What Saul Alinsky Could Teach the Democratic Party

Democrats, now is not the time to negotiate with someone who is unfit to lead our country. Now is the time for opposition.

Millions of distressed Americans have already took to the streets to protest the election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States. I am one of them. This Friday, with students and faculty of the Claremont Colleges, I marched with “Claremont Colleges United Against Hate.” While I appreciate the energy and activism of the people in this time,  these protesters also need to be marching in the streets, knocking on the doors of our Congressmen and Congresswomen, and organizing for opposition throughout the next 4 years. Though this (and only this) Donald Trump’s destructive vision for America can be defeated. Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals provides a guideline for how a grassroots opposition to Donald Trump can succeed, if the Democratic Party embraces radical change.

The Democratic Party must embrace reformation in its structure and leadership. Not only has the party lost the White House to the most polarizing political figure of our time, but Donald Trump’s Republican Party controls all branches of government.

The Democratic Party must prepare itself to be an engine of major opposition to Donald Trump or surely die. Already, Democrats are recoiling from their losses in the election and calling for Democrats to cooperate with President-elect Donald Trump. Yes, bipartisan cooperation is effective, but it’s not in the best interests of the American people to negotiate with a demagogue.

We must oppose Donald Trump and work with anybody who joins our opposition and be prepared to cross party lines. Silence towards Donald Trump is condoning him. Surely we must pressure his policies since the reality is that he is our president, but we must mobilize and prepare for grounds of impeachment to arise. When the grounds arise (and they surely will) we have to be ready to organize in full-force with our coalitions to remove Donald Trump from office.

Alinsky describes the necessity for opposition to organize a counterrevolution immediately when a revolution arises. He tells us that by understanding the nature of Trump’s revolution, we can organize the counterrevolution. We have to find how we got here—how the American people thought the part time businessman with few successes and full time xenophobic demagogue was a good fit for president.

Our country elected a demagogue as a result of rampant disillusionment. Alinsky explains that when disillusionment is dominant in America, Americans will support the person or movement that appears to offer a path to reformation from the status quo. Alinsky articulates that in the general election these disillusioned people who were sick and tired of an unfair political system voted for Donald Trump because “they [didn't] know what [would] work but they [did] know that the prevailing system [was] self-defeating, frustrating, and hopeless.”  To support this necessary counterrevolution, the party needs to amend its broken leadership structure. It must support revolutionaries within the party.

The Democratic Party needs to clean house. As Alinsky describes, in this stage of disillusionment, the people will listen to anybody who offers change from the status quo. Revolutionaries within the Democratic Party are the only ones that people in opposition to Donald Trump will listen to at this time. It's probably the reason why the media is for once turning to Bernie Sanders for guidance. Through this rationale, certainly, someone the people will not listen to is Howard Dean, establishment candidate for DNC chair. It's at this time that centrists need to bite the bullet and listen to revolutionaries like Keith Ellison, progressive candidate for DNC chair. Following revolutionaries is how the counterrevolution against Donald Trump will survive while not burning the Democratic Party to the ground.

The major error of the Hillary Clinton’s campaign in this election was not being able to breach people’s perception of the Democratic candidate as the candidate of the “Haves” rather than the candidate of the “Have-nots”. Alinsky describes that when the Have-nots have numbers, a revolution against the establishment arises. To many who felt the impact of a broken economic and political system, the establishment as a whole--Democrat and Republican--appeared to be the enemy. They became the “Haves”. Though her policies were “progressive” and different from the status quo, her inability to resonate with the American people, her standing as an establishment politician, and her association as a political elite led to her loss.

The Democratic Party’s corporate ties create a barrier between the party becoming the party of the Have-nots. Though they once were the party of the Have-nots, they have wavered since then. The party spends more time listening to their Wall Street contributors than listening to its voters. The party has supported free trade agreements that eliminated millions of jobs for blue collar workers, especially in the Rust Belt. These disillusioned workers ultimately voted for Donald Trump. These corporate ties are no longer tolerable. The Democratic Party must be the party for the Have-not and stick to the grassroots (or at least give the impression of it) if the party doesn’t want to suffer another massive setback.

It's easy to be disappointed with the outcome of the election. As a woman of color, I worry about the safety of my family in a Donald Trump presidency. I know that my black and brown brothers and sisters will suffer the most in a Donald Trump presidency and I worry that white allies will become complacent. I worked on the Bernie Sanders campaign so I've also had my fair share of disappointment. As one of his delegates, I remember sobbing as Bernie spoke at the convention because of the predicament the Democratic Party put people of color in by inflating the weakest candidate. Bernie Sanders said that our strength was in our diversity. Donald Trump says it is our weakness.

It’s easy to become apathetic. We can feel that we are Sisyphus, forced to endlessly push a boulder up a never-ending hill. It's difficult to fight against the system, but it's even more difficult to look yourself in the eye and know that you were not on the right side of history. Alinsky has laid the guidelines for us to be on the right side of history. Let's follow them.