Donald Trump, the reality TV grifter turned president turned dictator, understands the power of a good visual. He knows how to exploit TV and video clips to his advantage. The Trump Regime’s occupation of DC is designed to give them plenty of red meat to throw at the MAGA base, which is why the military and law enforcement are being deployed in areas frequented by tourists, and where the millennials who moved to DC during the Obama Administration mostly live. They know MAGA won’t be able to get enough of a liberal city under occupation.
MAGA is a movement built on violent fantasies of jailing and executing marginalized communities and its political opponents. Trump wants to give his base a Tiananmen Square moment as much as they’re thirsty to see it (which is why so many red states are more than happy to deploy their national guard troops to the District). But as of yet, that hasn’t happened. There are plenty of visuals of DC under occupation, some of which are violence in the form of arrests. But most of the footage is of a city resisting an occupied force in creative, raucous, and even joyful ways.
READ: Elites Won’t Lead the Opposition to Trump
DC is showing up and showing out to resist Trump. I’m not surprised. There’s a strong culture of local organizing, with an additional layer of change-makers and rabble-rousers who come from all over the world to work in politics, government, and advocacy. I lived in DC for many years, and it’s one of the few places I’ve lived where literally everyone you meet, no matter their actual profession, is politically active and aware.
What’s happening in DC right now will come to other American cities and communities eventually. Vice President Vance said as much this week.
DC offers us all a model for how to fight back when the Regime shows up at our door. Here are five takeaways:
Organizing to build community and power.
Preparations began long before Trump announced that his Regime would send law enforcement and troops to DC’s streets. The 19th reports that the four women who founded Free DC, the organization at the forefront, began planting the seeds for an eventual resistance in October of last year. Because Trump repeatedly promised to take over DC in his speeches,they took the threat seriously. Free DC has held continual orientations to help residents prepare and offers strategies and tactics for how to organize on its website.
Per the 19th, Free DC has also: “mobilized rallies of support for fired federal workers, distributed call sheets to contact members of Congress, shared requests from organizations supporting unhoused city residents, and distributed hotlines for people to report where ICE and other federal law enforcement are active. There are currently grassroots efforts to protect the city’s youth by stationing adult volunteers at public transit stops and near schools to counter what one resident described on an organizing thread as ‘this moment of overpolicing and autocracy.’”
Localizing the fight.
Part of the reason DC has such a strong culture of local activism is that DC residents don’t have federal representation in Congress. They pay federal taxes but have no say in how they’re spent. Congress still controls their city budget. Free DC and allied organizations have consistently tied the occupation to DC’s lack of autonomy over its own affairs and the disenfranchisement of its residents from the political process. Allowing them to tap into existing organizing networks has made this a local fight with immediate impact, rather than merely a national one.
Posting their way through it.
Residents are documenting everything they see and experience and posting it online immediately. Every move the Trump Regime makes: arrests, harassment, violence, patrolling completely empty neighborhoods, it’s all caught on camera and amplified online. DC residents are also documenting their own resistance, from chasing goons away from schools and churches to heckling JD Vance, Stephen Miller, and Pete Hegseth as they visit an occupied Union Station.
Creating outlaw folk heroes.
The imagery of Sandwich Man is posted all over DC’s neighborhoods, with a play on a well-known Banksy mural being the most popular version. Americans love turning outlaws into folk heroes, and DC residents wasted no time in turning a viral online moment into a symbol for their movement.
Cultivating visibility, solidarity, and joy.
Fascism thrives on fear and isolation. Free DC’s five guiding principles for resisting the occupation are worth adopting for other purposes. They are:
- Do not obey in advance.
- Prioritize joy
- Take up space
- Be in solidarity
- Organize
A sustained resistance movement requires all of these components. Cultivating them is a continual practice. You can’t win against the Trump Regime without constantly reminding yourself and those around you what you love and why it’s worth fighting for. On this front, DC is showing us the way.
This is an excerpt from Ctrl Alt-Right Delete, a newsletter produced in partnership with COURIER — a civic media company. It was republished with the author’s permission. Subscribe HERE.
