By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
“At what point shall we expect the approach of danger?” –Abraham Lincoln, The Lyceum Address
Here is the current EC status from 270toWin (which nets out the same as O.G. Larry Sabato’s):
Agonizingly close, then.
I think it’s fair to say that if the Democrats believe what they say about Trump, then they cannot possibly allow him to take office. And yet, there has been curiously little public discussion about what they might actually do to prevent that event, should Trump be in a position to win the Electoral College (EC) vote, the day after Election Day.
I would speculate that discussion of “The Day After” has taken place — like so many matters of importance, these days — in rooms we will never enter. And so — again as like so many matters of importance — we don’t really know what anyone is after. But it would be irresponsible not to speculate. In this post, I’m going to focus on what the Democrats might do, partly because I came up through the Democrats, so I’m more familiar with the players and their collective mentality. More importantly, from 2016 (RussiaGate) – 2020 (lawfare), the Democrats have form.
Readers will recall that I have periodically muttered that the parties must be wargaming out 2024 (just as Democrats did in 2020). In fact, the Democrats are doing just that. In this post, I’ll first compare 2020’s “Transition Integrity Project” with 2024’s “Democracy Futures Project.” I will then present one scenario that seems to have emerged from whatever hive mind produced the wargame, and that depends on the functional equivalent of a Color Revolution. I will then speculate on where the energy to mobilize such a color revolution would come from, and who the footsoldiers would be. Finally, I will present the closest thing there was in Election 2016 to a color revolution, the Women’s March (“pink pussy hats”), and speculate how a successor might be modified to achieve greater success through the admixture of more items from the list of Gene Sharp’s “198 Methods of Non-Violent Resistance” (Sharp being the theorist of color revolutions). Of course, all this meta-war gaming is a little bit mad, with a hegemonic yet unelected establishment using the tools of, er, resistance, to carry out an autogolpe, but here we are. Because we know so little, I will have to string together a lot of this with bubbe gum and baling wire (that being my preference to an overly tight yarn diagram). I hope this post stimulates discussion, at least.
Projects to Defend “Our Democracy”: 2020 and 2024
Vox describes Election 2020’s Transition Integrity[1] Project (TIP) (Aug 18, 2020):
This may sound far-fetched. But in June, an organization called the Transition Integrity Project (TIP) convened a group of more than 100 bipartisan experts to simulate what might happen the day after Election Day — running a kind of political “war game” where veteran Democrats role-played as the Biden campaign and veteran Republicans acted as the Trump team.
They simulated four scenarios: a big Biden victory, a narrow Biden win, an indeterminate result à la the 2000 election, and a narrow Trump victory. In every scenario but a massive Biden blowout, things went south.
Here are the results of the wargames. More:
“We anticipate lawsuits, divergent media narratives, attempts to stop the counting of ballots, and protests drawing people from both sides,” TIP writes in a post-exercise report summarizing their findings. “The potential for violent conflict is high, particularly since Trump encourages his supporters to take up arms.”
Nils Gilman, the vice president of programs at the Berggruen Institute think tank, is one of the project’s co-founders. In his view, the exercise highlighted key flaws in our electoral system, ranging from the rickety 18th-century design of the presidential election system to our modern plague of hyperpartisanship. These problems, Gilman says, make the electoral system particularly vulnerable to a catastrophic collapse in 2020 — and some of them could still be addressed before it’s too late.
Note that mass mobilization has formed part of Democrat “Day After” thinking since 2020[2]:
Nils Gilman, the vice president of programs at the Berggruen Institute think tank, is one of the project’s co-founders…. And ordinary citizens, Gilman says, “need to be prepared to take to the street in nonviolent protest” if the results appear to be corrupted — one of the last lines of defense when a political system breaks down.
Biden won, so no mass mobilization was needed.
The Guardian describes Election 2024’s (notably bipartisan) Democracy Futures Project (July 30, 2024):
About 175 people participated in five exercises, bringing to the process an extraordinary wealth of bipartisan institutional knowledge. Among the lineup were senior officials from successive administrations of both parties, including the Trump administration.
They came with a mission: to wargame Trump acting out the most extreme authoritarian elements of his agenda and explore what could be done, should he win in November, to protect democracy in the face of possible abuses of power.
Here again we have mass mobilization along with what seems to be the desired result. Trump, in the scenario, is legitimately elected, and then this happens:
It is the afternoon of 20 January 2025 and Donald Trump is in his White House dining room, glued to the same TV where he sat transfixed as the January 6 attack on the US Capitol unfolded four years ago. This morning, he completed one of the most spectacular political comebacks in US history, reciting the oath of office at the inauguration ceremony that returned him to the most powerful job on Earth.
His political resurrection has caused turmoil in the transition period, and massive anti-Trump demonstrations have erupted in several big cities. In his inaugural address, the 47th president makes clear his intention to deal with his detractors: “They are rioting in the streets. We are not safe. Make our cities safe again!” he commands.
The peaceful marches are portrayed on Fox News, the channel he is watching, as anarchic disorder. Trump grows increasingly incensed, and that evening calls his top team into the situation room with one purpose in mind: to end the demonstrations by any means necessary.
“I need to make sure that our streets are safe from those who are running amok trying to overthrow our administration,” he tells the group of top law enforcement, national security and military officials. A flicker of alarm ripples through the room as the president cites the Insurrection Act, saying it allows him to call up the national guard in key states to suppress what he calls the “rebellion”.
Discerning the concern among his top officials, Trump gives them an ultimatum. He is in no mood to compromise or stand down – he did that in his first term in the face of “deep state” opposition. “I have been charged by the American people to make this country great again,” he states, “and I need to know right now that everybody in this room is on board.”
(This war game was put on by the Brennan Center, although Rosa Brooks[3] participated in both.) Do note the lack of agency in “has caused” and “have erupted.”
Let me know turn to one published proposal for how Democrats might leverage mass mobilization.
“Option 4:” Mass Mobilization (a.k.a. Color Revolution)
From the New York Times Op-Ed page, “There Are Four Anti-Trump Pathways We Failed to Take. There Is a Fifth” (October 24, 2024):
That leaves a fifth strategy: societal mobilization. Democracy’s last bastion of defense is civil society. When the constitutional order is under threat, influential groups and societal leaders — chief executives, religious leaders, labor leaders and prominent retired public officials — must speak out, reminding citizens of the red lines that democratic societies must never cross. And when politicians cross those red lines, society’s most prominent voices must publicly and forcefully repudiate them.
[In Germany, public declarations [by leaders against an AfD meeting with neo-Nazi leaders] took place against the backdrop of the largest street demonstrations in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany. The demonstrations were organized by a civil society coalition called ‘Hand in Hand,’ which encompassed 1,300 different organizations, including unions, churches, doctors’ associations, refugee protection agencies and even environmental groups. Millions of citizens from across the political spectrum gathered week after week in large cities and small towns in defense of democracy. Although the AfD remains very popular in several east German states, its national support has declined by approximately 25 percent since the protest movement began.
When President Bolsonaro began to threaten democratic institutions in the run-up to the 2022 election, Brazilian civil society mobilized in a similar manner. Mr. Bolsonaro threatened the Supreme Court, attacked the legitimacy of the electoral system, and sought to dismantle Brazil’s electronic voting system. This spurred business, religious and civic groups to mobilize.
The authors of this Op-Ed are carefully non-committal about whether this “societal mobilization” takes place before election day, or “The Day After,” if Trump wins, and, if so, what the goal is. I’m going to assume the latter, simply because of the publication date of October 24, and that, unlike the efforts in Germany and Brazil, the Op-Ed seeks to replace an elected government. Therefore, I’d classify it as a Color Revolution.(As in the Democracy Futures Project, the agents and organizers of social mobilization is carefully undefined). WikiPedia (sorry) defines a Color Revolution:
The colour revolutions (sometimes coloured revolutions) were a series of often non-violent protests and accompanying (attempted or successful) changes of government and society that took place in post-Soviet states (particularly Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan) and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the early 21st century. The aim of the colour revolutions was to establish Western-style liberal democracies They were primarily triggered by election results widely viewed as falsified. The colour revolutions were marked by the usage of the internet as a method of communication, as well as a strong role of non-governmental organizations [NGOs: in the protests.
(Russia’s Social Engineering Agency (!!) gives an account of color revolution stages here[4]).
The Women’s March of Election 2016
If we look at the the characteristics of the Women’s March of Election 2016, it looks very much like an self-abortive color revolution (abortive, because if the demand was not for a change of government, what was the point?). WikiPedia once more:
The Women’s March was a worldwide protest on January 21, 2017, the day after the inauguration of Donald Trump as US president…. It was at the time the largest single-day protest in U.S. history… The main protest was in Washington, D.C., and is known as the Women’s March on Washington with many other marches taking place worldwide… The Washington March drew over 470,000 people…. The crowds were peaceful: no arrests were made in D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, or Seattle, where a combined total of about two million people marched. The organization’s website states that they wanted to adhere to “the nonviolent ideology of the Civil Rights movement”. Following the march, the organizers of the Women’s March on Washington posted the “10 Actions for the first 100 Days” campaign for joint activism to keep up momentum from the march.
We have the non-violent ideology, we have the heavy NGO involvement, we have the election trigger, we have the color. Here I cannot help but present the following image and caption from Vogue: “The Missoni family wearing pink pussy hats during the finale of the Fall 2017 runway show in Milan“:
Perhaps the most enduring result of the Women’s March was the addition of “pink pussy hat” to the Pantone system of colorways.[5]
Mass Mobilization in 2024
Where would the protest potential for mass mobilization come from the 2024? We can turn to the now-famous Mark Halperin interview with Tucker Carlson for the answer. From the transcript:
[CARLSON:] Let’s say Trump wins. Three weeks from today, what happens? The Democratic Party, I mean, as you said, a lot of Democrats, maybe the majority, believe that Trump becoming president again is the worst thing that ever could happen. So how do they respond to that?
[HALPERIN:] I say this not flippantly. I think it will be the cause of the greatest mental health crisis in the history of the country. I think tens of millions of people will question their connection to the nation, their connection to other human beings, their connection to their vision of what their future for them and their children could be like. And I think that will require an enormous amount of access to mental health professionals. I think it’ll lead to trauma in the workplace. I think there’ll be some degree of.
[CARLSON:] Are you being serious?
[HALPERIN:]100% serious. 100% serious. I think there’ll be alcoholism, there’ll be broken marriages.
[CARLSON:] What?
[HALPERIN:]Yeah, they think he’s the worst person possible to be president. And having won by the hand of Jim Comey and Fluke in 2016 and then performed in office for four years and denied who won the election last time. And January 6, the fact that under a fair election, America chose by the rules, pre agreed to Donald Trump again, I think it will cause the biggest mental health crisis in the history of America. And I don’t think it will be kind of a passing thing that by the inauguration will be fine. I think it will be sustained and unprecedented and hideous, and I don’t think the country is ready for it. It.
[CARLSON:] So mental health crises often manifest in violence.
[HALPERIN:]Yeah, I think there’ll be some violence. I think there’ll be workplace fights. There’ll be fights at birthday kids birthday parties. I think there’ll be protests that will turn violent.
I think Halperin is right on the “psychic energy” that so many liberal Democrats, especially PMC women, have invested in a Kamala win and a Harris loss. But I think Halperin has the order of events reversed. First will come the protests (ideally non-violent, from the standpoint of the organizers), and only afterwards the therapy, alchoholism, broken marriages, and so forth (in fact, protest may be seen as a form of empowerment to avoid all those bad outcomes.
A Color Revolution in 2024?
So, assuming that we have (1) a model for a Color Revolution in the election 2016 Women’s March, and (2) a mobilized populatiion very demographically similar to the Women’s March, plus (3) the non-violent ideology, the heavy NGO involvement, the election trigger, and color (to come: blue?), how would we improve on the Women’s March to yeild a “better” outcome, ideally preventing him from taking office, but certainly punishing his base?
Let’s turn to Gene Sharp, the architect of color revolutions[6], and his famous “198 METHODS OF NONVIOLENT ACTION“[7] (all the methods are numbered, which is really neat). The Women’s March clearly used the following methods:
Formal statements of all kinds (#1-#6)
Communications With A Wider Audience (#7-#12), but most importantly:
#19 Wearing of symbols (the “pink pussy hats”)
#38 Marches
And that’s basically it. No economic non-cooperation; no political non-cooperation; no non-violent interventions.
Now let’s fast forward to 2024, and realize that (1) our “mobilized population” is the PMC, and that it’s class-conscious, and that (2) the NGOs include, as the Women’s March did not, members of the intelligence community (remember this is an autogolpe by a hegemonic class):
#50 Teach-ins (on Constitutional issues)
#55 Social boycott (of Trumpists)
#57 Lysistratic nonaction (we’ve seen this from Kamala already)
#76 National consumers’ boycott (of Trump-supporting entities)
#143 Blocking of lines of command and information (by the organs of state security)
#173 Nonviolent occupation (perhaps not the capital, this time)
#187 Seizure of assets (bank employees, as with the Canadian truckers)
#86 Withdrawal of bank deposits (major corporatioons, from big banks)
#198 Dual sovereignty and parallel government (why not?)
This “Color Revolution” would have, as the Women’s March did not, but previous color revolutions in foreign countries did, the weight of the entire Democratic apparatus behind it (Democrat electeds, the press, NGOs, the organs of state security, etc.) So if you want to establish a “permission structure” for overthrowing a government that you regard as fascist. the above methods could be very helpful, particularly if they appeared to be outpourings from a spontaneous movement, as the press would surely present it.
Conclusion
“We’re bringing the war back home!” as Firesign Theatre sang. In the case of a Trump victory, it would certainly seem odd if the Democratic apparatus, allied with the Blob, did not use same tools to “defend democracy” here at home that they have used with such success abroad
NOTES
[1] “Never eat at a place called “Mom’s”.’
[2] The example cited is the Movement for Black Lives, which ultimately accomplished little.
[3] Rosa Brooks is the daughter of John Ehrenreich and Barbara Ehrenreich (of “PMC” fame). Pete Buttigieg’s father translated Gramsci; Kamala’s father was a Marxist scholar. What is it with these blue diaper babies?
[4] Amusingly, the Russian view: “Put simply, the Russian understanding of ‘colour revolutions’ is a ‘coup d’ état’ supported by the West” (or what we might define as The Blob).
[5] Unkind to the creator of the hat, Krista Suh, but here we are.
[6] See Jacobin, “Gene Sharp, the Cold War Intellectual Whose Ideas Seduced the Left.”
[7] As readers know, I love classification systems, and have been quite taken with “198 Methods,” but I don’t think it’s a very rigorous scheme. For example, “Establishing new social patterns” (174) and “Overloading of facilities” (175) are clearly at different levels of abstraction, but are placed adjacent to each other.
