Non-Violent Protest

In lieu of armed rebellion, the US left (in particular) is fond of (addicted to?) the peaceful demonstration. Washington DC has been the setting for at least four massive demonstrations since Trump’s election, with the Woman’s march of January 21, 2017 the most remarkable.

I think demonstrations are of a fairly limited utility at this political moment. I don’t know when the turning point was reached, but I do think of the large demonstrations against the second Iraq War, which were acknowledged by the Bush administration as marvelous proof that America is a “free” land and just as sublimely ignored. The manifestation of widespread dissent had no impact at all on the government’s actions, even as the ability of that dissent to express itself was subsumed into the government’s larger narrative about its impeccable virtue.

So the first problem is that our government—and the way that democracy in these United States is currently configured (more about that in a subsequent post)—cannot be moved by demonstrations. The politicians neither fear the popular will (since they are securely isolated from it) nor have any moral conscience to be awakened. The contrast to the civil rights movement could not be more stark. That moral campaign indicted a country for its failure to abide by its stated ideals—and that criticism had some bite and moved some political actors to work for change. (Yes, the fact of the Cold War helped to move those politicians, but there were also some real changes of heart, with Lyndon Johnson himself a prime example of someone led to do the right thing.)

The second problem is the current polarization that is aided and abetted (if not actually created) by people receiving their “news” from different sources. The demonstrations of the civil rights era were aimed as much at swaying general public opinion as at changing politicians’ hearts and minds. There was an intended audience: the vast public that barely knew the realities of segregation or the extent to which Southerners would go to resist any changes. We hardly lack for all too invisible injustices in our land today. But making them visible has become harder because of our fragmented public sphere with its sophisticated channels of distortion, disinformation, and constant outrage at the perfidy of one’s political opponents. The left’s demonstrations add no new converts to its ranks, a marked contrast to the civil rights and anti-war demonstrations of the 1950s and 1960s.

A third problem is persistence. The civil rights and anti-war movements were long and experienced more failures than triumphs. Today’s demonstrations are, all too often, one-offs. Demonstrations are almost completely useless if not attached to movements—and movements require organization, funds, full-time staff, and the ability to stay in for the long haul. The right’s careful, deliberate, and mostly successful destruction of labor unions over the past seventy years (ever since Taft-Hartley) has deprived the left of the solid base a movement needs to sustain itself.

A shared culture, a shared way of life that extends beyond political commitments, is required to sustain a movement. The people in the movement need institutions and public spaces that are exclusively (or almost exclusively) theirs. The union hall functioned for blue collar labor the same way that black churches, school, colleges, and neighborhoods functioned for African-Americans. The feminist and gay rights movements created local institutions (women’s centers, health clinics) as a crucial feature alongside the more national organizations like NOW or the Humans Rights Campaign. It is one of the ironies of the civil rights movement that the end of segregation vastly weakened the ability of blacks to act in concert. A movement that enlists people whose lives are fully intertwined with one another’s is most likely to succeed through its ability to last. The dispersal of blacks into the wider society hampered their ability to act together politically.

College operated as that set-apart space for the anti-war movement. The problem there, of course, is that students pass through, graduating after four years—a problem somewhat mitigated in the 60s by activists moving into graduate programs and by colleges not taking students off the rolls (because that would make them eligible for the draft) even when they weren’t actually doing any course work. The campuses belonged to the students as their base of operation and that segregated place where they shared a life.

In short, weekend warriors are not enough—especially when they traipse down to Washington to march with total strangers in the name of vague ideals like paying attention to science. Because the other thing that sustains a movement is an identifiable and achievable goal. (I am not a fan of Occupy, obviously. I do not see how it could have ever had legs.) The civil rights movement had the goal of ending legal segregation and barriers to voting. The anti-war movement aimed to end the war. Those are easily articulated and very achievable goals. Same for gay marriage or for feminist campaigns directed to rape and domestic violence laws.

First conclusion: demonstrations must be attached to movements if they are to bear any fruit. Second conclusion (more controversial): under current conditions, demonstrations don’t do very much to advance the causes a movement might embrace. At best, it seems to me, demonstrations might be good for the morale of the already committed. See how many of us there are! But even that one time gathering is no substitute for a shared life together—and I don’t know where that shared life exists except perhaps in some of the famous “liberal enclaves” like the Chapel Hill where I dwell.

I often complain that the left marches on Washington while the right gets itself elected to school boards. But that’s a bit unfair in the sense that in Chapel Hill the left does involve itself in local government, and puts forward its winning candidates for the state legislature and Congress. The problem is not so much neglect of the small-bore processes of democracy as it is the failures of democracy in our time. (I am being very careful not to say, “the deterioration of democracy on our time.” I want to be agnostic about how well democracy worked in the past. No need for unjustified nostalgia. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be very precise about the exact form the current failure of democracy takes. That will be the subject of subsequent posts.)

Demonstrations and social movements, after all, are the tools citizens resort to when the normal processes of democratic government are not working to address pressing problems and injustices. Demonstrations and movements are extra-constitutional, tactics developed alongside constitutional procedures for political action. What I am saying, then, is that the tactics of the 1950s and 1960s seem less likely to succeed today than in the past—and will certainly never succeed if demonstrations are not linked to movements. Right now, I do not see any coherent movements on the left—only lots of agitation and an ability to bring a lot of people out onto the street on weekends. But during the week those same people return to their ordinary lives, which are lived in fairly complete isolation from the people they marched with on Saturday, while there is no one working during the week to keep the hopes and demands of the Saturday demonstration on the front burner.

Apart from the movement issue is a question about the level of civil unrest. There are many ways short of violence for citizen action to disrupt business as usual. The spontaneous flocking of people to airports at the announcement of the first Trump travel ban offered one example—and seemed to me by far the most effective thing the left has done since Trump’s election. In general, I don’t think the left will have an impact until it forces a confrontation by way of massive civil disobedience and/or the creation of massive disruption of life as usual.

Several points to make here: 1. The injustice being protested must be an obvious and dramatic one. There has to be good reason to believe that a majority would find the government’s actions outrageous. A good example would be any attempt by the Trump administration to begin mass deportations. 2. I think civil unrest will only work if it occurs in several locations around the country. Focusing on Washington is a mistake—or a sign of a deeply undermining limitation. A movement is necessary to coordinate nation-wide action. But the movement only shows its strength by being capable of nation-wide action. There have been calls for such action, but no one has come remotely close to being able to pull it off. We are not France or Egypt, small countries where action in the capital is enough to shake the political foundations. If we are going to sit on bridges to stop the morning commute, it has to happen in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, and half a dozen more cities to have the impact we want.

All of this says: the left needs to get organized. The right has its mega-churches. And its think tanks. And its Chambers of Commerce and corporate lobbyists and donors. The left doesn’t really have anything comparable. It has a few mega-donors (George Soros and the like), but no institutional bases and no full-time staff. And it has very few places where it shares a way of life. Its extra-constitutional responses to Trump are going to continue to be ineffectual if all this remains the case. And it better not let its ability to turn out a million people for a protest march—or get millions of signatures on those never-ending petitions one is asked to sign—delude it about the effectiveness of its opposition to rightist policies.

Next up is a consideration of constitutional politics—i.e. elections and court cases—and the resources they offer to the left.

1848 and Now

So what are my take-aways from reading about the 1848 revolutions in France?

The first is that a violent overthrow of the US government is unthinkable. It is, on one hand, easy to see why this is the case. It just about impossible to imagine a scenario in which the military of this country would go over to the side of the revolutionaries. And I think that holds whether the revolutionaries were of the left or the right. Compare to 1861 when over half of the country’s army joined the Southern secession. A revolution cannot succeed without the military, at the very least, sitting on the sidelines. And you would have to be very deluded to think the military would sit a revolution out—or would come over to the side of the revolutionaries.

But, on the other hand, the absence of organized political violence is deeply puzzling. Think of the over 100 years of racist terrorism in the American South, of the Black Panthers and the Weathermen, or of the extra-state violence (on both sides) of the American labor wars from 1880 to 1930. The formation of armed groups prepared to fight for political ends is hardly a rare phenomenon in American history. Yet, with the exception of some very fringe right-wing militias, such groups do not exist in contemporary America—and have not existed since the 1980s. Why?

One possible answer is that, even given what seem like extreme political differences, most everyone benefits enough from today’s society to see its complete upheaval, its being cast into chaos, as a worse alternative to the status quo. That doesn’t seem right when we think about 20% of our children living in poverty and other similar signs of deep distress for many. Going down that road, of course, leads to the perennial question of the quietism of the extremely poor and extremely poorly treated. All the social science evidence always suggests that it takes a minimal level of social well-being to become politically active—and that rising expectations and/or recent losses in status or economic well-being are the engines of violent protest. By that measure, the absence of contemporary rebellion is a measure of despair, of a fatalistic sense that it can’t be any better.

The left can certainly be accused of failing to tell a stirring story about how it could be better. Instead, in the US especially, the left always apologizes when it offers policies that aim to the betterment of the least well off—instead of shouting from the rooftops about the glory of a society where we all join together in caring for all.

Anyway, violence is off the table in 2017 America. Random, single person violence—of either the left or the right—does nothing to change basic structures, while concerted, organized violence (for whatever reason) is unknown.

I will continue this thread with subsequent posts on demonstrations, on “movements,” and on electoral politics.

France in 1848—and the US Today

More thoughts inspired by my reading of Hugh Brogan’s biography of Tocqueville.

Like the Russians in 1917, the French had two revolutions in 1848. The first, in February, toppled the government of King Louise-Phillipe (the Orleans monarchy that had been in place since the Bourbons had been ousted in the 1830 revolt). Basically, Paris rose up in arms—and Louise-Phillipe refused (mostly) to allow his troops to fire on the armed crowds. The death toll was very likely less than 200—so it was mostly a non-violent overthrow of the government, akin to the revolutions in Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia in 1989—1991. But, unlike 1989—1991, the rebels took to arms. It is just that the government did not fight back.

Louise-Phillipe’s abdication left the National Assembly in charge—and the Second Republic was born. It quickly passed a very large extension of the franchise, some fairly hefty economic aid packages (an economic downturn had spurred the revolt), and, after four months, a new constitution. Gathering together for the first time under that newly written and ratified constitution, the assembly (motivated by fear of socialism) ended all economic relief programs and took the right to vote away from the working class. The Parisians rose up in arms again—and this time the Assembly set the army and the National Guard loose. The bloodbath lasted less than a week, with the rebels routed. The country outside of Paris was almost entirely quiet. The reactionary Assembly had survived, but had lost all credibility. In the ensuing election for the post of President (which had been created by the new constitution), Louis Napoleon (who had been living in exile for over 15 years) won six million votes; all the other candidates combined did not win two million. Louis Napoleon ran as the strong man who could bring stability and order to a society that had experienced two rebellions in less than six months.

The next crisis occurred when Louis’s two year term was up. The new constitution had created a strong executive, but had limited presidents to one two-year term. Louis—and the country—demanded that the constitution be amended to let him run again. But the process for amending the constitution was so difficult that, even with a majority in favor of making the change, the motion to amend failed. In response, Napoleon staged his coup d’etat, installing himself as president. Two years later, he would declare himself Emperor Napoleon III.

To give himself legitimacy, Napoleon III was fond of plebiscites. He would go directly to the people, bypassing the constitution and the assembly. He won every vote that was taken—and certainly in the first ten years of his reign (at least) had more popular support than any other leader or faction. He is a perfect example of what Stuart Hall called “authoritarian populism.”

So much for the history. I want to consider how the events of 1848 might speak to current conditions in these United States. But I will leave that for my next post.

Alexis de Tocqueville

I am reading Hugh Brogan’s wonderful biography of Alexis Tocqueville.

Here’s two pieces of classic Tocqueville.

The first pertains to the shift from aristocratic glory to the bourgeois pursuit of material prosperity.

But if it seems useful to you to direct the intellectual and moral activity of men towards the material necessities of life, and to use them to produce well-being; if reason strikes you as more profitable to men than genius; if your object is not to generate heroic virtues but peaceful habits; if you prefer to witness vices rather than crimes, and fewer great deeds in return for fewer outrages; of, rather than moving in a brilliant society, you are content to live in a prosperous one; if, finally, the chief object of government is not, in your opinion, to raise a whole nation to its greatest strength and glory, but to procure for each of the individuals who make it up the greatest possible well-being and the least distress; then equalize status and build a democratic government. (263 in Brogan)

The second states his ideals.

I dream of a society where all, regarding the law as their own handiwork, love it and submit to it without difficulty; where, the authority of government being respected as necessary rather than divine, love is felt for the head of state not as a passion but as a calm and rational sentiment Each citizen having his rights, and being sure of keeping them, a manly, mutual confidence would be established between the classes, and a sort of reciprocal condescension, as far from pride as from humiliation. Educated in their real interests, the people would understand that to profit by the blessings of society it is necessary to pay for them. Free associations among the citizens would replace the power of individual nobles, and the State would be sheltered alike from tyranny and license . . . . Changes in the body of society would be regulated and gradual; should there be less distinction than under an aristocracy, there would also be less poverty; enjoyments would be less spectacular, well-being more general; learning and science would diminish, but ignorance be rarer; passions would be less violent and manners gentler; there would be more vice and less crime. (276 in Brogan)

What went wrong? Tocqueville seems to have underestimated the competitive nature of focusing one’s efforts on economic gain: both the economic need to beggar one’s neighbor and the psychic impulse to only savor one’s good fortune in relation to the other’s ill fortune. Or, to be more direct, the Christian need to identify and punish the reprobate. It is the glee with which punishment is meted out—augmented in America by racial animus—that is most depressing as we watch the spectacle of the Republicans taking health care away from millions.