longer.blue

The United States has a history of resisting authoritarianism through noncooperation. Pro-independence colonists living under the British crown organized campaigns to refuse to buy or consume British goods; refused to abide by laws requiring colonists to export raw materials to Britain; refused to serve on juries under crown-appointed judges; and developed alternative institutions including the Continental Congress itself. The Boston Tea Party was a defiant act of noncooperation — a refusal to import, consume, or pay taxes on the crown’s tea. In 1815, John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson about his hope that historians would recall those acts of noncooperation — and not the war of independence — as “the revolution,” that “was in the minds of the people.” Much later, during the civil rights movement, desegregation was first tangibly achieved in large part through noncooperation campaigns like the courageous school attendance by the Little Rock Nine, the Montgomery bus boycotts, the lunch counter sit-ins, and boycotts of businesses in Nashville and elsewhere, strikes among sanitation workers in Memphis, and other acts of refusal to abide by the Jim Crow system of racial segregation. These took place in combination with marches and demonstrations that were powerful and dramatic displays of the moral power of the movement, and legal action that demanded the government abide by its own Constitution. We seem to be rediscovering the art, science, and potency of noncooperation — combined with a robust protest capacity and legal action — shows that resistance against Trump’s agenda in America is not only alive and well. It is savvy, diversifying, and probably just getting started. Source=Erica Chenoweth 10 million people on April 19th!