XPost: alt.tv.pol-incorrect, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.democrats   
   XPost: alt.politics.trump, alt.politics.usa   
   From: NoOne@private.corp   
      
   On 10/30/2024 7:05 PM, Ubiquitous wrote:   
   > By now America is well versed in the predictions of the political right’s   
   > potential response should Donald Trump lose on Nov. 5: Anxiety boils about   
   > another stop-the-steal effort to contest the outcome.   
   >   
   > Far less scrutinized: How might the left reckon with a Kamala Harris defeat?   
   > How would the Democrats handle a result that many have for months proclaimed   
   > is an existential threat to democracy itself?   
   >   
   > As polls narrow, some Democratic stalwarts are trying to temper the sense of   
   > despair and the occasionally apocalyptic forecasts sweeping through their   
   > party. Jim Hannon, a psychotherapist and seasoned liberal organizer in   
   > Massachusetts, counseled calm in an open letter last week, noting Harris’s   
   > campaign strength, while urging a broader perspective.   
   >   
   > “Trump could win. So, panic then? No,” he wrote. “A Trump presidency   
   would be   
   > awful but not the end of history.”   
   >   
   > Democrats have been here before. In 2016, their bewilderment at Trump’s   
   > victory gave way to an ersatz resistance that spawned the Women’s March   
   that   
   > drew nearly half-a-million protesters to Washington, D.C., and millions more   
   > to related rallies nationwide.   
   >   
   > This time would differ, many veterans of that movement agree. Trump is no   
   > longer an unknown entity. Moreover, the possibility of his victory,   
   > unimaginable to many eight years ago, is now as good as a coin toss.   
   >   
   > Resistance regroups   
   > Across America, more than a dozen progressives in various positions of   
   > influence told The Wall Street Journal that they are dreading the prospect of   
   > Trump’s return to power, and dismayed that half the country might see a   
   > completely different reality than they see. Some are bracing for unrest. On a   
   > recent evening, more than 200 people joined a Zoom meeting titled Mass   
   > Training For Women’s Safety Teams—hosted by a Women’s March veteran   
   who noted   
   > its timing amid “escalating political violence.”   
   >   
   > Others are channeling their nervousness into action: They are planning to   
   > attend Women’s Marches scheduled in Washington and beyond on the Saturday   
   > before the election. In Boston, they are joining pill-packing parties, where   
   > volunteers fill boxes with abortion kits to mail to women in red states with   
   > strict limits. “We feel like we’re doing something,” said Erin Gately,   
   a 47-   
   > year-old physician assistant who last time took to the streets to protest   
   > after Trump’s election, but says this time she would focus on tangible   
   > actions like protecting reproductive rights.   
   >   
   > Danielle Deiseroth, 28, the executive director of Data for Progress, a   
   > liberal research group, said she has been talking with leaders of other   
   > progressive nonprofits about how to push back if Trump is elected and   
   > fulfills his promise to exact revenge on his political enemies, including by   
   > weaponizing arms of the federal government.   
   >   
   > She anticipates progressives will look to Democratic governors as political   
   > torchbearers and Democratic attorneys general to contest Trump initiatives,   
   > similar to how their Republican counterparts have challenged the Biden   
   > administration.   
   >   
   > Laurie Woodward García, a South Florida activist, founded People Power   
   United   
   > during Trump’s presidency to champion progressive causes, and, in her   
   words,   
   > “stand up to fascism.” Her biweekly online seminars, some scheduled for   
   after   
   > the election, explore the consequences if a President Trump were to enact   
   > Project 2025, a conservative policy agenda he has distanced himself from.   
   > Each session has drawn about 500 viewers.   
   >   
   > “We’ve got to be optimistic and fight like hell,” she said.   
   >   
   > That might be complicated by the uncertain trajectory of the Democratic   
   > Party, which would be at a generational inflection point with Barack Obama,   
   > the Clintons and President Biden all off the stage and no clear heir apparent   
   > should Vice President Harris lose.   
   >   
   > “We’ll be in rebuilding mode,” said state Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter of   
   > Orangeburg, S.C., the rare Black female progressive legislator in a deep red   
   > state.   
   >   
   > Finding a way forward   
   >   
   > Already, the resistance movement born of Trump’s 2016 victory has   
   splintered,   
   > with clashes between hard-edge progressives and moderates driving out some   
   > key leaders.   
   >   
   > In January 2017, Vanessa Wruble, then living in Brooklyn, was a prime mover   
   > in the Women’s March held the day after Trump’s inauguration as a way to   
   > register profound opposition to his administration.   
   >   
   > This time, Wruble expects to stay home with her assortment of dogs, emus,   
   > pigs, peacocks and other rescue animals in the California desert if he is   
   > inaugurated again. Now 50, she is off the mainstream political grid and   
   > living on a ranch-turned-animal sanctuary at the edge of Joshua Tree National   
   > Park.   
   >   
   > “Do I think it will be a f—ing nightmare if Trump gets elected?   
   Absolutely,”   
   > she said.   
   >   
   > But in the intervening years, Wruble has been ground down by disputes with   
   > former Women’s March comrades, a pandemic and her own uneasiness with a   
   > younger generation of progressive activists. She also confesses uncertainty   
   > over the central task: how to confront Trump and Trumpism? Marching seems   
   > milquetoast, she said.   
   >   
   > “I wish I could say, ‘Oh, we can join together and do this, that and the   
   > other thing.’ But I think the problem is we don’t know how to be   
   effective,”   
   > Wruble said.   
   >   
   > Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of Women’s March,   
   acknowledged the   
   > organization had suffered typical early growing pains, including internal   
   > conflicts, but said Women’s Marches remain the “biggest on-ramp to the   
   > movement on the left.”   
   >   
   > To Jeremy Varon, a professor at the New School in New York City who has   
   > written extensively about political violence and extremist groups such as the   
   > Weather Underground, the paucity of concrete options to confront Trump   
   > reflects a longstanding weakness on the American Left.   
   >   
   > “You can put as many millions of people in the street saying ‘We’re   
   upset!’   
   > but that doesn’t change the institutional reality,” he said.   
   >   
   > ‘Stay here’ and cope   
   >   
   > Six months ago, Melissa Fiero, a lonely Democratic activist living in a deep   
   > red corner of Appalachia, began peeling the political stickers off her truck   
   > in hopes of sparing it from further abuse by vandals, who had already keyed   
   > it and bashed the tailgate.   
   >   
   > She and her husband also stopped leaving their dogs outside unattended after   
   > receiving death threats that she chalked up to having a Biden sign in the   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)