Thread by @DavidOAtkins, One of the peculiar dynamics of the American Problem is that U.S. [...]

David Atkins

DavidOAtkins

One of the peculiar dynamics of the American Problem is that U.S. conservative leaders don& #39;t represent or care about cities.

They don& #39;t care if cities burn or grind to a halt in protest. Big corporations are not clearly aligned behind them.

So the pressure levers aren& #39;t easy./1

You could put millions and millions in the streets, and the rural gerrymandered legislators would laugh. The police don& #39;t live in the cities they serve.

Wildcat strike? Even if you could, it& #39;s not like Apple, Amazon, Starbucks, Yum, etc, are keeping Trump in power. /2

Stop paying taxes? These guys are actively letting cities and blue states go bankrupt, and at the federal level they don& #39;t care about deficits at all. /3

You could send tens of millions to Washington DC, and they would all just leave town and wait it out.

So if your answer to a Trump coup is "direct action" or whatever, you need to think very carefully about what you mean, what will work and whether they will care. /4

There are conceivable scenarios in which Republicans could feel enough pressure to step back from the coup, but they generally wouldn& #39;t look like the traditional leftist approach to direct action. There is likely no protest, riot or general strike big enough to do it. /5

But this is also why it& #39;s important, when facing a fascist threat, for liberal democracy to have buy-in from a lot of players with power in society, including ones we might not always be comfortable allying with.

Stopping the Trump coup may take *all* hands on deck.

/end

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