Time for a Civic Uprising

[marybourg]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/opinion/trump-harvard-law-firms.html

“It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power.” — David Brooks

[kimbutgar]

1. I'm ready to go and waiting for the call to action !

[Blues Heron]

2. OK David! Put down the whiskey bottle and get out there bro!

These people spent so much time normalizing trump and tearing down Biden Obama and Harris. This is amusing though

[Drum]

6. Yup. David F***ing Brooks has been a total enabler for years.

[DENVERPOPS]

13. And he still is

He is playing right into Trump's desire to have something happen to use the Insurrection Act to mobilize the entire U.S. Military against the citizens of the U.S.

I am fully expecting, one of these days, to see Trump in a Military Dress Uniform, just like Khadafi used to wear in Libia????

[sprinkleeninow]

16. Didn't Khaddafi go ka-plooey? 🤔 nt

[Tanuki]

37. Maybe Khadafi left a uniform when he pitched his tent on Trump's estate

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/23/muammar-gaddafi-tent-trump-estate
(2009)
"Muammar Gaddafi pitched his tent on an estate belonging to Donald Trump in suburban New York yesterday, according to reports.

The Libyan leader is scheduled to attend the UN general assembly this week. He had been struggling to find a plot to accommodate the large Bedouin tent he takes with him when travelling abroad.

Workers were seen yesterday erecting a tent and satellites in the glamorous neighbourhood of Bedford on an estate owned by Trump. Local officials tried to stop them, saying it was illegal to build a temporary residence without a permit. An ABC News helicopter filmed a large tent on the 113-acre Seven Springs estate, with rugs and patterned wall hangings. Green and yellow fabric lined the walls in a pattern dotted with images of small brown camels, according to a local newspaper website image. Last night a state department official told AP the tent might be used for entertaining by Gadaffi, but he would not be sleeping there.

Doors all over New York have been slammed in the colonel's face, but Trump says he has rented part of a large property in Westchester county to Middle Eastern tenants who may be associated with Gadaffi."... (more)

[DENVERPOPS]

39. Was this written

by Borowitz or The Onion?????????????

It is soooo hard with Trump, to know anymore, what is Satire and what is Reality.......

[Tanuki]

26. Your remark reminded me of this story:

Link to tweet

[Blues Heron]

28. Yup!

[Drum]

41. Boom 💥

In addition to a legion of other deceits by that one.

[Irish_Dem]

3. Americans need to form their own NATO like alliance.

To protect themselves from the United States President.

[bucolic_frolic]

4. If M$M can make money on it they might report it.

The dynamic is to pivot from the narrative that Trump is selling. David Brooks wrote that? Surprising.

[Paladin]

5. Fuck you, David Brooks.

Now it's time for a national civic uprising? Now?

Yeah, go ahead and lock that barn door up, nice and tight. Now that the invaluable contents are scattered to the four winds by the most corrupt regime in this country's history, all in a matter of a few weeks. It's going to be loads of fun, trying to put things back in place. Thanks for absolutely nothing.

[Blue Owl]

7. Let me finish my Joe Biden $85 cheeseburger first

[not fooled]

33. I wish I could rec your post more than once.

Says it all re this tool. As noted above, most of the bill was from an expensive drink.

Has he posted the price of a red don bag of groceries yet?

[totodeinhere]

8. David Brooks was a big supporter of Dubya's wars.

He was a part of Dick Cheney's neocon crowd. I don't need to hear what he is saying now.

[Freddie]

27. I think he's like Jennifer Rubin

A former “conservative intellectual” who’s (mostly) seen the light. Except when it comes to women, at least the last time I read his dissertation on why we should not have sovereignty over our bodies.

[OMGWTF]

9. SATURDAY APRIL 19TH is another national rally against this criminal regime.

Go to Indivisible, Womens March and/or 50501 to find your local tribe. Show up. Speak out. While you still can.

[slightlv]

20. I'm headed to Topeka, KS on Saturday with hubby...

we're old as shit, but this crap is way over the line. We simply can't hold it in any longer. From the capitol building, we're going to walk down to the Brown vs Board of Education memorial. I've never seen it before.

Any KS DU'ers making plans to be there? Would love to meet up with some locals!

[pfitz59]

10. Not one to promote violence, but..

History has shown us the way, many times over. Tyranny cannot be allowed to flourish.

[Shipwack]

14. Like that Thomas Jefferson quote:

“The Tree of Liberty must be watered from time to time….”

Hmmm… I seem to have forgotten the rest. Maybe it’s my self-preservation kicking in…

[CitizenZero]

15. Nonviolent Resistance

I understand the desire to take action and even to be militant, but there is some social science that suggests that Nonviolent Resistance is usually more effective than using Force. Also, as some others have pointed out, if we use force, the Trump Regime might use that as an excuse to have their own violent crackdown against the American public. Although state violence has sometimes been used against peaceful protestors, Nonviolent Resistance is generally safer and more effective than Violent Resistance.

At the link is an interesting interview with a scholar who determined that nonviolent resistance is more effective in creating social and political change than the use of violence and force. Her name is Erica Chenoweth and her book is called "Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict." The second link is to the book's Amazon listing.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/02/why-nonviolent-resistance-beats-violent-force-in-effecting-social-political-change/

https://www.amazon.com/Why-Civil-Resistance-Works-Nonviolent/dp/0231156839

[H2O Man]

18. Right.

Unlike violence, non-violence requires a high degree of self-discipline. Dr. King had a checklist for the people who came forth to join him. It has value today.

[Dan]

24. From that period

Dr. King used non-violence as a tool against the oppressive forces of White people using the powers of the State to enforce a continuation of White Supremacy and Black subjugation in the States of legal segregation.

But, there were other groups at work also working toward goals of equality.

But to me, the kicker was Malcom X - he offered an alternative to Dr. King that was also being considered by Younger Blacks, that White people found somewhat unacceptable. I’m not going to question whether it would have been a good alternative, or even if it could have been a successful alternative, but an alternative it was.

[H2O Man]

35. I hear you.

It's kind of odd that Malcolm in his ministry was never associated with violence (except for being gunned down), while King was involved in activities that were met by violence, despite his being non-violent.

In my late friend Rubin "Hurricane" Carter's second autobiography, he tells about when as a young man, he favored Malcolm's approach, but as an older, wiser man, he realized that King was right.

[Dan]

36. Smiling,

Malcolm said that there was no such thing as a non-violent revolution.

Interesting thought that he was never associated with violence, but rather it was self defense that he spoke of and given the blight of Blacks back in the day - it is reasonable to question what did he define as self-defense.

Maybe a subject for another day, another topic.

Peace.

[H2O Man]

38. Right.

The vicious assault on Hilton Johnson in 1957 led to Malcolm's getting the police to get Johnson much-needed medical attention. It was estimated that four thousand people have gathered around the police station, backing Malcolm in an orderly manner. One cop told the Amsterdam News that, "no one man should have that much power."

I studied Malcolm for over half a century. I was aware of him earlier, due to his association with the young heavyweight champion. I have lots of pictures in my old boxing scrapbooks of Malcolm with Ali (at the time, Cassius X). I have LPs from Detroit of Malcolm's speeches, and every book. While Malcolm wasn't involved in violence, it was because he scared the heck out of white America. And likely still does. I remember Dick Gregory said the US could not deal successfully in the Middle East until it came to understand and appreciate Malcolm.

He did speak in a way he knew intimidated white America. He was right, of course. But he also spoke of self-defense as justifying violence. He was an artist with words. And he spoke in a manner that racist whites both understood and feared.

There are reports that after the violence in L.A., that Malcolm not only was unhappy with Elijah's response, but that he spoke about the possibility of getting revernge.

[slightlv]

21. Civil non-violence works when you get to that 3.5% of the population

point. I'm hoping the more these gatherings happen, the more people we see coming to support them. I'd love to know just how many people have gone to hear Bernie and AOC so far. But its been decades since I last did militant protesting. And damn! Those were over women's rights, too!

I fell last week and cracked my hip... but I don't think I can live inside my skin if I don't do *something* to move the positive forward. As far as Martial Law or the Insurrection Act is concerned... trump IS going to invoke it at some point. Count on it! Not doing something just means you're hoping it won't happen soon by placating the evil orange. How many people would we get in a march if he tried to invoke the Insurrection Act? We will eventually find out. American's are a weird collection of people.

[appmanga]

34. Any kind of opposition involving force has to be the last resort...

...mostly because such a thing is unlikely to succeed. We should be willing to disrupt when possible, and we all should try to bring economic pain where possible to Trump's allies and others who aren't standing up to his fascism and attempts at tyranny.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

23. Published studies of History have shown that non-violence works twice as often as violence.

Leave the violence to the orange and red folks.
Don't raise violence at the front. Big mistake.

Protests have been peaceful. That is good, but not good enough for you, I guess. If you really don't want to promote violence, don't raise it.

[CitizenZero]

29. Also

Violence is the illegal or unjustified use of force. Sometimes the use of force is justified, such as in the case of self-defense. So I do understand the desire to perhaps use force in a self-defense situation. But I have to reiterate that Nonviolent Resistance is shown by social science research to be more effective than the use of Violent Resistance in getting good results.

So despite the natural desire to defend oneself and one's democracy, Nonviolence is strategically more effective than Violence. So rather than give in to the perhaps natural desire to act in self-defense, we must use self-discipline and organize around nonviolent principles and nonviolent practices as the best path towards victory.

[William769]

11. I would add we the people.

All citizens should be part of it.

[KPN]

12. Wow. .... Too bad they sow, but don't want the reap

that comes with that sowing.

[H2O Man]

17. I like it.

Recommended.

[maspaha]

19. Brooks facilitated Trump....

Brooks needs to STFU!

[radical noodle]

22. Like other anti-trump republicans

he did have a hand in getting us here, but he's been anti-trump from the start. He voted for Hillary in 2016 and urged others to do so as well.

At this point I think we need everyone that's anti-trump on the same page. There will be time to fight other battles afterward, but first trump has to go and we need every freaking person we can get.

[CitizenZero]

25. I Agree With That

We can't be too choosy about who our allies are at this moment. The Bulwark and the Lincoln Project are media organizations of anti-Trump Republicans and former Republicans. They have been effective. Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney are Republicans that tried to stop Trump.

So Brooks may not be someone we normally would have liked to ally with, but right now I think that he should be let into our camp. We need as many allies as we can get, and this includes conservatives and Republicans who are anti-Trump. Republicans, Independents, Democrats that are anti-Trump should be united in this fight.

[radical noodle]

30. Exactly

Well said.

[red dog 1]

32. "On the August 9, 2019 episode of the PBS NewsHour, Brooks suggested Trump may be a sociopath." (Wikipedia)

Also, in 2016, "Brooks spoke in support of Hillary Clinton." (Wikipedia)

I'm no fan of David Brooks, but some of what he says in this NYT Opinion Piece is worth considering, including his reference to the book, "Why Civil Resistance Works"
[Read first 14 pages of this 2012 book for free at this link, click on "read sample"]
https://amazon.com/Why-Civil-Resistance-Works-Nonviolent/dp/0231156839

(imo, all the Republicans in Congress who are opposed to a tax hike on the top 1% are the ones who need to STFU)

[Iamscrewed]

31. Good trouble

Is the minimum requirement.

[Jack Valentino]

40. .... or for a "not so civic" uprising!

"Politeness" got us Trump 2.0. I'm done with it.

[struggle4progress]

42. David's old game is to be relentlessly rightwing while pretending to be moderate

He has years of experience trying to split the center-left for the advantage of the rightwing -- so if he wants to take on Trump, he might have some skills needed to split the center-right away from MAGA

But he should have no credibility at all as a source of anti-rightwing movement ideas, tactics, or slogans

[maspaha]

43. You said it much better than i did...

…dude selfishly facilitated Trump and needs to STFU, you gave a much more elegant explanation why