The Power of Coalitions
If Ezra Klein and others are right, and the emergency is now, then we better redouble our efforts at building broad coalitions to counter Trump's power.
If President Donald Trump decides that you are to rot in a foreign prison, then that is his right. And you? You have no rights.
You. Have. No. Rights.
The quote above is from
’s latest opinion piece and associated interview of , former F.B.I. agent and a current assistant dean at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs, which you can listen to or read here.The emergency is now according to
, and appeared to agree. And after the last two weeks this seems to be a rapidly growing consensus. So, if you have yet to start resisting, now is the time. Because simply keeping your head down, hoping to ride this out, makes you complicit in the MAGA / Trump / Musk brutality. It makes you complicit in their violation of the constitution and basic human rights, their attempts to erase the transgender community, their attacks on our quality of life and ability to address climate change, and their efforts to undermine and even terminate our democracy.You don't have to do everything. But find at least one way to contribute to the resistance, and do it as often as you can. As
has asked us many times, including here, will you be proud of the answer you’re able to give your grandchildren when they ask What did you do when the fascists came for America, Grandpa / Grandma?It's also important to recognize that the risks posed from speaking out and taking other forms of action are not equal among us. The risk that a white, cisgendered man working in the private sector might experience is, shall we say, somewhat less than that of a younger black woman who is a federal employee, or a legal immigrant with brown skin. We do need to consider the physical and financial safety of ourselves, our families, and the groups / organizations we’re apart of, but for some of us the risk isn’t as acute (hint, hint, middle-aged, white, cisgendered men with relatively secure employment, at least for now - so you better do something while it’s still secure).
But we shouldn’t be sticking our necks out only as individuals anyway. In my opinion, we really need to be working to build coalitions across sectors and industries. We need to build large coalitions capable of loudly and very visibly sending messages that, for instance, revolve around demands for Congress to do its damn job. As
said, we're in impeachable territory right now. We need the majority of the members of Congress to ally themselves with their constituents, the constitution, and our democracy over Trump / MAGA. But that will take more power than individuals, individual organizations, or likely even individual sectors have.And coalitions also help distribute risk among the coalition members while maximizing impact. But not all coalitions are equal in their ability to affect change.
It’s often not that hard (relatively speaking) to get broad coalitions to sign onto letters urging Congress or the Trump administration to either stop a course of action, take a course of action, or both. For example, a recent public comment letter sent to the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) asking that existing environmental regulations be preserved was signed onto by a broad coalition of national, statewide, and local civil rights, environmental justice, and environmental organizations and Tribal nations. And the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) recently partnered with the Alliance to Save Energy in spearheading an industry letter calling on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin to protect the ENERGY STAR program and maintain full funding and staffing levels. Signatories have included a variety of manufacturers, consultants, homebuilders, building owners, non-profits, local governments, schools, and other organizations and industry leaders.
While such coalitions may be broad, the impact of such letters and written statements is often pretty anemic, particularly in the current political climate. Without the implication of subsequent actions taken against an administration or politician if the coalition’s requests aren’t met, such letters have little power to affect change. In some ways they’re a form of advocacy-washing, offering signatories a means of signaling they’ve done something, but that something in the end has little impact or associated risk that needs to be distributed among the signatories. Though it’s also true that in this case the risk isn’t zero for NGO’s dependent on federal dollars and private entities with federal contracts.
More effective coalitions are often provided by labor and the working class through boycotts and general strikes. The power of such coalitions comes from their ability to withhold their work and distribute the risk among their members; their power is rooted in their ability to impact the economy. But really effective power (that has a wider economic impact) hinges on mass mobilization—and mass mobilization requires mass organization. Related to the power of labor is the power of consumers - their ability to economically punish bad behavior (e.g., boycotting Target for pulling back on its DEI policies) as well as economically reward good behavior (e.g., organizing buy-ins for, or just generally promoting, Costco for continuing its DEI policies), with typically limited risk posed to consumers. Such coordinated actions by labor and consumers, in mass, can coerce corporate entities, congressional members, and others into exercising their own power to push back against Trump / MAGA actions.
But mass mobilization and organization, in addition to the logistics, requires some form of unifying message capable of bringing people together who might not otherwise be unified. David Brooks, in his recent call for a comprehensive national civic uprising to rival Trump’s power, believes that such a message must incorporate a short term and long term vision. He writes:
Short term: Stop Trump. Foil his efforts. Pile on the lawsuits. Turn some of his followers against him. The second is a long-term vision of a fairer society that is not just hard on Trump, but hard on the causes of Trumpism — one that offers a positive vision. Whether it’s the universities, the immigration system or the global economy, we can’t go back to the status quo that prevailed when Trump first rode down the escalator.
While the specifics of the long-term vision varies, the fact that we can’t go back to the status quo, that we must also propose a positive, more equitable vision for rural populations, urban denizens, and everyone else in between, is a common theme that others have also pointed out in various ways -
, , , , , , , , , Jamelle Bouie, myself, along with so many more. There is a growing recognition that our messaging can’t just be about stopping Trump, but that it must also include a vision for a more equitable world. Because the creation of this vision, that people believe can be achieved, is, in fact, a necessary component of stopping the Trump / MAGA / Musk fascist machine. Such a vision, because it can inspire hope, can also be energizing. More on this below.In addition to the key benefits of large coalitions I’ve already mentioned - amplified voices, greater power, and the distribution of risk - is the benefit of pooled resources. But for a coalition to optimize these benefits, there must be some sort of agreement among the coalition’s members. One recent agreement I’ve seen, directly in response to the Trump administration’s actions, is the resolution developed by the Big 10’s coalition among its 18 universities to defend academic freedoms, or the foundational principles of American higher education including the autonomy of university governance, the integrity of scientific research, and the protection of free speech.
At a high level, the document states that the preservation of one institution’s integrity is the concern of all and an infringement against one member university of the Big Ten shall be considered an infringement against all. Relative to specific agreements of supportive actions, distribution of risks, and pooling of resources, all signatories agree that coalition members will contribute to and share a defense fund (to access when attacked legally or politically) and share access to one another’s legal counsel, governance experts, and public affairs offices to coordinate a unified and vigorous response. It is unclear if associated documents exist to spell out additional agreement details, but there should also likely be agreed to consequences for any individual university not fulfilling the resolution’s requirements.
The resolution also highlights the limitations associated with completely distributing the risk among coalition members. One university and individual (the President of Rutgers University) was needed to take the leading role in convening a summit of Big Ten academic and legal leadership to initiate the implementation of this Compact. As some form of leadership and messaging structure is often needed for a coalition to logistically function, one or a few coalition members will typically be at greater risk than the other members (they become the most visible targets). But rotating duties (as well as accounting for varying levels of risk associated with different demographic factors) can help to minimize such risk deltas. There are probably other leadership and organizational structures to consider as well.
Constructing such agreements among coalition members, taking into account the very real risks we currently face, can be challenging. And those challenges are likely magnified as we try to build ever bigger coalitions involving multiple sectors, demographics, and regions. Coalition building is definitely not my area of expertise, particularly at the scales we’re talking about here, but I do have some understanding of the behavioral sciences and cultural evolutionary theory.
One particular methodology, developed by Prosocial.World, combines the previous work of political scientist/sociologist Elinor Ostrom on the core design principles of successful cooperation with cultural evolutionary theory and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). The result is a scalable process applicable to any type of group that could definitely help build equitable agreements among coalition members. I think it could be a powerful tool in the hands of experienced coalition builders and community organizers. A deeper dive is beyond the scope of this piece, but in addition to Prosocial’s website, see the following and the linked-to sources within for more information:
What the Kansas Legislature could learn from our hunter-gatherer ancestors
Blurring the Line Between “Others” – A Practical Application of Cultural Multilevel Selection Theory
Such a process could also be used to help members coalesce on a message, which is a necessary component of bringing desperate groups together in any coalition. As I stated above, I’ve thought such a message could potentially revolve around asking Congress to do it’s job. However, in exploring what building a broader coalition in Kansas might look like with a small group of people, someone with far more political experience than myself thought that asking Congress to do its job could be too political a message for some potential coalition members (Kansas is pretty red after all), as well as too abstract. Better he thought would be a message that tied more directly to Kansans’ day-to-day.
The challenge then becomes finding such a message that ties to a wide range of Kansans (and beyond). Someone else suggested a message that connects to our quality of life. A quality of life message seems like it has potential - economic stability, access to healthcare, good schools, the availability of good paying jobs, safe and healthy communities, access to clean air and water, the ability to retire and not be a burden to your family - a vision that could connect to people’s day-to-day, instill hope, and be energizing. The specifics would need to be fine-tuned with the coalition members, but I think it has promise. And in the end, given where we are, this long-term quality of life message would still be tied to a functioning Congress. I don’t think we’re getting the former without the latter.
Because at this point a functioning Congress, if not the only way, is a necessary component of what's needed to address our short-term need - checking Trump's various power grabs before the mid-terms. The more emboldened Trump / MAGA / Musk grows, the more damage they will do before the mid-terms and the more of a threat they'll pose to free and fair elections leading up to the mid-terms, not to mention the long-term quality of life vision. We need some large coalitions aggressively taking action to add to the impacts of the massive demonstrations we’re now regularly seeing to just have a shot at spurring Congress to protect our rights and fulfill its constitutional duties. Let’s continue amplifying our power in various collectives. Don't keep your heads down; don’t give your power away.
Because the emergency is now.
So let's get our collective butts in gear, stick our heads up together, build more coalitions, and exercise some real power.