A key point: Josh Marshall has been writing about how to leverage the separate sovereignty of the states against Trump. “Strategic depth,” he calls it, from military studies:
Understanding the critical role of the sovereign powers of the states as a redoubt beyond the reach of Trump’s increasingly autocratic power is really the entire game right now, at least for the next 18 months and, in various measures, almost certainly through the beginning of 2029. People can march, advocate, campaign, donate to candidates, all the stuff. But in many ways the most important thing right now is both communicating to and demanding of state officials that they act on this latent power.
There are key areas where Democrats in Congress may have moments of power, the ability to slow a few things down. But to a great degree, the battle is already lost within the federal government until the next election. It’s only in the states where opponents of Donald Trump hold executive power outside the reach of and the hierarchies of the federal government. That’s where the whole game is. It is strategic depth not in extent or remoteness of territory but in the structure of government and the state. And states have vast amounts of power, far more than we tend to realize because we’ve never been in a position where the mundane daily activities of state and local government have become so critical — its taxing powers, its policing powers, the ways in which the federal government actually struggles to effectively extend its powers to the local level at scale without the active participation of local government.
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As Real As It Gets
Published by Tom Sullivan on August 25, 2025
Something Jason Sattler wrote yesterday needs repeating this morning:
Everything we do makes it easier for our neighbors to stand up or sit down for this regime. We all know there’s a crisis coming that will force all who pay attention to make a choice that could define the rest of their lives.
Will people do it? In most cases, it depends on what they see us doing next.
SEE us doing. That’s the key.
How the less-engaged make up their minds about political matters, Anand Giridharadas observed (based on Anat’s work), is more akin to how they decide to buy pants: What’s everyone else wearing this year? What are normal people like me doing? Not in one-and-done big rallies but every day. Your resistance must be visible and persistent for that to work and give the less engaged permission to join the resistance movement. Calling your senator five days a week is fine, but which of your neighbors sees that?
Plus, if you want people to join your party, throw a better party. We’re out in the streets multiple times a week now. I bring dance music.
A friend pointed to this TikTok by someone going by @logicnliberty. She advocates a unified front by blue-state governors with trifectas. It’s not that they are not already unified, coordinating, and suing. They are. Govs. Gavin Newsom, JB Pritzker, Kathy Hochul are speaking out and holding press conferences. (State AGs too.) But not necessarily as a team. Are they leveraging their trifectas proactively to erect firewalls in their states against Trump’s gutting of the Constitution? They should.
(snip-TikTok video embedded on the page)
Would the press cover it if they did? We are already in the slow civil war Jeff Sharlet described. The blue and the gray meets the blue and the red. Run with it. The press loves controversy. Generate more, blue state governors.
Josh Marshall has been writing about how to leverage the separate sovereignty of the states against Trump. “Strategic depth,” he calls it, from military studies:
There are key areas where Democrats in Congress may have moments of power, the ability to slow a few things down. But to a great degree, the battle is already lost within the federal government until the next election. It’s only in the states where opponents of Donald Trump hold executive power outside the reach of and the hierarchies of the federal government. That’s where the whole game is. It is strategic depth not in extent or remoteness of territory but in the structure of government and the state. And states have vast amounts of power, far more than we tend to realize because we’ve never been in a position where the mundane daily activities of state and local government have become so critical — its taxing powers, its policing powers, the ways in which the federal government actually struggles to effectively extend its powers to the local level at scale without the active participation of local government.
Understanding the critical role of the sovereign powers of the states as a redoubt beyond the reach of Trump’s increasingly autocratic power is really the entire game right now, at least for the next 18 months and, in various measures, almost certainly through the beginning of 2029. People can march, advocate, campaign, donate to candidates, all the stuff. But in many ways the most important thing right now is both communicating to and demanding of state officials that they act on this latent power.
And those actions must be not only public, but in-your-face public. Their actions and yours.
Update: Read it. It’s where your neighbors are.
The human heart hangs on to hope until there’s no other choice. People will not fight back in the ways that will work, until they realize there is no other choice, until the only other choice is their own imprisonment or death, or that of someone they love. For many of us, that moment is already here. But for most of us, it’s not.
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Have you fought dicktatorship today?
50501 – Labor Day events
May Day Strong Labor Day Events
No King’s One Million Rising movement
The Resistance Lab
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink – Search on Labor Day events near you
You Have Power
Chop Wood, Carry Water
Thirty lonely but beautiful actions
Attending a Protest Surveillance Self-Defense
