Resisting An Occupation

They are flailing. Donald Trump is doing what he does in his rally speeches – tossing things at the wall to see what gets the best reaction. Recently that reaction is escaping him. His polling is underwater everywhere. He is losing in the courts.

So he wants to attack Greenland, maybe Mexico today. He may move on to somewhere else, but he’s gotten a strong reaction to Greenland. Iran is dropping out of his sights, maybe because someone placated him and told him that he had already made peace there.

ICE is concentrating its agents in Minnesota, particularly Minneapolis. They have 3000 agents there, much more than the 600-person Minneapolis police force. This morning there’s a mention that they may attack Maine next.

The constant refocusing is overstretching their troops. The military is already feeling it, with a naval carrier group tied down to support Trump’s Venezuela fantasy followed by the need for a group to support the Iran fantasy.

ICE (and Customs and Border Protection, CBP) agents are kidnaping people and damaging communities, but they are also raising resistance. There is a movement in the House of Representatives to impeach Kristi Noem. Poll numbers are going down, which means support is increasing for actions like that.  They are pushing their pogrom too hard, too fast, too incompetently. A group of ICE cowards ran away last night, leaving vehicles full of extra license plates and plans for more attacks.

Ordinary people are coming up with good strategies against ICE. The whistles and car honking to warn of their presence. Recording their acts. Helping their neighbors with daily life through the interruptions. These tactics are part of a nonviolent strategy.

Martin Luther King used nonviolence quite deliberately. It was an important part of the civil rights movement more broadly. Since then, we’ve lost sight of organized nonviolence. It requires training and toughness of mind and body. The King Center lays out his principles. Here’s number 1:

PRINCIPLE ONE: Nonviolence Is a Way of Life for Courageous People.

•  It is not a method for cowards; it does resist.
• It is active nonviolent resistance to evil.
• It is aggressive spiritually, mentally, and emotionally.

There’s more at Stanford University’s Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute.

Gene Sharp was another thinker about nonviolent action. Much of his writing can be found online. Here’s a place to start.

People in Minnesota are rediscovering these precepts, but we could move more quickly if more of us understood and applied them in our strategic thinking. They’re good strategy for people facing more firepower than they have. Those of us not on the front lines need to understand that mobilizing opinion and political action is our part of it. The point is not to change the minds of the oppressors, but to marshal enough people of good will and politics to stop them.

People are calling for Governor Tim Walz to activate the National Guard to protect people from ICE. There are vaguer calls to “do more” that seem to be calling for citizen violence, although most of those issuing those vaguer calls deny that’s what they are calling for.

The National Guard would be another armed group sent into a volatile situation. That increases the probability that people will be shot. It increases the numbers of people with weapons who may break from their training one way or another. It gives ICE a reason to ramp up their activities.

It’s possible that National Guard deployed around their facilities would slow ICE down. What would it do to the roving squads? Where are they headquartered? Or would the National Guard be deployed to neighborhoods? How many are needed? How many are available? They can get overstretched too.

Trump threatens to invoke the Insurrection Act, but he hasn’t so far. A major outbreak of violence might give him what he wants and an excuse to bring in an already overstretched military. However, Trump is afraid of boots on the ground. He has shied away from it in Venezuela. He put National Guard only in cities where they were unlikely to meet physical resistance.

There are arguments that state and city authorities cannot be assured of the allegiance of militarized local police forces. Nor can Trump be sure of military allegiances. Something like 40% of the military are Black or Hispanic. And there is always the question of whether a military will fire on people who look like their neighbors.

King and Sharp can provide more tools for resistance. Those of us outside Minnesota need them too. For those advocating other means, please tell us what they are and how they are likely to play out.

We can win this. Let’s use the tools that others have developed and succeeded with.

Photo: Mugshot of Martin Luther King Jr following his 1963 arrest in Birmingham. Public domain.