By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
“At what level we could anticipate the method of hazard?” –Abraham Lincoln, The Lyceum Deal with
Right here is the present EC standing from 270toWin (which nets out the identical as O.G. Larry Sabato’s):
Agonizingly shut, then.
I feel it’s honest to say that if the Democrats consider what they are saying about Trump, then they can’t presumably permit him to take workplace. And but, there was curiously little public dialogue about what they could truly do to stop that occasion, ought to Trump be ready to win the Electoral School (EC) vote, the day after Election Day.
I’d speculate that dialogue of “The Day After” has taken place — like so many issues of significance, lately — in rooms we are going to by no means enter. And so — once more as like so many issues of significance — we don’t actually know what anybody is after. However it could be irresponsible to not speculate. On this put up, I’m going to deal with what the Democrats would possibly do, partly as a result of I got here up by way of the Democrats, so I’m extra conversant in the gamers and their collective mentality. Extra importantly, from 2016 (RussiaGate) – 2020 (lawfare), the Democrats have kind.
Readers will recall that I’ve periodically muttered that the events should be wargaming out 2024 (simply as Democrats did in 2020). In truth, the Democrats are doing simply that. On this put up, I’ll first examine 2020’s “Transition Integrity Venture” with 2024’s “Democracy Futures Venture.” I’ll then current one situation that appears to have emerged from no matter hive thoughts produced the wargame, and that will depend on the purposeful equal of a Shade Revolution. I’ll then speculate on the place the power to mobilize such a coloration revolution would come from, and who the footsoldiers could be. Lastly, I’ll current the closest factor there was in Election 2016 to a coloration revolution, the Girls’s March (“pink pussy hats”), and speculate how a successor may be modified to attain higher success by way of the admixture of extra gadgets from the checklist of Gene Sharp’s “198 Strategies of Non-Violent Resistance” (Sharp being the theorist of coloration revolutions). In fact, all this meta-war gaming is slightly bit mad, with a hegemonic but unelected institution utilizing the instruments of, er, resistance, to hold out an autogolpe, however right here we’re. As a result of we all know so little, I must string collectively a whole lot of this with bubbe gum and baling wire (that being my desire to a very tight yarn diagram). I hope this put up stimulates dialogue, at the least.
Tasks to Defend “Our Democracy”: 2020 and 2024
Vox describes Election 2020’s Transition Integrity[1] Venture (TIP) (Aug 18, 2020):
This may increasingly sound far-fetched. However in June, a company known as the Transition Integrity Venture (TIP) convened a bunch of greater than 100 bipartisan specialists to simulate what would possibly occur the day after Election Day — operating a form of political “conflict sport” the place veteran Democrats role-played because the Biden marketing campaign and veteran Republicans acted because the Trump workforce.
They simulated 4 situations: an enormous Biden victory, a slender Biden win, an indeterminate consequence à la the 2000 election, and a slender Trump victory. In each situation however an enormous Biden blowout, issues went south.
Listed here are the outcomes of the wargames. Extra:
“We anticipate lawsuits, divergent media narratives, makes an attempt to cease the counting of ballots, and protests drawing folks from either side,” TIP writes in a post-exercise report summarizing their findings. “The potential for violent battle is excessive, significantly since Trump encourages his supporters to take up arms.”
Nils Gilman, the vice chairman of packages on the Berggruen Institute suppose tank, is likely one of the challenge’s co-founders. In his view, the train highlighted key flaws in our electoral system, starting from the rickety 18th-century design of the presidential election system to our fashionable plague of hyperpartisanship. These issues, Gilman says, make the electoral system significantly weak to a catastrophic collapse in 2020 — and a few of them might nonetheless be addressed earlier than it’s too late.
Be aware that mass mobilization has fashioned a part of Democrat “Day After” considering since 2020[2]:
Nils Gilman, the vice chairman of packages on the Berggruen Institute suppose tank, is likely one of the challenge’s co-founders…. And peculiar residents, Gilman says, “must be ready to take to the road in nonviolent protest” if the outcomes look like corrupted — one of many final traces of protection when a political system breaks down.
Biden gained, so no mass mobilization was wanted.
The Guardian describes Election 2024’s (notably bipartisan) Democracy Futures Venture (July 30, 2024):
About 175 folks participated in 5 workout routines, bringing to the method a rare wealth of bipartisan institutional data. Among the many lineup have been senior officers from successive administrations of each events, together with the Trump administration.
They got here with a mission: to wargame Trump appearing out essentially the most excessive authoritarian components of his agenda and discover what could possibly be executed, ought to he win in November, to guard democracy within the face of doable abuses of energy.
Right here once more we have now mass mobilization together with what appears to be the specified consequence. Trump, within the situation, is legitimately elected, after which this occurs:
It’s the afternoon of 20 January 2025 and Donald Trump is in his White Home eating room, glued to the identical TV the place he sat transfixed because the January 6 assault on the US Capitol unfolded 4 years in the past. This morning, he accomplished probably the most spectacular political comebacks in US historical past, reciting the oath of workplace on the inauguration ceremony that returned him to essentially the most highly effective job on Earth.
His political resurrection turmoil within the transition interval, and large anti-Trump demonstrations in a number of large cities. In his inaugural deal with, the forty seventh president makes clear his intention to take care of his detractors: “They’re rioting within the streets. We’re not protected. Make our cities protected once more!” he instructions.
The peaceable marches are portrayed on Fox Information, the channel he’s watching, as anarchic dysfunction. Trump grows more and more incensed, and that night calls his high workforce into the state of affairs room with one function in thoughts: to finish the demonstrations by any means needed.
“I must guarantee that our streets are protected from those that are operating amok making an attempt to overthrow our administration,” he tells the group of high regulation enforcement, nationwide safety and navy officers. A flicker of alarm ripples by way of the room because the president cites the Rebellion Act, saying it permits him to name up the nationwide guard in key states to suppress what he calls the “revolt”.
Discerning the priority amongst his high officers, Trump offers them an ultimatum. He’s in no temper to compromise or stand down – he did that in his first time period within the face of “deep state” opposition. “I’ve been charged by the American folks to make this nation nice once more,” he states, “and I must know proper now that everyone on this room is on board.”
(This conflict sport was placed on by the Brennan Middle, though Rosa Brooks[3] participated in each.) Do be aware the dearth of company in “has brought about” and “have erupted.”
Let me know flip to 1 printed proposal for a way Democrats would possibly leverage mass mobilization.
“Choice 4:” Mass Mobilization (a.okay.a. Shade Revolution)
From the New York Occasions Op-Ed web page, “There Are 4 Anti-Trump Pathways We Didn’t Take. There Is a Fifth” (October 24, 2024):
That leaves a fifth technique: societal mobilization. Democracy’s final bastion of protection is civil society. When the constitutional order is underneath menace, influential teams and societal leaders — chief executives, spiritual leaders, labor leaders and outstanding retired public officers — should converse out, reminding residents of the pink traces that democratic societies must not ever cross. And when politicians cross these pink traces, society’s most outstanding voices should publicly and forcefully repudiate them.
[In Germany, public declarations [by leaders against an AfD meeting with neo-Nazi leaders] happened towards the backdrop of the biggest avenue demonstrations within the historical past of the Federal Republic of Germany. The demonstrations have been organized by a civil society coalition known as ‘Hand in Hand,’ which encompassed 1,300 completely different organizations, together with unions, church buildings, docs’ associations, refugee safety companies and even environmental teams. Hundreds of thousands of residents from throughout the political spectrum gathered week after week in massive cities and small cities in protection of democracy. Though the AfD stays extremely popular in a number of east German states, its nationwide assist has declined by roughly 25 p.c because the protest motion started.
When President Bolsonaro started to threaten democratic establishments within the run-up to the 2022 election, Brazilian civil society mobilized in an analogous method. Mr. Bolsonaro threatened the Supreme Courtroom, attacked the legitimacy of the electoral system, and sought to dismantle Brazil’s digital voting system. This spurred enterprise, spiritual and civic teams to mobilize.
The authors of this Op-Ed are rigorously non-committal about whether or not this “societal mobilization” takes place earlier than election day, or “The Day After,” if Trump wins, and, if that’s the case, what the aim is. I’m going to imagine the latter, merely due to the publication date of October 24, and that, not like the efforts in Germany and Brazil, the Op-Ed seeks to switch an elected authorities. Due to this fact, I’d classify it as a Shade Revolution.(As within the Democracy Futures Venture, the brokers and organizers of social mobilization is rigorously undefined). WikiPedia (sorry) defines a Shade Revolution:
The color revolutions (generally colored revolutions) have been a sequence of usually non-violent protests and accompanying (tried or profitable) and society that happened in post-Soviet states (significantly Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan) and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the course of the early twenty first century. The intention of the color revolutions was to determine Western-style liberal democracies They have been primarily triggered by election outcomes extensively seen as falsified. The color revolutions have been marked by the utilization of the web as a technique of communication, in addition to a robust position of non-governmental organizations [NGOs: in the protests.
(Russia’s Social Engineering Agency (!!) gives an account of color revolution stages here[4]).
The Girls’s March of Election 2016
If we have a look at the the traits of the Girls’s March of Election 2016, it seems very very like an self-abortive coloration revolution (abortive, as a result of if the demand was not for a change of presidency, what was the purpose?). WikiPedia as soon as extra:
The Girls’s March was a worldwide protest on January 21, 2017, the day after the inauguration of Donald Trump as US president…. It was on the time the biggest single-day protest in U.S. historical past… The principle protest was in Washington, D.C., and is called the Girls’s March on Washington with many different marches happening worldwide… The Washington March drew over 470,000 folks…. The crowds have been peaceable: no arrests have been made in D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, New York Metropolis, or Seattle, the place a mixed whole of about two million folks marched. The group’s web site states that they wished to stick to “the nonviolent ideology of the Civil Rights motion”. Following the march, the organizers of the Girls’s March on Washington posted the “10 Actions for the primary 100 Days” marketing campaign for joint activism to maintain up momentum from the march.
We’ve the non-violent ideology, we have now the heavy NGO involvement, we have now the election set off, we have now the colour. Right here I can not assist however current the next picture and caption from Vogue: “The Missoni household sporting pink pussy hats in the course of the finale of the Fall 2017 runway present in Milan“:
Maybe essentially the most enduring results of the Girls’s March was the addition of “pink pussy hat” to the Pantone system of colorways.[5]
Mass Mobilization in 2024
The place would the protest potential for mass mobilization come from the 2024? We are able to flip to the now-famous Mark Halperin interview with Tucker Carlson for the reply. From the transcript:
[CARLSON:] Let’s say Trump wins. Three weeks from right now, what occurs? The Democratic Celebration, I imply, as you stated, a whole lot of Democrats, possibly the bulk, consider that Trump changing into president once more is the worst factor that ever might occur. So how do they reply to that?
[HALPERIN:] I say this not flippantly. I feel it will likely be the reason for the best psychological well being disaster within the historical past of the nation. I feel tens of hundreds of thousands of individuals will query their connection to the nation, their connection to different human beings, their connection to their imaginative and prescient of what their future for them and their youngsters could possibly be like. And I feel that can require an infinite quantity of entry to psychological well being professionals. I feel it’ll result in trauma within the office. I feel there’ll be a point of.
[CARLSON:] Are you being critical?
[HALPERIN:]100% critical. 100% critical. I feel there’ll be alcoholism, there’ll be damaged marriages.
[CARLSON:] What?
[HALPERIN:]Yeah, they suppose he’s the worst individual doable to be president. And having gained by the hand of Jim Comey and Fluke in 2016 after which carried out in workplace for 4 years and denied who gained the election final time. And January 6, the truth that underneath a good election, America selected by the principles, pre agreed to Donald Trump once more, I feel it is going to trigger the largest psychological well being disaster within the historical past of America. And I don’t suppose it will likely be form of a passing factor that by the inauguration shall be fantastic. I feel it will likely be sustained and unprecedented and hideous, and I don’t suppose the nation is prepared for it. It.
[CARLSON:] So psychological well being crises usually manifest in violence.
[HALPERIN:]Yeah, I feel there’ll be some violence. I feel there’ll be office fights. There’ll be fights at birthday youngsters birthday events. I feel there’ll be protests that can flip violent.
I feel Halperin is correct on the “psychic power” that so many liberal Democrats, particularly PMC ladies, have invested in a Kamala win and a Harris loss. However I feel Halperin has the order of occasions reversed. First will come the protests (ideally non-violent, from the standpoint of the organizers), and solely afterwards the remedy, alchoholism, damaged marriages, and so forth (actually, protest could also be seen as a type of empowerment to keep away from all these dangerous outcomes.
A Shade Revolution in 2024?
So, assuming that we have now (1) a mannequin for a Shade Revolution within the election 2016 Girls’s March, and (2) a mobilized populatiion very demographically just like the Girls’s March, plus (3) the non-violent ideology, the heavy NGO involvement, the election set off, and coloration (to return: blue?), how would we enhance on the Girls’s March to yeild a “higher” consequence, ideally stopping him from taking workplace, however actually punishing his base?
Let’s flip to Gene Sharp, the architect of coloration revolutions[6], and his well-known “198 METHODS OF NONVIOLENT ACTION“[7] (all of the strategies are numbered, which is admittedly neat). The Girls’s March clearly used the next strategies:
- Formal statements of all types (#1-#6)
- Communications With A Wider Viewers (#7-#12), however most significantly:
- #19 Sporting of symbols (the “pink pussy hats”)
- #38 Marches
And that’s principally it. No financial non-cooperation; no political non-cooperation; no non-violent interventions.
Now let’s quick ahead to 2024, and understand that (1) our “mobilized inhabitants” is the PMC, and that it’s class-conscious, and that (2) the NGOs embody, because the Girls’s March didn’t, members of the intelligence neighborhood (keep in mind that is an autogolpe by a hegemonic class):
- #50 Train-ins (on Constitutional points)
- #55 Social boycott (of Trumpists)
- #57 Lysistratic nonaction (we’ve seen this from Kamala already)
- #76 Nationwide customers’ boycott (of Trump-supporting entities)
- #143 Blocking of traces of command and data (by the organs of state safety)
- #173 Nonviolent occupation (maybe not the capital, this time)
- #187 Seizure of property (financial institution staff, as with the Canadian truckers)
- #86 Withdrawal of financial institution deposits (main corporatioons, from large banks)
- #198 Twin sovereignty and parallel authorities (why not?)
This “Shade Revolution” would have, because the Girls’s March didn’t, however earlier coloration revolutions in overseas nations did, the burden of the whole Democratic equipment behind it (Democrat electeds, the press, NGOs, the organs of state safety, and many others.) So if you wish to set up a “permission construction” for overthrowing a authorities that you simply regard as fascist. the above strategies could possibly be very useful, significantly in the event that they seemed to be outpourings from a spontaneous motion, because the press would certainly current it.
Conclusion
“We’re bringing the conflict again residence!” as Firesign Theatre sang. Within the case of a Trump victory, it could actually appear odd if the Democratic equipment, allied with the Blob, didn’t use similar instruments to “defend democracy” right here at residence that they’ve used with such success overseas
NOTES
[1] “By no means eat at a spot known as “Mother’s”.’
[2] The instance cited is the Motion for Black Lives, which finally achieved little.
[3] Rosa Brooks is the daughter of John Ehrenreich and Barbara Ehrenreich (of “PMC” fame). Pete Buttigieg’s father translated Gramsci; Kamala’s father was a Marxist scholar. What’s it with these blue diaper infants?
[4] Amusingly, the Russian view: “Put merely, the Russian understanding of ‘color revolutions’ is a ‘coup d’ état’ supported by the West” (or what we would outline as The Blob).
[5] Unkind to the creator of the hat, Krista Suh, however right here we’re.
[6] See Jacobin, “Gene Sharp, the Chilly Warfare Mental Whose Concepts Seduced the Left.”
[7] As readers know, I like classification techniques, and have been fairly taken with “198 Strategies,” however I don’t suppose it’s a really rigorous scheme. For instance, “Establishing new social patterns” (174) and “Overloading of amenities” (175) are clearly at completely different ranges of abstraction, however are positioned adjoining to one another.
