Our collective freedom is at stake. How do we prevent the most vulnerable from being excluded, targeted, or taken advantage of, while providing values, moral clarity, and the most strategic inputs possible? In this first of a two-part series, we share insights from PRA’s researchers about how to move beyond the work on blocking rising authoritarianism, to the work of building power, vision, and solidarity. Steven Gardiner, Ethan Fauré, and an unnamed PRA researcher in conversation with the Rev. Naomi Washington-Leapheart describe the first 100 days of the second Trump administration, and how to respond. 

Our panelists provide an overview of the quality makeup and ideologies of the current Trump administration, the interplay between state repression, particularly of the Palestinian Liberation Movement, and Islamophobia and weaponized antisemitism, and the expansion of the deportation machine in direct alignment with the white nationalist anti-immigration movement. They provide deep insights into the White, Judeo-Christian authoritarianism demonstrated in extrajudicial violence, denial of humanity, further power disregard for congressional and judicial power, concentration of executive power, the “power of the purse,” and attacks on public speech, gathering, and due process.

Our panelists offer insights to focus your organizing, stay in community, right size threats to understand them more accurately, create counternarratives, get into the field, enact noncompliance, and identify and grow the fissures between factions of the Right.

Resources

• Trump 2.0’s First 100 Days Authoritarian Gains and Consolidation by Political Research Associates
• The Antidote to Authoritarianism with Jiva Manske by Political Research Associates (podcast)
• What Is Movement Infrastructure? How Movements Sustain Us Amid Rising Authoritarianism by Cloee Cooper
• Q&A: Harnessing Our Power to End Political Violence: An interview with Scot Nakagawa and Hardy Merriman by Naomi Washington Leapheart
• Book Review: Commune or Nothing! Lessons for Building Grassroots Power Toward Liberation and Democracy by Hialy Gutierrez
• Book Excerpt: Three Way Fight: Revolutionary Politics and Antifascism by Xtn Alexander and Matthew N. Lyons
• Rising Against Authoritarianism: Amplifying Voices for Immigrant Justice by Cloee Cooper
• Religion Dispatches article: “Authoritarians Must Break Your Will to Resist — So What Can You Do About it?” by Steven Gardiner
• Religion Dispatches article: “Trump’s Cabinet (and Other) Picks Paint Picture of a Christian Nationalist ‘Kakistocracy’” by Annika Brockschmidt and Thomas Lecaque
• Religion Dispatches article: “Leading ‘Constitutional Sheriffs’ Org Announces ‘Full Support’ for Trump’s Mass Deportations” by Ethan Fauré