In this op-ed, Vanessa Williamson, a Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, explores the possible legacy of the Women's March and the history of protesting.
This inauguration weekend, thousands of people will participate in the Women’s March on Washington. I will be one of them. I will attend even though I remember that when I was in college and joined hundreds of thousands of Americans and literally millions of people around the globe who protested to prevent the Iraq War, President Bush dismissed us as a “focus group” and the drums of war never missed a beat.
Now the stakes are even higher and the president does not just ignore protestors, he threatens them. It is easy to feel powerless. And we are, unless we organize. But what does it mean to organize? It means to practice democracy, not just at a protest or in the voting booth, but in our daily lives. Americans – and especially American women – used to be good at organizing. We can be our democracy’s best defense, if we learn from our history.
Remember: when the United States was founded, “democracy” was not seen as a good thing. Given the opportunity to choose a leader, it was then widely believed, the people will elect a demagogue who will consolidate power, restrict personal liberty, and make himself a dictator. The American system of government – even the narrow democracy then limited to propertied white men – was not supposed to survive. And yet, it did.
The persistence of American democracy was so strange that a French aristocrat, nearly 200 years ago, visited the young United States to try and understand it. Alexis de Tocqueville asked why Americans were capable of governing themselves without falling prey to a tyrant. His answer was an unusual American habit that he called association. All over the country, Americans formed thousands of voluntary societies: religious organizations, trade organizations, women’s organizations, farming organizations, organizations to spread scientific learning and – bizarrely, to Tocqueville’s French mind – organizations to discourage the drinking of alcohol.
At first, Tocqueville found these organizations funny. Why did people need to get together and make a big deal about not drinking alcohol, when, as he put it, they could just stay home and have a glass of water? But Tocqueville soon realized that these societies’ meetings played a crucial role in democratic life.
The first value of organization is obvious: power. Together, average people have much more authority than they do as individuals. Traditionally, many national associations in the United States were organized into state and local chapters, meaning they could be effective at every level of government. These kinds of federated organizations were leaders in the fights for women’s suffrage, worker protections, and civil rights.
The second value of organization is less obvious, but maybe even more important. When Americans went to their local association meetings, they participated in procedures that mirrored democratic government, like debates and elections. It gave Americans experience they could take with them into political life – how to speak to a group, how to organize a petition, how to run for office. Civic organizations, Tocqueville believed, were the “great free schools” in which Americans learn how to be citizens.
Tocqueville’s argument is a radical one: that self-governance is a learned skill. It means that to be a democratic citizen does not require great wealth, or a particular ancestry, or even a formal education. All it requires is practice.
But today, few Americans are getting the practice they need. Civic associations began dying out starting in the 1960s. Today, being a member of an organization usually means making a donation or getting an email, not attending meetings or running for office. Modern nonprofits can be very effective, but rarely provide the democratic lessons or collective action power that the old associations did.
This is a serious problem. We have let rust one of the fundamental tools, perhaps the fundamental tool, by which we realize our democracy.
We must pick up these tools again. Many human rights and civil liberties organizations saw a rush of donations after Election Day. The next step is to do as our ancestors did, and participate.
At every age, you can participate in an organization that has local chapters and democratic procedures: a school group, a political party, a union, a grassroots community organization, a religious institution, or a professional or alumni association. I myself am a member of no fewer than 12 such groups — and there are probably a few more I have forgotten. I’m committing to actively participating in at least two of them this year. I hope you will join me.
What do we do when we get there?
First, practice the nuts and bolts of democracy. Speak to persuade, listen to find common ground, and work together to turn discussions into decisions, and decisions into action. Don’t worry if your first activities feel small. The great thing is that organizing skills are transferrable. If you can get people to donate to your charity run, you can get them to call their representative in Congress.
Second, recognize the shared values your organization represents. Some organizations are explicitly political, but many other groups have ethical commitments that are endangered in today’s politics. A commitment to science or to law, for an academic association. The values of brotherhood, of justice, and of mercy, in a religious tradition. When those values are violated in our politics, an association’s principles can guide its response.
Third, work purposefully to increase inclusion. Amplify the voices of association members from communities that face marginalization. Build connections with related organizations that serve a membership of a different demography.
Finally, find points in the political system where your organization can be effective. Here is a great guide to interacting with elected officials by phone and in person. And if direct action is more your style, read this.
You may think this is not enough, and you are right. There is no point in understating the challenges before us. Just in the months since his election, Donald Trump has used his position to advance his business interests, threatened to strip protestors of their citizenship, assailed journalists for criticizing him, and falsely claimed that millions of people voted illegally. This behavior is especially chilling because many of our most important democratic institutions are already weakened. Wealthy corporate donors dominate the political process while mass-based mobilizing groups have lost electoral power. Peaceful protestors from Ferguson to Standing Rock have faced militarized police forces. Our free press is in decline, its attention too easily manipulated. Our voting procedures desperately demand revitalization; instead, there is a concerted campaign of voter suppression. Trump’s tendencies to corruption, censorship, and rights violations are part of a broader pattern, and that is what makes his presidency so dangerous.
Against such an onslaught, it might seem absurd to put one’s faith in monthly meetings and bake sales. But every fight to expand democracy beyond the narrow ranks of rich, white men — every fight to make this country live up to its ideals — happened because individuals organized themselves.
And not just in America. It was a civil society built on autonomous institutions — like students’ debating clubs — that helped France, barely a decade after Tocqueville’s death, make the leap from autocracy to democratic republicanism. Today, anti-democratic regimes know that association is a threat to them. An analysis of social media censorship in China, for instance, demonstrated that “posts with negative, even vitriolic criticism of the state, its leaders, and its policies are not more likely to be censored. Instead… the censorship program is aimed at curtailing collective action by silencing comments that represent, reinforce or spur social mobilization, regardless of content.”
Autocrats see social mobilization — regardless of content — as a threat, and individual rebukes as tolerable. As Tocqueville notes, “A despot easily forgives his subjects for not loving him, provided they do not love one another.”
If the protests this weekend are to be effective, we will have to do more than demonstrate opposition to Trump. We will have to demonstrate an ongoing commitment to one another through organized political action.
When we meet our fellow citizens on terms of equality and shared purpose, we can build solidarity across the rifts that President-elect Trump has encouraged and from which he has profited: divides of race and class, gender and geography. We can demonstrate — not on one day, but every day — that our country is better than our president, and build a democracy not just in name but in deed. We can defend democracy, if we practice it.
Related: How to Participate in the Women’s March Even if You’re Not in D.C.
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