Don’t Panic, Organize: Meeting the Moment of Trump’s Second Term

Black Rose Anarchist Federation maps out ideas for community organizing in the current moment.

Donald Trump has once again ascended to the Presidency. Below we lay out our recommendations for how to respond.

1. No Choice But to Fight

The “choice” of this election, like all elections, presented us with no choice at all: one program of open reaction and the other friendly-faced genocide. Still, a Trump victory was far from inevitable.

Presented with an opportunity to overhaul their platform, the Democratic Party instead swapped one stand-in for another without any significant change in position. This was most glaring in Biden and later Harris’s willingness to sacrifice the votes of Muslim and Arab Americans by refusing to even slow—let alone stop—US facilitation of Israel’s genocidal wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

But other factors prevailed too, including the Democrats’ failure to articulate anything resembling a plan to address compounding crises around profit hungry price-gouging, the cost of living, housing, bodily autonomy, or healthcare.

It is impossible now to argue that Trump is an aberration. He is as American as apple pie, a product of the system of domination that structures our society. If we are to confront a second Trump administration, we must also confront this system of domination—a task that will require organization, bravery, and commitment.

So here we are. While you might be feeling fear, anger, and despair right now, it’s not a time to back down. It’s time to step up.

2. Hit the Streets

Mass demonstrations and protests play an important role in lifting spirits, creating a sense of shared purpose, and publicly displaying the potential power of organized movements. They are especially important in the moments immediately after a crisis or major event—like the one we’re living through right now.

But demonstrations won’t be enough. For decades we have seen the limits of mass protest marches. While symbolically powerful, they fail to create the kind of leverage needed to dramatically shift the course of events. To create this leverage we have to…

3. Get Organized

Bring the energy from the streets back home by getting organized and building power in everyday institutions of social life. This might mean organizing a union at work, a tenant union at your apartment complex, an assembly in your neighborhood, or a student organization at school.

In places where these organizations already exist, our task is to build rank-and-file capacity to lead from below and turn them into effective fighting organizations.

Don’t get us wrong, none of these things are simple or easy to do—that’s the point!

If we want to create real material leverage that can meet the moment, fight back the worst of what Trump has planned, defend ourselves, and ultimately transform society from the bottom up, we have to build durable organizations that can exert popular power in the places where we work, live, or study.

For pointers on where and how to get started with organizing to build power, check out our “on-ramps” for organizing at the bottom of this article. We need to get organized so we can…

4. Grow Our Movements

As we saw with the first Trump term, millions of people will now be looking for places to channel their frustration—many are going to be open to developing a systemic critique of capitalism and the state. We must be prepared to welcome these newcomers with open arms, patience, and kindness.

Rejecting both paternalism and structurelessness, our movements have to be places that educate and arm people with the tools to fight effectively, while also maintaining truly democratic and bottom up structures.

We’re not building exclusive activist clubhouses, we’re building combative mass movements that can fight back and win. Movements and movement organizations that are truly welcoming, democratic, and led by the rank-and-file have the potential to…

4. Put the Hurt On

Days of action reinforce that we’re not alone in our outrage. But protest leaders rarely direct that righteous anger against the people and institutions that play crucial roles in supporting or carrying out repressive policies.

Amidst Trump’s first term, movements learned to focus collective pressure. For example, targeting airports with mass shutdowns and welcoming parties for migrants stymied his first attempt at a Muslim ban. Later, thousands set up encampments outside Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities to demand an end to the administration’s vicious kids-in-cages and child separation policies.

To counter the repressive policies of the incoming administration, we must identify strategic targets and force them to reckon with our collective strength.

Still, while protest marches or even prolonged actions might disrupt the normal function of society for a short period, organization in everyday sites of struggle—our workplaces, neighborhoods, and schools—can create deeper, more prolonged disruptions that really put the hurt on. We saw examples of this too during the first Trump term, where some experimented with neighborhood assembly models that had success in protecting migrants by disrupting the activity of ICE.

Once we’ve built the organization and power, we have to exert it through labor, rent, and student strikes, as well as other confrontational mass tactics and approaches that can disrupt business and politics as usual.

Like we said at the top though, Trump is one symptom of a broader system of domination. To combat and ultimately end that system, we need a long term strategy to…

5. Consolidate Popular Power

To confront this moment our most immediate tasks are building organization and exerting power through disruptive tactics. But we can’t stop there.

Organized disruptions give us a taste of our real power: we make this world run, and we can make it stop, too. But what would it look like to democratically control where we live, work, or study…for good?

We call this popular power, the ability of combative social movements to give people the leverage needed to begin exerting control over their own everyday institutions. Building the organization and power to confront our present moment is one step toward this greater popular power.

6. Find a Political Home

While organizations rooted in everyday sites of struggle are the frontlines of any effective mass social movement, we also recognize the importance of having a place to develop political perspectives, strategies, and tactics that extend beyond this moment and toward a revolutionary horizon.

Black Rose/Rosa Negra is our political home. We strategize together so we can act together, all pushing in the same direction toward our ultimate objective of social revolution and libertarian socialism.

If you’re engaged in organizing to build power, reach out to us.

Included here are a collection of articles, audio pieces, and other resources that provide what we are calling “on-ramps” to organizing.