We Who Believe in Democracy Must Fight to Make It Real

We wake daily to new spectacles of violence and humiliation: kidnappings in broad daylight, attacks on unions, LGBTQ people, women, and immigrants, the erosion of long-cherished rights. It’s no longer a tricky question whether we have tipped into authoritarianism. The answer is yes.

To fight back, we have to confront what the Trump administration is exploiting: fear.

We are living in fear, cowed by it. Each workplace and free speech crackdown, each violation of democratic norms, feeds on the paralysis that fear produces. Fear is the fuel of authoritarianism.

WHAT DEMOCRACY?

Democracy is its antidote. But all around us is evidence of how thoroughly democracy has been hollowed out—and it didn’t start with Trump.

Poll after poll shows that most Americans want to make housing and childcare affordable for all, rein in military spending (at least in 2023 they did), publicly fund health care, and reduce the monopolistic control of corporations. But nothing seems to change on these issues, at least not for the better.

We may live in a formal democracy, but in practice we’ve been disempowered for a long time—denied real control over the decisions that shape our lives. It’s no wonder that many people get cynical and disengage from civic life. We sense correctly that our participation often has no effect.

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But that’s why we must commit to a fuller vision of democracy: to reclaim power in the workplace and daily life, and set an economic agenda that will actually make people’s lives better. The most effective counterforce to resist authoritarianism is our class solidarity.

History provides some inspiring examples. The key years of the Civil Rights Movement, from 1954 to 1965, brought a panoply of tactics—freedom rides, marches, lunch-counter sit-ins, federal legislation—into the national spotlight. Organizers knitted together a majority coalition that expanded the meaning of citizenship and democratic rights. Their struggle was rooted everywhere—the ballot box, the workplace, churches, streets, and schools—enveloping the whole of society.

In the opening episode of the PBS documentary “Eyes on the Prize,” a little girl marching from Selma to Montgomery says she’s doing it “so troopers can’t hit no more.” Her words capture the urgency and clarity of a movement that refused to be dominated by fear. I can imagine the same words today coming out of the mouth of one of those countless children who have seen their parents snatched away by masked men, or wake every morning afraid today will be the day.

ARMIES CAN’T STOP US

At the end of the march, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., addressed the crowd at the Alabama State Capitol, he spoke to that defiance: “Yes, we are on the move and no wave of racism can stop us. The burning of our churches will not deter us. The bombing of our homes will not dissuade us. Like an idea whose time has come, not even the marching of mighty armies can halt us.”

The May Day Strong coalition of unions and community groups is not cowering to avoid Trump’s fire. Instead it is stepping up the fight against corporations like the union-busting cell phone company T-Mobile, which hosts “Trump Mobile,” lobbied for his budget bill, and torpedoed its own diversity, equity, and inclusion program. There were nationwide protests on September 20, as world leaders gathered in New York City for the UN General Assembly, “to show the world we are revolting against Trump and the Billionaire Class.” More are planned October 18.

To renew democracy, we have to organize fearlessly in the face of a repressive state, despite all the reasons we have for being afraid. Every act of resistance can steel the courage of others. We have to rediscover the power of civil disobedience and solidarity in every arena of life, from city halls and governors’ mansions to our own workplaces.