I just belatedly read this piece by TPM alum and all around reasonably good fellow Brian Beutler wrote on the question of resistance to the Trump administration. Voting, organizing, protesting — those are all pretty straightforward. But what about when those aren’t enough? He starts from that saying we hear a lot now: No one’s going to save us. We’re going to have to save ourselves. Well, what does that mean exactly, Brian asks. How do people protect themselves from manifestly illegal, tyrannical government actions or the violent paramilitaries they are working to cultivate? When does opposition and resistance need to move into extra-constitutional or extra-legal actions? These are harrowing, frightening and perhaps quite literally perilous questions to ask.
Brian starts by discussing whether DC should loosen its fairly tight gun laws. He’s quite conflicted about it. He also discusses the possibility and difficulties tied to blue states withholding taxes from the federal government. Very much by design, the federal government collects taxes directly from individuals. But he suggests some creative ways to square that circle that are floating around. Read Brian’s piece if you can.
I don’t have any good answers to this question. It involves contemplating things that most have us have always considered unthinkable. But there’s a general point, a broad strategy that I think is important. It’s one I’ve stressed before from a slightly different vantage point. One of the things that history teaches us is that a great deal of power comes from existing institutions, especially state institutions. Individuals on their own are generally easy pickings for a powerful state. Organizing is an important counter to that. But the real key is when oppositionists control some governmental power. Either they have it or they create it. That doesn’t just or even mainly mean the “right” to do this or that. It’s having access to and control of mechanisms of governmental power.
We see a dim echo of this in what the Trump White House is doing today. He doesn’t have the legal authority or “right” to do a huge amount of things he’s doing now. But he controls a state apparatus with vast power. States act and others react. Sure, occasionally sometimes it’s too much even for our corrupted federal judiciary and they force him to back off. But that’s not usually the case and even when it is, he can just roll out some new angle to achieve the same purpose. States are powerful things. They have executive power.
Democrats control a lot of states. They control a number of the biggest states. They control the ones who pay the biggest share of taxes. Now, the Supremacy Clause is a big reality on many fronts. Control of state governments is far from a panacea. It’s couched and limited by restrictions at every turn. But they are states with vast governmental bureaucracies, policing and taxing power. They also have deep and real sovereign power under the constitutional order. It’s no accident that it’s governors in blue states like California, Illinois and perhaps now even New York which are becoming some of the most aggressive voices and actors in opposition to the Trump administration. It’s no accident. They have executive power. I saw some people poo-pooing Gavin Newsom’s press conference yesterday, to which Customs and Border Patrol agents were sent to make an intimidating show of force. With that and other recent things he’s done, I hear people say, well, cringe or he’s just running for president. To which I’d say, great. There’s no better thing that for the 2028 presidential nomination to be a fight over who can demonstrate the most energy and creativity in opposing Donald Trump’s autocratic takeover. Let that battle start today. And governors are best positioned to do that.
I don’t have any specific recommendation. The tax retention ideas Brian mentioned got me thinking. The real point is simply that the U.S. federal system starts us out with some big advantages that citizens of unitary states lack. There’s a multiplicity of governments in the U.S. There’s a lot of executive power and independent executive power around. And Democrats control a lot of it. If we need to think outside the box — and we do — that is absolutely where to start: the states as bulwarks of legitimate executive power to contend on behalf of the democratic order with a lawless, extra-constitutional presidency.