From Resistance to Defiance
Introducing The All American Substack
2025 has hit hot and heavy, marked by haphazard layoffs of federal workers that risk American lives; preemptive obedience by titans of tech and law; alienation of longtime strategic allies. Unlike the chaos of this President’s first term, this incarnation of the Trump team feels purposeful—a strategic assault on the systems that once checked presidential power. The blitzkrieg has left most Democrats paralyzed, and the previous centers of resistance struggling to keep up.
Flashback eight years to 2017: the day after this president was sworn in for the first time, I stood on a stage in a phalanx of women, peering out across a crowd a half million strong. Despite being part of the planning for this moment, even I was floored by the massive resistance movement unleashed instantaneously in response to Trump’s first election.
But that resistance proved futile. We won some battles–primarily electoral–but lost the war. Trump’s first term secured a Supreme Court tilted in his favor. The right all out embraced extremism, while a rigid ideology and purity tests became the hallmark of the left. This combination depressed broad and sustained engagement by the newly minted activists, and the political economy became hyper-polarized as a result, sapping the life out of public debate.
The right ran the tables on new media spaces, creating massive asymmetry in the information environment. Democrats were perceived as the party of the status quo, relying on old technologies and legacy media, while the right seeded an explosive new ecosystem to reinforce its interpretation of reality.
In a moment when most Americans have record-low satisfaction with the way democracy is working, the guy who shows the power and the will to blow things up becomes pretty attractive to a weary electorate. And while Trump was busy exploiting this advantage, Democrats too often played into the damning stereotype that they are the cautious and weak defenders of a broken system.
Today, millions of Americans feel politically homeless, caught between ineffective opposition and creeping authoritarianism. We have lost faith in our institutions and our leaders, and too many have internalized what historian Timothy Snyder calls the "ideology of inevitability” – the doomist notion projected from both the left and the right that a dangerous and scary future is unavoidable.
We need a modern framework, bold visions and purpose-built coalitions to chart a new way forward –to secure an American future rooted in the universal values of freedom, equality, and self-determination.
It’s time to move from resistance to defiance.
“Today, millions of Americans feel politically homeless, caught between ineffective opposition and creeping authoritarianism. ”
In a time of obeyance, defiance is the aikido of resistance. Dating back to the early 20th century, this Japanese martial art doesn’t try to stop–or resist–motion. Instead, it anticipates and redirects an opponent’s energy to usher in a new state of being. South African opposition leader under apartheid, Nelson Mandela, called defiance a moral imperative. Czech poet and playwright turned opposition leader turned president, Václav Havel, once said, "Defiance is a way of proving to ourselves that we have a certain power within us."
Together, with my fellow schemers and dreamers, Seth Flaxman and Peter Teague, we founded this Substack–and its partner organization American Futures–to spark defiance and chart a new way forward.
We span generations, from Boomer to Millennial. Collectively, we have spent almost 90 years working in civic engagement and issue and movement advocacy. We build things: systems, products, and movements that have engaged tens of millions of Americans in our democracy. We’ve worked in politics, advocacy, civic technology and philanthropy–giving us an intimate knowledge of the systems that help us rise or fall. And we know we’re falling short in our country’s time of greatest need.
We understand the exhausting dogmas that have come to dominate the left-wing movements we came out of, and we cannot continue to pursue the same maximalist strategies that failed us in the past. Neither are we aligned with, or at home in, the emergent center-right movements that dominated the post-Trump world. So we came together–politically homeless ourselves–to build a new home, one we hope can be a keystone in the cross-ideological coalitions to hold the authoritarians at bay.
We want to use this Substack to catalyze a common understanding of how the authoritarians rose to power, including an honest assessment of where the movements we have been a part of failed. We will facilitate an open dialogue between potential friends and allies to shift the energy of upcoming battles, free ourselves from existing orthodoxies and ineffective strategies, and explore bold, fresh visions for a better American future. Ultimately, we hope to use this space to avoid the traps the right will set to divide us and thoughtfully choose fights that will knock the tyrants back on their heels while uniting a counter-authoritarian force.
“We came together — politically homeless ourselves — to build a new home, one we hope can be a keystone in the cross-ideological coalitions to hold the authoritarians at bay. ”
And here’s the thing: we know more than we think we do. History certainly has lessons for us in moments like these–but so does the recent past.
The authoritarian right’s strategy is known and predictable. First, it sows confusion and mistrust by leveraging disinformation in fragmented media and information ecosystems. Second, it exploits fractures and fissures in the coalitions that make up liberal movements, detecting tensions and pitting constituencies against one another. Finally, it depresses the desire to participate in political life by amplifying hyper-polarization. When fewer people engage, authoritarians prosper.
Through years in the fight, we’ve evolved a pattern recognition for this arc of behavior. We’ve been in the trenches as they've weaponized complex issues like reproductive freedom, the struggle for gender equality, and ensuring equal rights for queer and trans Americans to divide and demoralize. We’ve studied the information systems that allow them to penetrate new audiences, and we know the role of philanthropy in exacerbating the divide.
Now, we’re building the dedicated infrastructure to get ahead of them, inflict pain on their coalition, and build a powerful fighting force that can withstand their divide-and-conquer tactics. Our imperative is to tap into the latent energy of the dissatisfied majority–still politically engaged, but largely alienated by the available menu of movement, candidate, and party activism–and use that base to create off ramps for defectors.
Engaging this majority, however, requires an entirely different approach than what’s been attempted in the past. Idealistic politicians, political party activism, single-issue advocacy, and good policy design won’t cut it. We need a social movement where the majority feels welcome–one that can inspire action by providing a real hope of winning, and that marries an idealistic patriotism with the power of popular ideas, a strategy to gain first-mover advantage, and a megaphone that can pierce through the right-wing echo chamber to reshape political reality.
Valuable in its own right, such a movement is also the keystone that can work with both the progressive left and the center-right to defy authoritarian pressure as part of a broad coalition.
Most importantly, we need to catalyze, lift up, and demonstrate the courage to defy tyranny–regardless of where it comes from. We’re here to fight for the America we believe in, and to build a liberal democracy that works for the 21st century.
