacefully, nonviolently, to stop Trump’s reelection. It simply cannot happen. It simply must not happen. If he loses the election we must do everything we can peacefully, nonviolently, to make sure he leaves office as the law the would demand that he do.
That being said I can’t say that I know what we can do peacefully, nonviolently, to insure Trump’s defeat at the polls next year and to make sure that if he loses he leaves. We can vote against him of course. We must vote against. Yet that doesn’t feel like nearly enough. My home state of Washington didn’t vote for him last time, and it is very unlikely to vote for him next time, so my voting against him will actually have little effect. It won’t help swing a state against him next time that voted for him last time. We can give money to his Democratic opponent, whoever that turns out to be. That’s important, for the interests that support him have already donated millions upon millions of dollars toward his reelection. Money has more power in our electoral system than people do, so certainly we must give money to his principal opponent. We can urge third-party candidates like Howard Schultz not to run, for their running will only make Trump’s reelection more likely. We can urge any friends or relatives we have in swing states to vote for the Democrat. All of that is important, and none of it feels like enough. The stakes are too high. The crisis is too deep. Perhaps nonviolent civil disobedience in an attempt to disrupt his campaign rallies would help, or at least it would make some of us feel better. We must however most of all work the hell out of the political system in an attempt to ensure his defeat in 2020. It doesn’t feel like enough, but it is at least a starting place. What more we must do beyond that is an open question. I will never urge violence. I am a Christian, and I am committed to Jesus’ teaching of creative, assertive, but always nonviolent resistance to evil. So no violence. Never. Not for any reason. Everything else is one the table. Those of us who remain committed to simple decency in American public life must rise up as one. We must do everything we can, peacefully and nonviolent, to make sure that the tragedy of Donald Trump as President of the United States ends not later than January 20, 2021. May God be with us and help us in that sacred mission.
