Where Should Anti-Trump Protests Go?

Saturday saw massive "hands off" protests against Donald Trump's attacks on civil rights and separation of powers. Protests were held in all 50 states as well as internationally. Anarchists are glad to see so many people protesting Donald Trump's attacks on the freedom of minorities and wanna be dictator measures. However, these protests were in large part dominated by an agenda of defending liberal democracy in the United States against the illiberalism of MAGA.

This is in fact the strategy that the Democratic Party has been pursuing against MAGA since the 2016 election. It failed then, won in 2020, and lost in 2024. The trend seems to be that the populist right is nearly unstoppable when the usual gatekeepers of liberal democracy preside over increasing inequality and ethnic tensions, but provided the public are confronted with free elections after the first dose of populism they are libel to choose the old establishment over the worsening of these issues by the radical right. Unfortunately, since liberal democracy has no way of addressing the structural issues fueling ethnic tensions and inequalities, the populists are able to come back with a vengeance.

Liberal democracy allows for limited protections for minorities and limited participation in government. It presupposes, however, the militaristic structures of the capitalist world-system. These structures are "militaristic" in that they are based on competitive relations of domination. Militaries, states, and corporations are assembled out of relations of command and obedience oriented toward competitive struggles for power on the market and in geopolitics.

Liberal democracy thus has no way to curb militaristic processes which rachet up inequalities and discrimination by advancing domination and competition. Instead of trying in vain to patch up the leaks in liberal democracy Anarchists urge that the militaristic relations of capitalist society be replaced by an alternative. Instead of militaristic structures such as states and corporations Anarchism prescribes structures of free cooperation. Instead of requiring that we compete for control over one another Anarchist relations and institutions would require us to observe Kant's maxim to treat each other as ends in ourselves, rather than mere means to our ends.

Anarchists build institutions and relations in which human beings must recognize each other as agents and thus direct their efforts to meeting each other's needs. Chief among these institutions and relations of interdependence is Anarchist Federation. This is the practice of convening regional assemblies in which the rank and file collectively make decisions and then elect delegates to facilitate communication between assemblies so that they may collectively decide on interregional matters. The protest movement can begin to implement this kind of federation in its organizing immediately.

This can turn the protest movement into a revolutionary movement which need not rely on the democratic party, or any other militaristic institution. Instead, the masses can build the structures that replace capitalist society themselves, right now. In doing so they can train themselves to cooperatively organize the post-capitalist society. This society if achieved, would eliminate the militaristic basis of liberal democracy and right-wing populism.

Sources and Further Reading
Anarchism: Key Concepts, Honeywell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYb1ZtY9ke4
https://redandblackanarchists.com.au/trumpism-an-anarchist-view/
https://redandblackanarchists.com.au/the-basics-of-anarcho-syndicalism/