It might be small scale to begin with, but we all need an opportunity to come together in positive resistance
~ Jon Bigger ~
Like many people in the UK, I awoke the morning after the US presidential election feeling numb and despondent. Of course, this is nothing in comparison to how millions will have felt in the USA itself, but the election results in that country reverberate throughout the world like little else. The feelings of helplessness compound years of permacrisis, each round of which has left us flowing backwards as we desperately try to swim forwards, struggling to catch up with events. Since the Trump inauguration two weeks ago the numbness I felt has been replaced by anger and a desire to shed off helplessness and do something. There should now be no doubt; Trump is a monster. What will we do about it?
The first Trump administration was met with large scale protests in the UK but this time things are different. Maybe people are just resigned to America’s descent into far-right government. We can’t be though, can we? We can’t allow what is happening across the pond to just be remarked on solemnly. We must do something. Trumpism is undoubtedly a form of fascism and we know that mainstream media and politicians in the UK will be slow to call that out. They will prevaricate with whatabouteries till the cows come home. Meanwhile the suffering will continue, Trumpism will grow stronger and ultimately threaten not just to affect us but to jump wholesale over the pond and spread. With Farage waiting in the wings, we will need to act.
This is an existential threat to many of us. Actually, if you count the danger to the planet that Trump-like policies pose, it is an existential threat to all of us. His prioritising of fossil fuel extraction and outright denial of climate change is staggering—especially at a time when we have the power as a species to work together to lessen the impact. Trumpism is clearly a threat to women, trans people, queer people, trade unionists, those with disabilities, Muslims, migrants…the list goes on, and adherents of fascism will add to it whenever they need a fresh scapegoat. The far-right are also experts in starting with minority groups they think they can pick off, before moving to the next.
Numbness is not a strategy
We also know that there will be millions who will go along with it. Whether it’s for an easy life or because they feel they’re not currently affected, there will be those not just conforming to Trump’s astonishing Executive Orders but actively supporting them. The famed American ‘separation of powers’ and ‘checks and balances’ aren’t going to be much help either. There will be court cases, and some will reach the (coneservative-dominated) US Supreme Court, but the sheer number of Executive Orders that infringe on the constitutional rights of individuals and groups means that a concerted effort to overturn them through the court system is doomed to failure. We will see in the years to come how much the US Constitution means to those in high office, but my guess is not much, if it conflicts with their desire for power.
Organising is obviously a vital part of what anarchists do in their communities, but isn’t it time that we also mobilised in the UK and indeed globally? We may be small in number for a significant protest, we may be numb and finding it hard to process what is happening, but we need to show solidarity with everyone affected by Trumpism in the USA. This will also help to build a movement against Trump’s policies ever happening here.
Whatever form such a mobilisation takes, it might be small scale to begin with but it might also spark something off. We all need an opportunity to come together in positive resistance to Trumpism. Here’s an idea—and it’s just my own idea (this is a comment piece, not a Freedom editorial): What it we declared a UK-wide or even global “Resistance to Trump Day”? Saturday 15 March is probably far enough away to organise events, but close enough to feel in the moment. Can we do something then? If not then, when? And if not us, who?
Photo: Protesters at Westminster during Trump’s 2017 state visit. Wikimedia commons CC BY-SA 2.0
