The Balance of Forces Wants YOU: A Net Assessment on Fighting Tyranny in America
In a recent post, I noted that:
Trump is creating a solidarity of position between the immiserated working class and the technocratic class that manages state functions…Attacking everything, everywhere, all at once invites a balancing coalition at home and abroad.
After writing that piece, I ended up in two conversations with folks about what could possibly be done to move workers in America—federal workers, rank-and-file union members, and the precarious, non-union working class—to cohere as an actual balancing coalition. What can be done to fight back?
Answering that question meaningfully requires at least a rough net assessment of the balance of political forces between Trumpism and democracy. In strategic studies, net assessments evaluate the balance of power in specific contexts and geographies—how do the forces of blue (us) interact with red (them) in a specific conflict scenario given how each side is organized and their respective advantages and weaknesses? That kind of analysis becomes the basis for strategy—i.e., a way of adjusting how the military allocates resources, adjusts doctrine, and deploys forces.
We can do the same thing with political conflicts. And there are aspects of the balance that need no introduction. Everyone knows that oligarchs have all the damn money, and now occupy the presidency. Everyone knows union density is at a hundred-year low. Everyone knows that the Democratic Party is literally admitting that it can’t do anything, so nobody should expect it to act on society’s behalf. Even when Democratic leadership have taken action, it’s been to make concessions to Republicans in exchange for nothing; brilliant strategists they are not.
These are very material weaknesses. In the abstract, they suggest that the balance of power is so lopsided against democracy and in favor of oligarchy that all is lost.
But power balances don’t matter in the abstract; they matter in particular situations. And we’re far from powerless. In fact, some of our power comes from believing that we have agency.
Our Meta Weakness
Maybe the biggest non-material disadvantage we’re currently facing is a problem of consciousness, a narrative challenge. A collective mental shift is required to move from a solidarity of position to a solidarity of strategy.
People don’t realize the extent to which they depend on the administrative state (the parts of the state not doing national security). They have no idea that the FCC, CFPB, and FTC—destroyed by DOGE—help keep inflation in check. They don’t make the connection between the billionaires surrounding Trump and the Project 2025 policy agenda designed to kill the middle class.
Most importantly, not enough people understand that everything that’s happening is one big project: ICE’s immigration raids, the war on DEI, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, the anti-China hysteria by everyone on the right except Trump personally, and the war on federal workers—all of it is a way of using the state to reward the billionaire class, weaken the working class, move America toward a white nationalist (patriarchal) social order, and move the planet toward a multipolar world of empires, protectorates, and sacrifice zones.
Above all, people need to realize that the attack on the civil service is a threat to all workers in America. The ransacking of federal unions is a probe of democracy’s capacity to resist tyranny. If Trumpism, in the guise of DOGE, is able to destroy the administrative state, scare workers into silence and complicity, and layoff hundreds of thousands of Americans for no reason but ideology, corporations will do the same. There will be ripple effects for organized labor and non-union workers alike. Life will become very dark very fast for the working class.
If there is no real resistance when Trump and Musk destroy something as powerful as federal unions, they will be further emboldened to destroy trans folks, peace movements, leftists, immigrants, women. They’re coming for you. They’re coming for your job. They’re coming for your right to dissent. They’re coming for your retirement savings.
This is what it means that Trump is creating a solidarity of position in making enemies of virtually all of us. We need more people doing analysis on, producing social media content about, and explaining to politicians the common project here. We can eat his shit or we can take action together. To tell a story that awakens us to our solidarity of position is to make collective action possible, to mobilize people to confront their common enemy.