Ten Reasons to Go Hard on January 20
CrimethInc. January 12, 2017
The inauguration of Donald Trump is right around the corner. Disrupt J20 is publicizing a wide range of demonstrations all around the US on January 20, including a call for an anti-capitalist and anti-fascist contingent in Washington, DC.
But why focus on this particular day, of all days? And why would it be worth driving across the country to a city crowded with reactionaries and police? Here are ten reasons why we think everyone needs to pull out the stops on January 20.
What is at stake here is not a single day of protest, but the paradigm of what it will mean to resist Trump. Right now, people around the US are outraged and terrified at the prospect of being governed by a megalomaniacal buffoon. This is an opportunity to expand the networks of people who are prepared to stand up to the government, but it won’t last long. If the demonstrations are basically a rerun of the anyone-but-Bush years in which protesters simply carried signs powerlessly expressing their disapproval, everything that currently feels intolerable about a Trump presidency will be normalized soon enough. On the other hand, if the demonstrations interfere with the inauguration and the maintenance of order, that will help to normalize the kind of resistance that will be necessary to prevent Trump from implementing his agenda.
Whatever happens on January 20 will shape the popular imagination about the era we are entering. It will help to determine what people feel entitled to do, what they expect of themselves and each other, and how they conceive of the long-term horizon of social change.
