In our current era, there are tens of millions of supporters of the Republican Party and of Donald Trump. Many of them are willing to come out on the streets and to protest what they regard as horrific injustice (e.g., the alleged stealing of the 2020 election, and the crime of abortion, in their view). Hence the Jan 6 insurrection.
If lefty activists engaged in massive civil disobedience, they may very well be confronted by right wing activists, who are likely to be as passionate and are likely to be better armed.
Many Americans, especially conservatives, love the military. Indeed, it is one of the few institutions in society which still has the respect of the people - despite its many disasters and its high costs, which have mostly been hidden from the people.
By the way, The New Yorker published an excellent essay on the failure of protest in recent years: Is There Any Point to Protesting? We turn out in the streets and nothing seems to happen. Maybe we're doing it wrong. It points out that despite worldwide protests against the second war in Iraq, the war went on. Likewise with Occupy Wall Street and with the Women's March on Washington. Arguably, though, Occupy Wall Street helped raise awareness of economic injustice, helped Bernie Sanders almost win the Democratic nomination, and pushed the Democratic Party to the Left.
So how can justice and rights be restored?
Will we need something like the U.S. Civil War, which freed the slaves but which came at a horrific cost in lives and which failed to achieve full rights for African Americans? Will we need something like the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s? It, too, came at a high cost in lives and bloodshed. Even Gandhi's satyagraha (nonviolent resistance) in India resulted in violent opposition.
As I argued above, I don't believe that nonviolent protest and civil disobedience as were done in the 1960s will be successful in our current situation without being distorted by disinformation and without provoking a large backlash that will likely result in horrific conflict. For them to work, progressives would first need to get much better control of the narrative. Given right wing and neoliberal control over the media, that is unlikely to happen in the near term.
I discussed these thoughts with a progressive activist, and I expressed my pessimism about the future of our country. He, instead, was optimistic. He said that we are witnessing the final days of the U.S. empire. Yes, the near and medium term outlooks are bleak for the United States, he said. After the disastrous, costly wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan, the U.S. is throwing itself into hopeless military conflicts with both Russia and, soon, China. There is possibility of war with Iran as well. If we can avoid nuclear annihilation, the world will be better off after America collapses. It's sad but unavoidable that the U.S. will exhaust its wealth and legitimacy in futile attempts at imperialistic hegemony, he said.
In other words, things have to get worse before they get better.
I told him that I don't think his story is a cause for optimism. But, I agree that, given the forces arrayed against us, it is hard to envision a good near-term or mid-term outcome.
Perhaps the Jan 6 hearings in Congress will convince enough independents and moderate Republicans to give up on Trumpism and on the extremism of the GOP. That may help us avoid disaster in November of 2022 and in 2024. But even if the GOP is weakened, we still need to overcome the corporate Democratic Party and the MICIMATT.
Indeed, every Democrat in Congress voted for the $40 billion military and humanitarian aid package to Ukraine, while 11 Senate Republicans and 57 House Republicans voted against it. Meanwhile, antiwar conservatives are becoming more organized and popular; see See Warning to Dems from antiwar conservatives: Dems' militarism "is going to bite them pretty hard very soon".
That is a fourth reason why things are so dire for the Left and protest won't work easily: we have to fight not only the neo-fascist GOP but also the neoliberal, militaristic, and often incompetent Democratic Party.
Many people (e.g., Noam Chomsky) have said that the Left first needs to fight the fascist GOP. If that requires working with the lesser-of-two-evils the Democrats, so be it. I am not totally opposed to that strategy. But it makes our task much harder and makes it much more likely that we will fail. The "Left" is terribly divided, between the Democratic Party -- who aren't really on the Left -- and those on the real left: socialists, antiwar progressives, and -- at times -- people like Bernie Sanders.
The Democratic establishment seems to be in no mood to make peace with its progressive wing. Instead, it antagonizes it, by supporting horrible corporate Democrats such as Henry Cuellar. I communicate regularly with my member of Congress, Rep. Adam Smith. He often is critical of progressive extremism (e.g., "Defund the Police", the emphasis on identity politics, and what he calls an anti-American emphasis on U.S. culpability for unjust wars during the Cold War and the War on Terror). I believe that the antagonism of the corporate wing of the Democratic Party to the progressive wing is much higher than most people are aware.
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