From the Facebook Page: Spirituality Lab, November 3, 2020

Day 4—It Can Happen Here

So, here we are. Today is THE day—unless it isn’t. If Biden wins Florida big, it is all over by 10 PM. If Florida is too close to call until mail-in ballots are counted, or if Trump wins Florida big, then all eyes will turn to Pennsylvania. Trump is said to be planning on declaring victory tonight regardless of what happens. It is his way—try to force reality to bend to his insanity.

Even if it is a clear loss, Trump is already saying he is going to court to challenge the votes in many states, which tells me that he is reading the polls the same way we are. With the delays in counting mail-in ballots in several key states, it could be weeks before we get a clear result.

And even then there is the very real possibility that Trump refuses to concede.

This summer I came across an editorial in The New Yorker by Bill McKibben about Gene Sharp. At Colgate University in the Peace Studies Program we had the opportunity to not only read Sharp's works on the Politics of Nonviolent Action, but we also got to hear Gene speak many times. McKibben talks about Sharp’s theories of resistance in relation to a possible Trump putsch.

As McKibben warns us, I have also been cautioning about what might happen as Trump and his minions feel more and more desperate to hold onto power. Trump has shown time and again that he has no compunctions against overthrowing democratic norms; and even worse, those who support him in the administration, in Congress, in the military, in police departments, and on the High Court seem to share in his disdain for respecting the processes and traditions of democracy.

Imagine, if you will, that Trump loses the election by a relatively narrow electoral college count, and he refuses to concede defeat, claiming that the election was fraudulent. Even if the Supreme Court were to rule against him, if he refuses to leave the White House which arm of government will step in to enforce the ruling? Neither Congress nor SCOTUS have police arms that can physically force him out. That is the problem with our balance of powers--it relies on the different parts to respect the authority of the other parts.

If the Executive flagrantly flaunts the authority of the other branches, and if there are divisions on the issue within the military and police apparatuses that paralyze them from action, then what happens?

Add to this hundreds, if not thousands, of armed right wingers who will set up a protective camp around the White House and vow to shoot to kill anyone who approaches to remove Trump.

This is not a crazy fantasy. It is a very real possibility based on how Trump, Barr, et al have acted to date.

Or consider another equally plausible scenario--that Trump and the GOP openly conspire to steal the election in an even more blatant manner than they did in 2016. They have already set in motion the mechanisms for voter suppression by closing down polling stations in mainly Black communities, cynically using COVID19 as a naked excuse, and restricting access to county ballot boxes in urban counties. The closer he gets to losing this election, the more desperate and bolder he and his enablers will become. You can count on that.

Either way, I see far too many potential authoritarian outcomes for the rest of society to be complacent. We--all of us, liberals, principled conservatives, moderates, anyone who loves democracy and America--have to be prepared to fight a civil war to defend our democratic institutions. I mean that in all seriousness. It will not look like what happened in the 1860's, but it is a civil war nonetheless and we have to think of it in those terms.

Because one side will win, and one side will lose, and if the Trump team wins, we will be even further down the road towards living under a totalitarian state where our personal and political liberties will be more and more eroded.

And this is where Gene Sharp comes in for me. There is no way that liberals can or should try to confront Trump and the radical right violently. As President, Trump commands far too much firepower to even think about such a thing. And the radical right is truly and deeply armed. Further, the destruction such a fight would cause to everyone is too great to consider, and the specter of violence would alienate a lot of potential supporters and motivate the police and military.

What Gene Sharp taught me is that power does not come from the barrel of a gun. It comes from being able to get other people to do what you want them to do. "Power" comes from the Latin "potere". meaning "to be able". As in being able to get folks to do what you want.

The key to power is to get people to acquiesce, which at its basic level means to get people to cooperate with you. If people do not cooperate, then you do not have power. Ergo there is tremendous power in wide-spread and coordinated non-cooperation. We can deny those in power the ability to exercise that power if we act together against tyranny.

Cooperation is given and gained in many ways. Usually we cooperate with laws and norms as a regular way of life. We willingly obey laws, respect private property, treat people decently because that is how civil society works. Of course, society also has police powers of the state to help enforce laws, and society has acceptance and ostracization to enforce norms, but by and large we tend to want to cooperate economically, legally and socially, especially in a democracy like America.

It may seem that violence is the ultimate form of power, since it is such a strong means to get people to acquiesce. But in the end violence is self-defeating if your goal is getting even grudging cooperation out of people--it is hard to get dead or severely injured people to do your will. It is far more effective, and efficient, to earn or encourage cooperation without the application of violence.

Many of us think that the fear of violence is what motivates people--kill the guy next to me and you can bet I will believe you will kill me if I do not comply. But what happens when people are willing to be hurt and even die in order to not cooperate with an authoritarian regime? Ha, you may think--no one is that brave or foolish! Yet the ultimate sacrifice is exactly what we expect from soldiers and freedom fighters. We must expect the same courage and willingness to sacrifice from nonviolent resisters who refuse to cooperate with an unjust regime in a time of civil war.

As Gandhi said (and I paraphrase), nonviolent resistance is not for cowards.

It is at this point that most people raise the Nazis as the definitive example of why nonviolent resistance against oppressors cannot work. Sharp noted that there were lots of successful acts of nonviolent resistance during WW II, including many Danes wearing gold stars to better hide their Jews and other bold acts of resistance.

Still, I am willing to agree that there are probably some situations where violence is the best response to oppression (Google "Buber's Letters to Gandhi" to see some excellent words on this specific matter). But Nazi Germany is an exceptional case, and we are not talking about an openly genocidal regime in America--we are looking at an anti-democratic regime that is still susceptible to the withdrawal of cooperation by a large segment of the population.

COVID19 and the BLM protests have demonstrated tellingly that we can shut down large swathes of the economy through concerted efforts. Imagine if this were to be used as an organized tool for struggle should Trump try to steal the election or refuse to concede?

Nonviolent resistance can work when it arises spontaneously, but it works best when it is coordinated and part of an overt strategy, People need to be trained in how to resist peacefully but with determination. They need to understand that a violent response by the police, army, or vigilantes will almost certainly happen. Resisters will be hurt, even killed, just as would happen in a violent civil war--only a lot less will be injured or killed, and the wounds to society will be less deep and easier to eventually heal.

Sharp teaches that nonviolent resistance does not require saintly leaders like King or Gandhi (who were anything but saints in their personal lives, but who were devastatingly effective political strategists). It does require strategic leaders who can keep the resisters focused on their goals and disciplined in the face of reprisals, who understand that withdrawing cooperation from the polity and from the economy is powerful political jiu-jitsu that uses the weight of the oppressor against himself.

It is not easy to hold a nonviolent movement together. It takes amazing guts to stand up to (or sit down to) phalanxes of police in armor who are wielding clubs and violently arresting people. Leaders will face forms of torture such as being singled out and thrown into dank prison cells with predators. Nonviolent resistance is a form of battle in a longer-term war, and people will get hurt just as they do in armed conflict. This has to be understood.

As McKibben notes, we need to start preparing for this potential civil war NOW. We have to get people to understand that the power of the people lies in our cooperation with the larger polity, and with our willingness to withhold that cooperation when the polity has been hijacked by anti-democratic thugs. We have to brainstorm creative means of withdrawing cooperation, from boycotts to protest marches to street theater and more. We need to be thinking about this right now, or we are going to be too far behind the eight ball to perhaps be able to use this power effectively to reclaim our democracy should Trump refuse to step down.

https://www.newyorker.com/.../if-trump-goes-even-lower...