Trump is doing awful things. We won’t try to list them, though we will reiterate we are in the midst of an administrative coup (scary things like Musk seizing all government personnel records and locking out senior workers).
Amidst this we remain focused on how people are digging in their heels and keep resisting. As adrienne marie brown writes: “remember the future is unwritten. we are not IN their story even if we are IMPACTED by it. we have to keep writing and living OUR stories, the ones where justice and love and equality and material well-being and care and connection and freedom and safety and dignity and belonging and earth are at the center.”
Adrienne reminds us that the big problems get solved through many, many small acts of disobedience.
The normally quiet Reddit thread over at rfednews has exploded with defiance — “We will NOT Resign, we took an oath and we will keep defending it against foreign and DOMESTIC enemies!!”
Government workers, about a third of whom are veterans and who range in their politics and creed, are showing backbone. They’re sharing info on how the so-called “buyout” is probably illegal, unfunded and demands workers give up a bevy of legal rights. They are not cooperating — and we will see how widely when the deadline is over (Trump says the goal is 10% quit — 220,000 people. We’ll see).
USDA inspector Phyllis Fong refused to comply with her firing. She acted like a free person. “These termination notices do not comply with the requirements set out in law and therefore are not effective at this time.” She stood her ground — because you’re not fired just because Trump says so. Eventually, she was escorted out by security agents. (The agents should refused to comply, too.)
Communities have exploded with schools defending their students’ safety, Quakers suing to stop ICE in religious spaces, community groups developing ICE watch programs.
Administrators are saying they will completely ignore Trump’s attempts to control school curriculum (the resource Against Anticipatory Obedience is good for all schools).
Supporting, applauding, encouraging, participating, and growing this kind of noncompliance is critical.
We wanted to be transparent. In the 24 hours after the federal freeze unfolded, we prepped a possible tactical escalation of a pledge for tax resistance (or, technically, a pledge to consider tax resistance).
Our draft language was: “We will not pay money to a King. If Donald Trump acting as King won’t fund these critical services by April, we will consider our options to redirect our funds from the federal government to directly support these critical services.”
The explosive anger felt sound: Trump was literally stealing money from every citizen — and almost everyone would feel the impact. The timing worked: April gave us time to escalate — because a tactic like this works as a pressure point when it’s many, many people. The target made sense: an overstretched IRS that’s potentially targeting nonprofits. And the action logic: we weren’t avoiding taxes (this was not tax protest!), we were fulfilling our tax responsibility by redirecting them to people suffering without SNAP, Medicaid, Meals on Wheels, etc.
We paused on the action two days ago because they pulled back the ruling.
(Keen readers will note they rescinded the memo, then tried to spin it saying the underlying executive order is still active, then lost again in court, tried to say they had the right to proceed, and then last night lost in court again — though some parts still remain frozen. We agree completely with Robert Reich’s analysis: “These new initiatives are not about shrinking the size of the federal government. They’re about centralizing control of the federal government in Trump’s hands.”)
Some of the logic of tax resistance still tracks, but riskier noncooperation is about reading the times: Will people understand what you’re doing? Will they want to join? Will it grow?
We haven’t taken the idea off the table, but we’re deep in conversations about what kinds of larger noncooperation make sense right now. We’d love your ideas.
Of note, there aren’t lots of anti-authority movements that have used tax resistance as a major strategy. Though not paying the government to do bad things makes sense, it’s typically not too heavy a barrier to a very wealthy nation — and the potential repression could be high (though not as high as you think — check out NWTRCC’s resources on tax resistance to learn more).
Initially, noncooperation campaigns often get their start through some wide symbols. Otpor in Serbia used a clenched fist. Danes wore paperclips against the Nazis. We see some of these being tested right now alongside green bandanas and statues of liberty in your pocket:
Strikes are one the most common methods of resistance — at least partially used in almost every successful anti-authoritarian struggle. Like tax resistance, strikes withdraw support from the regime and make it harder to govern. Mine workers in Chile used a planned strike — threatening economic stability, which is generally a key for authoritarians. (Oligarchs put up with authoritarians when they can easily make money.)
Sunrise has been testing student strikes to apply pressure and get in formation. Other disruption tactics are shutdowns and occupations — here we started to think about shutting down ICE field offices, nationally-coordinated 1-minute moments of silence as disruption, and beyond.
We’re writing all this to you because we want all of our collective brains thinking about this — and because we’re all going to have opportunities to disobey unjust authority. Yes, we managed to (mostly) avert one thing Trump did via calls to Congress and press, but the speed of Trump’s administrative coup is shockingly fast and continuing to escalate.
What tactics would you consider doing? What forms of escalation might spark? Don’t only tell us — get with your affinity group and start brainstorming.
Don’t have any affinity group? Get one! Part of this phase is collecting people around you to help you ready yourself for more resistance in the times ahead.
Warmly,
– Choose Democracy