Beyond Resistance

Over the first six months of the resistance, millions of people have gathered to protest and fight back against many of the destructive actions and policies of the Trump Administration.  While there has been a necessary focus on the treatment of immigrants, transgender people, federal workers, Medicaid and SNAP recipients and other vulnerable groups,  there has been scant attention paid to the harms being done to unions and union workers, farmers, small businesses, factory workers facing job loss and rural communities more broadly.

Some may say, “They’re getting what they voted for,” but where has that thinking gotten the left? Or we can recognize that these communities have seen contracts cancelled, jobs lost and debts accumulating.  Many of them voted for Trump because he promised to transform a system rigged against them.  We must make un-rigging the system, not just saving it, the centerpiece of our protests.

This is easily remedied:  Make working and rural folks as central to signs, protest themes, social media posts, articles, zoom calls and webinars, and letters to the editor as the vulnerable people already being lifted up.  Trump has largely ignored, abandoned or actively hurt many of the very people and communities who supported him, especially their abilities to make a living.  We must make this central to our messaging if we hope to build a broad enough base to defeat him.

Many people on the left are unaware of the thousands of “success stories” that are taking place across much of rural America.  These range from economic revitalization and new jobs in formerly coal-dependent regions, to effective mobile and community health care initiatives to farmer-led networks that are building new markets and expanding access to healthy food.  Building awareness and understanding of these success stories allows us to devise better policies to support and expand them.  It also helps steer investment into these successful enterprises, and their communities, from both public and private sources.  And it demonstrates a commitment to many to address the very grievances which many rural and working-class people share.

Since Trump assumed power and began attacking and dismantling countless federal programs, Democrats and others on the left have fought to protect the agencies, workers and programs being slashed.  This is critically important.  Unfortunately, this approach has also positioned the left in the role of defending the status quo, of arguing to maintain or return to the system that millions of Americans believe has failed them.  As Congressman Ro Khanna has said, “The alternative to Mr. Trump cannot be a defense of institutions as they are. We need to stand for national renewal…by offering transformative solutions to deliver future prosperity for all Americans.”

While fighting to save or protect critical federal programs, the left must also put forth a clear, compelling and far-reaching platform to “un-rig” the system and level the playing field for working people, rural communities and Americans more widely.  The Rural New Deal provides an example of one such platform we should be publicly supporting or considering.

Mistrust - of liberals, Democrats, “experts” and the government - is extraordinarily wide and deep in rural and working class communities. While better policies for and communications with the people in these places is critical, the most essential challenge we face is rebuilding trust.  To do this, groups of liberals, progressives and Democrats have started working regularly to solve problems in their local communities, usually side-by-side with their more conservative neighbors as well as a range of civic groups, churches, businesses and others.  This “Community Works” strategy, underway now in five states, is rebuilding that lost trust through deeds rather than words.  In the process, rural Democrats are seeing new energy, more volunteers, and a new approach to winning support for their ideas.