Beyond Resistance
Building the Democracy We've Never Had
We stand at the end of an era. The familiar landmarks of liberal democracy, the institutions, norms, and assumptions that have shaped our political landscape for generations, are crumbling before our eyes. The pace of global change has outstripped the adaptive capacity of democratic systems designed for a slower, more stable world. Extreme inequality, technological disruption, climate crisis, and mass migration have exposed democracy's vulnerabilities in ways that authoritarian movements exploit with devastating effectiveness.
But this moment of crisis is also a moment of unprecedented possibility. We are not fighting to return to a democracy that never fully existed for most people. We are fighting to birth the democracy that has always been our deepest aspiration - one that finally lives up to its liberatory potential.
The False Choice of Restoration
Too often, pro democracy forces in the U.S. frame their work as defending democracy against authoritarianism, as if democracy were a finished project under attack rather than an unfinished revolution waiting to be completed. This defensive posture accepts the premise that what we had before was good enough, that our task is preservation rather than transformation.
The democracy we inherited was built with tools of exclusion, extraction, and domination. It was designed by and for white, property-owning men in a world of slavery, genocide, and the subjugation of women. Every expansion of democratic participation - from abolition to women's suffrage to civil rights - required breaking the rules of the existing system, not defending them.
June Jordan understood this deeper truth, calling upon us to struggle as the women who helped lead the South African freedom movement did who recognized that "We are the ones we've been waiting for." We cannot wait for institutions to save us or for someone else to grant us the democracy we deserve. We must create it ourselves, right now, in the midst of crisis.
The Struggle for the Future
The current authoritarian moment is not simply about Donald Trump or even American politics. It represents a global contest over who will shape the future of human civilization. On one side stand the forces of repression: ethnic nationalism with its violent xenophobia, religious bigotry with its dreams of domination, and misogyny with its rejection of human equality. These forces offer the familiar comforts of hierarchy, the false security of "us versus them," and the seductive simplicity of authoritarian rule.
On the other side stand those of us who value freedom, fairness, compassion, mutual interdependence in the context of equity, and joy.
This is not a battle between left and right, progressive and conservative. It is a battle between two fundamentally different visions of what it means to be human, and what kind of world our children will inherit.
The Liberation Democracy We're Building
The democracy we're fighting for has never existed, but it lives in the dreams and struggles of every movement for justice throughout history. It lives in the Underground Railroad and the lunch counter sit-ins. It lives in the Stonewall riots and the farmworkers' strikes. It lives in the disability rights movement and the fight for indigenous sovereignty.
Marsha P. Johnson, who threw the first brick at Stonewall, understood that liberation cannot be partial: "History isn't something you look back at and say it was inevitable, it happens because people make decisions that are sometimes very impulsive and of the moment, but those moments are cumulative realities." Every moment of resistance, every act of courage, every choice to stand with the oppressed rather than the oppressor, builds toward the world we're creating.
From South Africa, Steve Biko taught us that "The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed." Our first task is to free our own minds from the limitations of what we've been told is possible. Our second task is to help others do the same.
From Brazil, Paulo Freire showed us that "Education either functions as an instrument of conformity or as the practice of freedom." Every conversation we have, every relationship we build, every community we strengthen is an act of popular education - teaching ourselves and others that another world is possible.
Modeling Joy and Freedom in Real Time
The most radical thing we can do in a time of fear is to model the joy and freedom we're fighting for. People need to see what liberation looks like, not just hear arguments about why authoritarianism is bad. They need to witness communities where mutual aid replaces charity, where decisions are made collectively, where difference is celebrated rather than feared.
As Toni Morrison wrote, "The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction." The same is true of all forms of oppression - they distract us from the beautiful, creative, generative work of building beloved community. When we create spaces of joy, art, celebration, and genuine connection, we break the spell of scarcity and fear that authoritarianism depends on.
Concrete Actions for Civil Resisters
1. Create Prefigurative Communities: Build the democracy you want to see in microcosm. Start with your community-based organizations and service groups, your neighborhood, your family. Practice democratic decision-making, prioritize the voices of those most impacted by injustice, and create cultures of care and accountability.
2. Make Mutual Aid Revolutionary: Transform charity into solidarity by building systems where people support each other not out of pity but out of recognition of our fundamental interdependence. Make these networks visible celebrations of what community can look like.
3. Defend AND Expand: Yes, defend existing democratic institutions from authoritarian capture. But simultaneously build alternative institutions that model the democracy we're creating. Don't just resist voter suppression, create new forms of participatory democracy that go beyond the ballot box.
4. Center Joy and Celebration: Organize festivals, block parties, cultural events, and celebrations that embody the values you're fighting for. Let people experience the joy of liberated community. Make resistance irresistible.
5. Practice Revolutionary Love: Follow the lead of those most impacted by injustice while building coalitions that cross every line of difference. Practice the radical vulnerability that builds trust across communities that have been taught to fear each other.
6. Tell New Stories: Create art, media, and cultural narratives that help people imagine the world we're building. Move beyond critique to vision, beyond resistance to creation.
7. Build Long-Term Power: Invest in the slow work of political education, leadership development, and institution-building that creates lasting change rather than just reactive mobilization.
The Democracy We Deserve
Ella Baker taught us that "Remember, we are not fighting for the freedom of the black man, but for the freedom of the human spirit." The democracy we're building is not just for Americans, or just for any one group of people. It is for the liberation of the human spirit itself - the recognition that every person has inherent dignity, that communities can govern themselves with wisdom and compassion, and that justice and joy are not luxuries but necessities.
We are not trying to execute a U-turn back to a democracy that never fully existed. We are moving forward to a democracy that has never been tried on this scale - one that is truly of, by, and for all people. One that recognizes, as the Zapatistas say, "A world where many worlds fit."
The authoritarians offer a return to an imagined past built on domination and hierarchy. We offer something far more powerful: a future built on liberation and love.
The choice is not between order and chaos, between tradition and destruction. The choice is between a world organized around fear and a world organized around love. Between a politics of scarcity and a politics of abundance. Between the false promise of authoritarian simplicity and the beautiful complexity of authentic democracy.
As James Baldwin knew, "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." We are facing the end of an era and the birth of a new one. The question is not whether change will come - it is already here. The question is whether that change will be shaped by the forces of domination or the forces of liberation.
We have everything we need to choose liberation. We have each other. We have the wisdom of every freedom struggle that came before us. We have the courage that comes from knowing that, as Adrienne Maree Brown reminds us, "We are in a time that asks us to be ancestors."
The democracy we're building starts now, with every relationship we transform, every community we strengthen, every moment we choose love over fear. The future is not something that happens to us. It is something we create, together, with our hands and hearts and unbreakable commitment to each other's freedom.
This is our time. This is our work. This is our gift to the generations who will come after us: a world where democracy finally means what it has always promised - a society where everyone belongs, everyone matters, and everyone is free.
The choice before us is not between democracy and authoritarianism. It is between the democracy that never was and the democracy that could be. Between a world organized around domination and a world organized around love. The future is calling us forward. Let us answer with joy.