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10 ORGANIZING PRINCIPLES FOR DEFEATING TRUMPISM 2.0  
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Arun Gupta
April 1, 2025
Yes Magazine
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_ Organizing lessons I learned from movements for worker organizing,
immigrant rights, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, climate
justice, Palestine solidarity, and abortion rights. _

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As soon as President Donald Trump began his shock-and-awe assault on
the federal government in January 2025, lists began bouncing around
the internet with titles like “How to Survive the Trump Years
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They advised readers on how to respond to the chaos politically,
personally, and when dealing with others. 

Actions included “donating to a cause” or “calling your
senator.” One journalist
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comfort in texting photos of “someone floating in the ocean” to
friends, or “twice-daily meditation.” Another
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“Try to be everything that Trump is not: compassionate, honest, calm
and decent,” and that such efforts might charm Trump “into doing
the right thing.” This was not a joke. 

While this advice might reduce stress, it isn’t much help fighting a
dictator. We can’t claim Trump is a fascist hell-bent on rolling
back 20th-century progress and then respond to an enraged MAGA cultist
by, as one writer suggests
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placating them with empathetic sentiments like “I’ve felt that way
sometimes, too.”

Playing nice ain’t going to cut it with people who want to kill you
and your community. We need principles that build power now and for
the long term. 

After Trump was elected in 2016, I helped found the Portland Metro
People’s Coalition [[link removed]]. Our
strategy was to build municipal power to fight Trump while shifting
local politics to the left. We attracted a lot of interest because we
were among the few independent multi-issue groups seeking to build
grassroots power. Eight years later, the PMPC is still going strong.

Here are the organizing lessons I learned from the PMPC and from
movements for worker organizing, immigrant rights, Occupy Wall Street,
Black Lives Matter, climate justice, Palestine solidarity, and
abortion rights. These lessons may serve us well under Trump 2.0.

1. TAP PEOPLE ON THE SHOULDER.

After years reporting on politics in Portland, I found the organizing
scene to be rife with divisive social-media personalities who attack
organizations around race, gender, and identity to gain attention,
money, and clout. Because of this, the PMPC never opened our meetings
to the public. Instead, we chose to “tap people on the shoulder”
by recruiting organizers who were doing real work and had a solid
reputation. This undercut outside attempts by provocateurs seeking to
disrupt the work.

2. PLAY WELL TOGETHER.

We also picked people who play well together. It’s not enough to
have good politics or say the right things. Can they collaborate
without being dominating or domineering? Are they self-centered, quick
to anger, or prone to attack others? Do they seek compromise to
advance our principles and vision? Do they do the grunt work or do
they just want all the glory? Asking such questions helped keep us on
track and get things done.

3. PEOPLE WITH LOTS OF TIME WILL WASTE YOUR TIME. 

In my experience, an activist who has lots of time often lacks
community, which may mean they alienate others or can’t work in a
group. I have noticed such people often want to debate and discuss
everything, including re-opening decisions that have already been
made. Resist the temptation to organize everyone. If someone is a
drain on your efforts, don’t let them guilt trip you into letting
them in your group. 

They will sap energy, chase away existing members, and might be more
effective as lone activists. Many effective activists who work alone
are tenacious around issues like housing, police brutality, and
climate change, and can make great allies but may not be cut out for
group activism.

4. Build community.

People say this all the time, but what does it mean, in practice, to
build community? We need to play together, create music and art
together, cook and eat together, live and love together. Creating
strong, layered bonds among individuals, groups, and communities helps
us withstand state, corporate, and police repression. You are far
likelier to have someone’s back who has been a close comrade for
years than a stranger you met yesterday. 

A caveat: Be aware some people use group settings to act out issues
about their upbringing, past trauma, or ex-lovers. They may be overly
needy, try to turn meetings into therapy sessions, or demand constant
emotional labor. We should take care of each other—but no one has a
right to make you their caretaker. 

5. Build capital.

Activists are often told to “build sustainable structures.”
Here’s an idea related to the previous suggestion, but is rarely
spelled out: “Build capital.” Money is not a cure-all, but it can
help tremendously. Many progressive public spaces are the result of an
individual or group’s foresight to buy real estate years ago. One
lefty magazine I know is funded largely out-of-pocket by the
publisher. Another progressive news show received millions of
dollars from a foundation bankrolled by Wall Street money. 

The left has unfortunately become puritanical about money. Groups like
the Communist Party historically encouraged members to start
businesses, make money, and give it to the party. 

This is a different strategy than starting worker-owned businesses
or co-ops
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which have their place in the organizing world. It is also not a form
of charity. Instead, the strategy is to _fund_ radical leftist
organizing rather than delivering social services.

6. DON’T JUST MOBILIZE. Organize.

Many activists confuse mobilizing with organizing. Mobilizing is
turning out people who agree with you, such as Get Out the Vote
efforts for a candidate or asking friends to join a protest.
Organizing means changing minds. The latter is harder, but the impact
is far more significant and long lasting. We need to win people over
to our side, and that means changing their consciousness.

I have interviewed thousands of people across the country, and with
rare exceptions, their politics were a mess of left- and right-wing
ideas, conspiracies, and falsehoods. People want to be heard—so
actively listen to them, don’t lecture or berate them. Find a
genuine point of agreement, steer the conversation in that direction,
and build on it. Make them feel good about themselves and the idea
that together we can make positive change—and you might just win
them to your cause.

7. BE RUTHLESS.

The right understands minority movements can win if they are
disciplined, single minded, and ruthless. Look at the anti-abortion
movement, which never stopped trying to overturn _Roe. v Wa_
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eventually succeeded in doing so. Despite extraordinarily low support,
anti-abortion extremists are moving closer to a total ban on abortion
in places such as Texas, where only 11% of the population backs a ban
[[link removed]]. 

We don’t need everyone to agree with us if we build power and use it
ruthlessly. Right now we have a president breaking the law to enact
his thieving, white-nationalist, authoritarian agenda. Wouldn’t it
be nice to see a president breaking norms instead to enact Medicare
for all, oversee a just green transition, or protect immigrants?

8. IF YOU DON’T STAND FOR SOMETHING, YOU WILL FALL FOR ANYTHING.

The Democratic Party is a cautionary tale on what happens if you
compromise your principles. Last year, many people, myself included
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warned that Kamala Harris’s embrace of Israel’s genocide in Gaza
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cost her the 2024 presidential election. Post-election polling
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dragged her support down. By not opposing genocide—the worst
political act possible—liberals got the worst of both worlds: a
genocide that went on for 15 months _and_ Trump. Or, as Ta-Nehisi
Coates [[link removed]] explained: “If
you can’t draw the line at genocide, you probably can’t draw the
line at democracy.” 

As if on cue, Democrats exposed their ideological bankruptcy following
Trump’s inauguration. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries
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repeatedly lamented that Democrats have no leverage. In March, Senate
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer
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surrendered by endorsing a government spending bill that hands Trump
and Musk a “blank check” for their “authoritarian agenda,”
according to _Common Cause_
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In contrast, the movement opposing genocide was a master class in how
to wield power. Muslim and Palestinian Americans led the campaign
to withhold votes from Harris
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she agreed to end the genocide. Two days before the election Harris
said she would “do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza
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though it was too little too late. 

We build power by sticking to our principles and forcing Democrats to
fulfill our demands instead of surrendering to a party that embraces
war and Wall Street just as much as the GOP.

9. DEMOCRACY IS OVERRATED.

Many people who flock to dynamic movements are happy to do data entry,
send emails, clean, and run errands—the small tasks that help
organizing happen. Not everyone needs or wants to be a part of
democratic decision-making within organizations. Horizontalism sounds
nice, but over many years of reporting on protests, I have seen it
repeatedly decay in the hands of the least competent and most
intransigent individuals. 

I reported on Occupy Wall Street from New York City to Los Angeles,
and I sat in on meetings that would meander for hours, debate
pie-in-the-sky ideas like boycotting the internet for a month, or
argue over where to place recycling bins. After such experiences, many
activists never returned to the camps. There is nothing wrong with
hierarchy or authority as long as it is earned, transparent, and
accountable. Set the rules and practices for your organization, and
people who don’t agree are welcome to start their own project. Not
everything needs to be voted on. Not everyone needs to agree.

10. ACT GLOBALLY, THINK LOCALLY.

Knowing what to do often starts with knowing what not to do. For
example, don’t give into suggestions to focus only on a single issue
or local organizing. Trump is trying to deport pro-Palestinian
activist Mahmoud Khalil
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to set a precedent
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can be used against all of us. 

Khalil’s case is at the intersection of multiple issues: brutal
colonialism, free speech, Palestinian rights, campus activism, and
immigration. Our struggles are inseparable. They also happen on a
national and global terrain. If we focus only on local issues, then
the right can pull the rug out from under us the way they have with
“pre-emption laws
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to prevent progressive cities from passing rent control or higher
minimum-wage laws in red states. It’s the same with single-issue
movements. If we don’t have other people’s backs, then who will
have ours when the fascists come for us?

org

_Arun Gupta [[link removed]] is a
graduate of the French Culinary Institute and has written for the
Washington Post, the Nation, The Daily Beast, The Raw Story, The
Guardian, and other publications. He is the author of the upcoming
Bacon as a Weapon of Mass Destruction: A Junk-Food-Loving Chef’s
Inquiry into Taste (The New Press)._

_YES! Media is independent and nonpartisan. Our EXPLANATORY
JOURNALISM analyzes societal problems in terms of their root causes
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