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NO. SERIOUSLY. WHAT IF TRUMP WINS AGAIN?  
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Cayden Mak, Daniel Hunter, Katey Lauer
June 14, 2024
Convergence
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_ Choose Democracy launched a set of online tools and strategy games
to help prepare for this election and after. The tools invite
participants to explore their reactions and options, to plot their own
route through uncharted territory. _

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_In Fall 2020, the activists who formed Choose Democracy noticed that
Donald Trump was saying regularly that he would not transfer power
peacefully if he lost the election. This sounded to them like he was
planning a coup—but most movement folks weren’t taking him
seriously. Choose Democracy looked at the scant literature on
resisting coups and talked to organizers who had experience doing so.
They put together a training, shared it with some 20,000 people, and
then folded. “We didn’t need another organization,” said Daniel
Hunter, one of the founders._

_Now, with January 6, 2021 still clear in the rearview mirror, and
Trump being ever more explicit about his autocratic intentions, Choose
Democracy is regrouping. It has launched an interactive,
choose-your-own-adventure style tool for __individuals, a 150-plus
page book, and an interactive group role-playing game with a
facilitation guide. All this is available
at  __https://whatiftrumpwins.org_ [[link removed]]_._

_Choose Democracy’s Daniel Hunter and Katey Lauer
joined _Convergence _Publisher Cayden Mak on the __June 7 episode_
[[link removed]]_ of
our _Block & Build_ podcast to talk about why they built these tools
and how they hope they will help navigate the rough terrain ahead. In
his day job, Hunter is global trainings director for 350.org. Katey
Lauer is an organizer and trainer __with WV Can’t Wait, based in
southern West Virginia. This is a transcript of their conversation,
edited for length and clarity._

CAYDEN MAK: What is the nature of the project? What came first in the
design decisions around it?

DANIEL HUNTER: We started by running some internal scenario planning
sessions. We created some strategy plans and then created and ran a
strategy game where people played the roles of Trump and MAGA and a
number of others to see some of the dimensions of how these things
might unfold and to get a sense of our own reactions.

It was sobering. There was a lot of reactivity to Trump’s agenda,
which is consistent with what we’ve seen. And we realized it’s not
going to serve us particularly well to be in constant reaction after
each proclamation and then go into the street. It exposes our
weakness, it exposes the degree to which we haven’t organized, and
it doesn’t actually set us up well to do what we need to do, which
is to gain power in order to kick this man out.

So we realized we need some different kinds of resources. One was a
group scenario game, which Katey ended up taking the lead on. And
another was more interviews, like those we did last time, with people
who’ve kicked out autocrats in their own country, since there is a
good history of that around the globe.

And then the third, what might be called a “pick your own path” or
“choose your own adventure” website and book that just allows
people to imagine “what if,” to just enter into the realm of
imagination without attempting to be prescriptive or foresee the
future.

CAYDEN MAK: In the early 20-teens, I was in a grad school program
where I was working on games and play as tools for popular education.
I remember reading a lot about the way in which designing a game
system often leads to deeper learning on the part of the designers,
and then translating that learning to the people who then play the
game or go through the scenarios can be a little challenging. How were
you able to distill some of those learnings from your own scenario
planning into this document?

KATEY LAUER: I can’t tell you how many articles I’ve read or
headlines I’ve seen about a possible Trump presidency–how
much _thinking_ I and others have done about that potential future.
But something happens differently when we, instead, immerse ourselves
in a scenario and then get to see what comes up and notice what’s
emergent.

In some of these pilots that Daniel was describing, there were a lot
of surprises. I remember one of our co-players saying after the fact
that it felt like some new pathway got opened up in his mind, because
there was something about the immersion that was really helpful. Each
of these tools does something immersive.

So the group scenario game lets that happen on a group level. And then
the “choose your own adventure” game lets that happen on an
individual level. And the spirit of both of them is, “Let’s just
put ourselves in a situation and try it out, as opposed to thinking it
through.”

CAYDEN MAK: That’s one of the things that we observed in going
through some of the materials. There is such an emphasis on noticing,
which is very clearly drawn from a lot of mindfulness practice.
Especially when you think about the discourse online and the way that
we talk about these things—being angry on Twitter.com is such a head
experience, even though we think of it as an emotional experience
because we’re mad. It’s not an embodied emotional experience in
the way that you all are asking people to be vulnerable.

And it’s important to think about the kind of emotional preparedness
that’s not just bracing, right? I’ll use “I” statements on
this one, but when I think about these eventualities, I feel a lot of
bracing in my body. I know that does not necessarily put me in the
most creative, strategic, and responsive mindset if I’m literally
locking myself down in body and mind. I’m curious about the thinking
behind some of that mindfulness stuff and the discussions about the
affective impact of gameplay.

Making space for choices

DANIEL HUNTER: Strategy is an art. It’s not an intellectual
experience. It’s something that really comes through how we are
moving through our entire body and our entire way of being. Rather
than seeing it as something separate, a kind of intellectual activity,
as Katey said, we got curious about how it’s about “What do you
really want to do?”

The “choose your own adventure” website and book allows people to
honor whatever’s true for them. I want to run away. Got it. Okay.
Choose that. It doesn’t work out for us if the entire Left decides
to just abandon itself and go to Canada, right?

But if that’s the instinct and it goes unacknowledged, then it
doesn’t give a chance for people to just note it and then try the
next thing. You can see what happens if you flee to Canada, and then
you get offered a chance to try it again and to try a different choice
and see how that goes and put on that thing. It’s a little bit like
the lightness of trying on some different clothing.

The group scenario game that Katey created just allows people to try
things on. And I think that invites some space, and space is the thing
we need if we’re not going to just be braced.

That space allows us to reflect and consider more fully what kind of
choices we want to make—and also to see how some of our own
instincts may not serve us. We’re not attempting to tell you,
“This is the way you have to fight this thing.” It’s more an
exploration, because this is uncharted territory. It’s really an
open invitation for people to find their strategy, their route,
because fundamentally, Katey and I both share a belief that people can
be very smart, and when given the right tools and space and
opportunity they can be smart about their own situation.

Seeing the pitfalls of protest

CAYDEN MAK: Yes, I love that. Let’s talk through some of the
scenarios that the project plays out, because I think there are some
very obvious things that are instinctive.  “Oh, I’m going to
leave the country. I’m going to hit the streets with all my
comrades.” What are some of the scenarios that this has given you
space to explore and that you’re excited to share with folks on the
Left?

DANIEL HUNTER: One is about just continuing to march in the streets.
So eight years ago, the Women’s March and various other marches
began developing. Marches are fantastic opportunity for us to see
who’s with us, to feel connected to other people, especially for
those of us who are in isolated areas and pockets. They can be a
chance to be part of a community where we might feel very isolated,
particularly after an emotional loss like this. On the other hand,
they’re not great power builders in a long-term strategy.

They’re not a threat to the opposition. In fact, one of the things
that we learned as we were chatting with people who’ve fought
autocracies is that it’s very common for autocracies to support
their opposition showing up in concentrated places where they can then
beat them up, oppress them, sow chaos.

In Serbia, for example, [Slobodan] Miloševic used to regularly order
his paramilitaries to show up at the same place as protesters in order
to create a chaotic scenario so that he could then walk in and say,
“See, it’s chaos. This is why you need a strongman.”

So we can fall into a bunch of those traps. We could fall into the
traps of just doing regular marches without some other power-building
approaches, without identifying some other ways to exert our power
that aren’t just concentrated moments in time in which we take a
physical space, without expanding our vision of using strikes, wildcat
strikes, using our symbolic acts of protest.

In Denmark they resisted the Nazis by wearing paper clips, a very
non-confrontational, low-bar entry to a political resistance movement.
You just put a paper clip on your lapel or on your shirt and that
became a symbol. So we explore some of those different realms or
options, because we have to expand our minds away from some of the
trajectory that the Left has gotten a little hooked into.

Sitting in the tension

CAYDEN MAK: One of the things that we noticed going through the
materials, especially the individual website version, is there are not
a lot of end results that you might consider total defeat or victory.
There’s a lot of ambiguity and there’s a lot of sitting in the
tradeoffs of what certain choices lead to versus others. Could you
talk a little bit about the importance of that and the thinking behind
setting up these scenarios in ways that are certainly realistic, in
the sense that total defeat or victory is not going to happen in the
next 12 months, 18 months, 24 months. How did you negotiate that
territory? And what is your thinking behind giving these end states
that do have a little bit of push and a little bit of pull?

DANIEL HUNTER: It’s not a dire all or nothing moment. And in fact,
I work closely with colleagues who work in autocracies, and they
continue to live lives and their lives are filled with great joyous
moments and sad defeats and moments of fear and moments they’re not
scared.

Some of us have not yet had the experience of hanging out with people
who have experienced autocracies. And in extremely repressive
environments, we can catastrophize and catastrophizing is very much in
the atmosphere. I work on climate change, so I certainly believe
catastrophe is an option, but I think that as an instinct,
catastrophizing doesn’t give us a huge advantage and it isn’t a
great descriptor of what might come in 12 months, in 24 months.

People talk in large terms about democracy falling apart. And I agree
that whatever wallpaper version of democracy that we have might in
fact be falling apart. But I don’t think it necessarily means
therefore X, Y, and Z, everything is falling apart—the civil war,
constant chaos, etc.

I acknowledge it could go to some extremes, and there are some
versions that are more extreme than others. But I think we’re in a
moment of tension. That’s what we’re going to experience. So we
have to gear up, not just for catastrophe. That’s the bracing. We
have to gear ourselves up for tension, for ongoing polarization and
politicization. Everything is going to get more politicized and there
will be more tension and we just have to be able to sit in that fire.

CAYDEN MAK: This comes back to what you both said at the beginning
about practice. One of the things I love about being
at _Convergence_ is that we are not in the catastrophizing kind of
space generally, in the way that we choose to talk about things, the
way that we’re thinking about things.

But then you go into the wider internet, and I think that, as you say,
it’s in the air. And there’s something very human about going into
the unknown and being frightened about it, but it does not necessarily
serve us strategically.

KATEY LAUER: And I think one reason it doesn’t serve us is because
sometimes when we’re in that sort of heightened state, it can
encourage us to look for one right answer, like what is the
super-solution?

What is the one way? What’s the right way to respond to this moment?
And these tools imply that there isn’t one.

When we’re in a vigilant state, a catastrophizing state, it can get
us into more of that black-and-white, right or wrong, got-to-solve-it
thinking. Instead of that, we’re rooting for the spaciousness that
will allow us to move with more awareness so we can make the best
choice that we can make in the moment, and then take a next action
from that same place. We can be choiceful as opposed to attempting to
be vigilant and right and just getting tighter and tighter.

Making relationships

DANIEL HUNTER: Another piece that is so helpful is what you’re
saying, Katey, in terms of noticing the different roles out there in
an anti-autocracy movement. Far more mainstream people than we’ve
ever aligned with before are potential allies in the cause.

Liz Cheney is on the list of people who might get arrested by a Trump
presidency. I’ve never imagined myself to be in a boat with Liz
Cheney resisting together, but here we are, right? And she’ll resist
in a different way than I will. And we have to get some alignment.

As a disobedience direct action person, I’m aware of having to wait
and listen more carefully for whether more mainstream people are ready
to go in and join, and to frame my actions in a way that invite more
people into them. All of those are just noticing our role. That opens
up space and what Katey’s talking about opens up our strategy.

CAYDEN MAK: We’re in deep alignment with you in thinking about this
broad front against authoritarianism. It’s a complex ecosystem, and
we also need to be prepared to figure out how we flank each other, and
how we protect each other, and how we utilize those sorts of moments
where people are drawn in who might not be the usual suspects, to then
protect some of the usual suspects.

Some of us will be very vulnerable in a lot of these scenarios,
organizationally as well as personally. A tool that helps us think
through what participating in this kind of broad threat is also
something that we need, because I think on the Left we lack we lack
that practice as well.

It’s not just about the authoritarianism piece. I think there’s
also a piece where we are just now getting into formation and trying
to understand what united front practice might look like in the United
States.

DANIEL HUNTER: That’s right. And so when Liz Cheney gets arrested,
we may be in formation with her.

We also have a different expectation of allyship from others; when
some of our more marginalized communities also get targeted, we’re
going to need people in formation with that too. So it’s building
those relationships.

And one reason we’re launching this, not in November, but ahead of
time is because we do have tobe on the lookout and building these now.
We’re trying to support that organizing, that instinct at local and
regional and national levels to get in formation and get ready for
what might be coming.

CAYDEN MAK: Is there anything else that either of you would like to
share about the project, or do you have other reflections that you’d
like people to think about?

KATEY LAUER: I hope folks will check out the website now. These are
great tools to use by yourself and with your groups this summer,
especially before election season gets more underway than it is
already. We think that some of the imagining and noticing work that
can happen in the short term can really serve us in an ongoing way.
This is the season to try some of this stuff on, and let it simmer
too. And try it again in the fall.

_CAYDEN MAK is Publisher at Convergence Magazine and an organizer,
technologist, and pop culture nerd living on unceded Ohlone land
(Oakland, CA)._

_In 2004, DANIEL HUNTER co-founded Choose Democracy to train tens of
thousands about what to do in case of a Trump coup. He has trained
pro-democracy movements in Burma/Myanmar, Thailand, India, and many
other places. Daniel has written multiple books: Building a Movement
to End the New Jim Crow
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and Strategy and Soul
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thrilling personal story about community organizing and direct action.
He works as global training director for 350.org [[link removed]]_

_KATEY LAUER is an organizer, facilitator, and trainer in West
Virginia, with a deep love of place. She has formed and led grassroots
organizations in the Appalachian mountains for 15 years, as
Coordinator of The Alliance for Appalachia, Lead Organizer of
Appalachia Rising and The March on Blair Mountain, and founding
Director of the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum. Architect of the WV
Can’t Wait movement, Katey currently acts as Co-chair of this
statewide formation that’s out to win a people’s government in the
mountain state. Katey is also a Core Trainer Training for Change
[[link removed]]. [email protected]_

_CONVERGENCE is a magazine for radical insights. We work with
organizers and activists on the frontlines of today’s most pressing
struggles to produce articles, videos and podcasts that sharpen our
collective practice by lifting up stories from the grassroots and
making space for reflection and study. Our community of readers,
viewers, and content producers are united in our purpose: winning
multi-racial democracy and a radically democratic economy._

_Today our movements continue to grow, but so too does the threat from
the racist, authoritarian right. We believe we can defeat them,
dismantle racial capitalism, and win the change we need by building a
new governing majority that is driven by a convergence of grassroots
social movements, labor movements, socialists, and progressives._

Join us.

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