A Successful Rally
The rally at Houdini Plaza last Thursday evening was a great success, and the organizers should be proud of what they accomplished. The rally was part of a national movement to “make some good trouble” and to express resistance to our Grifter-in-Chief’s campaign to destroy our democracy. An article in The Dairyland Patriot expressed the goal of the rally well in the words of John Lewis.
My philosophy is very simple. When
you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, say something! Do
something! Get in trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble.
The article also quoted Emily Tseffos, one of the organizers
of the rally and one of its speakers.
There’s a bridge in Selma, Alabama.
… [It is] just concrete and steel. But in 1965, it became sacred ground. John Lewis –
just 25 years old – led hundreds across it. They were met with tear gas,
horses, and clubs. And they kept walking. That’s good trouble. Necessary
trouble. The kind we’re called to right now.
So let’s march like Selma, … Rise like Stonewall (the 1969 protests that marked the beginning of the modern gay rights movement). … Strike like Amazon workers. … Dream like the people who know this country has always been remade from the bottom up. Because good trouble isn’t history – it’s a mandate.”
A Weakness Revealed
These are beautiful and powerful words, and in my view, they are completely correct. We must organize and act. However, Emily's words also reveal a key
weakness of the rally and of the movement it represented. The movement is an
expression of national revulsion against the policies and actions of the Trump
administration, but a successful, political movement cannot be only against something. It must be for
something as well. The march across the bridge in Alabama had a goal, which was
true freedom for Black people in the United States. The Stonewall protests, and
the strikes at Amazon also had clear, positive goals.
The movement represented by the rally has no such clear
goals. The people who attended the rally have goals: some are fighting for fair
treatment of immigrants; others are fighting for fair treatment of women; still
others are fighting for Medicare for All or affordable childcare; other goals were
represented, as well. But the movement itself has not coalesced around a set of
clear positive goals, and it must do so if it is to succeed.
Hard Choices to Make
Selecting a clear set of positive goals will require some hard choices. A movement cannot fight for everything at the same time. It must demand a small number of clearly defined specific changes. So, this movement at this time and in this place will have to choose, and it will have to put some worthy goals aside for another time.
Moreover, an effective American political movement should also
link somehow to our electoral system, which means that the demands of this movement
should point to policy positions that congressional candidates can run on in
2026. It also means that the movement's demands should be capable of being presented in a way that will allow them to attract broad support from the voters.
If the movement’s demands do not point to policy positions for
candidates, the movement must expect to reach its goals through civil
disobedience. The Montgomery
Bus Boycott is an example of the successful use of that strategy as is Gandhi’s March to the Sea to
make salt. However, effective civil disobedience is very difficult, and civil
disobedience that extends over a long period of time requires an enormous
commitment from its adherents. A movement that can make use of the electoral
system can achieve its goals much more easily.
So, the movement to “make some good trouble” has choices to
make. What will its demands be, and how will it pursue them? It must make those
choices if it is to be effective in bringing about change.