6 Ways Not to Resist Donald Trump
Lots of excellent points. The best of which don’t become what you hate, don’t encourage violence or damage.
1. Don’t Encourage Nazi-Punchers, Window-Smashers and Limo-Arsonists
Before the powerfully peaceful Women’s Marches on Saturday, we saw the horrible Inauguration Day riots orchestrated by the the completely separate anarcho-leftist group named Disrupt J20. Vowing, but failing, to disrupt the swearing-in itself, J20 and its hangers-on attacked corporate symbols, smashed storefront windows and even set a limousine aflame. More than 200 were arrested.
These crimes were committed by a small group of people who are not remotely representative of American liberalism. But some liberals unwittingly encouraged them when they shared online video of one J20 member elbowing notorious white nationalist Richard Spencer in the face.
The group eagerly took credit via Natasha Lennard, who participated in the protests and then wrote about it for The Nation in a piece titled, “Neo-Nazi Richard Spencer Got Punched—You Can Thank the Black Bloc.” The “black bloc,” she explains, is a “confrontational united force” within J20 “uniformed in black and anonymized for security.” “I don’t know who threw the punch,” she writes, “but I know by his unofficial uniform that this was a member of our black bloc that day.” She called black bloc tactics a “precondition for mob violence” which is “only a problem if you think there are no righteous mobs.” She further urged, “[Our actions won’t] appear threatening unless followed up again and again with unrelenting force.”
I doubt many will agree with her. But it only takes a few more to commit worse crimes that may hurt innocents, give Russia propaganda material to claim America is in chaos, hand Trump a perfect political foil and squander any progressive momentum. “Our job is not to make life more comfortable for the rioter, the looter, or the violent disrupter,” the White House website now reads. Sharing the punch video may seem like harmless schadenfreude-ish fun, but you were giving free advertising to the black bloc—and making it easier for Trump to portray all opposition as illegitimate.