When Donald Trump received the 2024 presidential election, many people turned to the phrases of activist and educator Daniel Hunter for consolation and route. Hunter’s piece 10 Ways to be Prepared and Grounded Now that Trump Has Won supplied sensible and strategic recommendation to disrought folks of conscience who had been reeling within the wake of Trump’s victory. Hunter’s evaluation included the commentary that “differentiated resistance pathways” would emerge with time. Hunter specified that 4 of these pathways can be “Defending Individuals,” “Defending Civic Establishments,” “Disrupt and Disobey,” and “Construct Options.” Many politically engaged folks at the moment are looking for their footing inside these pathways, whereas additionally weathering Trump’s ongoing assaults. I lately had the chance to meet up with Hunter to debate the second we’re in, and the way we will keep our focus and dedication in these chaotic instances.
This interview has been calmly edited for size and readability.
Kelly Hayes: You wrote a bit that helped lots of people floor themselves after Trump’s re-election. Now a few months into his administration, quite a lot of us are attempting to navigate a brand new actuality. Universities are beneath assault together with legislation corporations which have taken authorized motion in opposition to Trump’s edicts. Individuals with everlasting resident standing have been snatched up by ICE and face deportation, and a whole lot of Venezuelan immigrants have been despatched to a jail in El Salvador with none due course of. How do you view this second we’re experiencing proper now and the way ought to we be approaching it?
Daniel Hunter: Effectively, you framed the dangerous half very precisely. It’s very dire. There’s quite a lot of methods that we’ve relied upon previously which might be beneath assault. One among my mates who works with undocumented residents mentioned the present problem is that the foundations of ICE are unknown proper now, and so we don’t know how one can keep protected. The behaviors of how they’ve operated have modified. We used to know their patterns.
The opposite factor that’s additionally taking place is new types of resistance are up and working. One of the underreported acts of non-compliance was 1.6 million federal employees who had been non-compliant with Elon Musk. When Musk first publicized his demand that federal employees submit an inventory of 5 issues they did final week by way of e-mail to OPM [the Office of Personnel Management], he mentioned that anybody who didn’t comply can be fired. OPM didn’t point out the half about doubtlessly being fired within the e-mail it despatched to federal workers, however the information media positive echoed it. So the mainstream media informed everyone that’s what the e-mail was and that’s what would occur. And employees started organizing on Sign threads and saying, I don’t wish to adjust to this. And started confirming to one another and boosting one another up. After which that moved to the union.
So AFGE [American Federation of Government Employees] and others quickly adopted swimsuit and mentioned, they’re additionally not going to conform. After which that fell because the stress mounted, even among the administrators, together with among the sycophants like Patel and Rubio and others, additionally started following swimsuit and telling folks to not adjust to Musk’s demand. And so we’re dwelling in a really fascinating time due to all the pieces you simply mentioned about dire circumstances, and likewise, there’s an unbelievable vary of non-compliance. Erica Chenoweth simply did a report with a few of her colleagues the place they famous that in February [2025] alone, there have been twice as many protests than in [all of] 2017.
And so though it hasn’t been as centralized because it was, it’s truly a better vary of ways, extra boycotts, extra experiments with focusing on various things, extra vary of exercise, extra folks within the streets, that every one of these issues are true on this second. And that, I believe, must also be in our evaluation and in our feeling, which is each—there’s quite a lot of dire stuff and there’s additionally lots of people making an attempt to determine how to withstand. And that ought to give us quite a lot of hope. I don’t know if it has to provide us hope truly, however it ought to give us quite a lot of evaluation that persons are up for resisting.
What do you consider the Tesla takedown motion that’s underway?
I like it.
Me too. I actually respect that it’s focusing on Elon Musk, and likewise pursuing a cloth consequence. When folks see the inventory drop, they will see the influence they’re having, and I believe that’s so useful and empowering. I additionally suppose it’s a motion that’s pulling us in the proper route, by way of difficult these oligarchs and billionaires.
I believe you’re completely proper. And I believe I wish to simply affirm lots of the stuff you simply mentioned. The Tesla Takedown is a good instance of decentralized protest. It’s not a single group directing folks about what to do. Persons are capable of determine this out they usually’re making some sensible, strategic selections.
I believe tactically it’s sensible. It’s additionally an excellent route for us, by way of making a direct financial influence. It provides us an excellent narrative, and an opportunity to arrange regionally. It provides us quite a lot of issues, however I believe there are going to be challenges forward. I believe in some unspecified time in the future the protests will begin to attain a sort of threshold, and would possibly attain the restrict of their impacts. Both as a result of Musk is ready to do sufficient harm management, or they do some reshaping contained in the Tesla construction. However I believe there could also be different ways that we then must develop to focus on SpaceX and Starlink. And I believe these are a bit bit extra tough targets, however they’re ones that Musk additionally cares deeply about.
On April twentieth, the secretaries of the Division of Protection and the Division of Homeland Safety are imagined to ship a report pursuant to considered one of Trump’s early government orders, providing a suggestion about whether or not or not Trump ought to invoke the Insurrection Act. Are you fearful about this report and what it may imply for the general public and for our actions?
We’re already seeing, as you talked about on the prime of the intro, among the repression that’s starting and among the outlines of how that’s going to unfold. They’re focusing on marginalized communities—people who find themselves on the fringes and edges of our society to see how a lot they will get away with. And so, almost about the Rebel Act, I believe it’s actually essential for us to talk out about these circumstances of Palestinian rights activists who’ve been focused for deportation. These are take a look at circumstances for criminalizing protesting and criminalizing dissent. So no matter your specific place on what they’re as much as, the criminalizing of individuals for speech and for protest—these are take a look at circumstances. So there must be pushback now.
I believe the second factor is that activists must proceed assessing what sort of safety infrastructure we have to put in place. And I believe the best way that I’ve been making an attempt to carry this for folks by way of considering by way of that query of safety and my security shouldn’t be solely serious about how do I enhance my very own safety, but in addition the query of how I assist the security of the complete motion.
So there’s a company within the South that received focused by the federal authorities. It’s been beneath assault, and one of many ways in which it actually received taken out was that when it received focused, folks contained in the group started to overtly speak to the media in regards to the group’s inner dissension. That fed a firestorm. So one of many issues that we have to do is to take duty for one another in a group sense and take duty for the security of the motion, which suggests not solely simply searching for our personal particular person self, but in addition searching for the way our actions are impacting different folks’s security and safety. The longevity of the group.
So constancy to motion and constancy to one another signifies that we additionally look out for one another, which frequently can simply be summarized as you don’t comply. Regardless of the 10 commandments by Czechs towards the Soviet Invasion had been: Don’t know, don’t inform, don’t have, and so on. —simply observe discretion. So I believe these are behaviors that we needs to be practising in rigorous methods as a result of whether or not the Rebel Act will get used or not, the intention of this present administration is evident, which is: they’re going to go after protesters as a lot as they will get away with.
And on that be aware, once you and I talked shortly after Trump’s re-election, we had been in settlement that symbolic arrests had been most likely not the very best factor to pursue on the onset of the Trump administration. Do you continue to really feel that method?
I do. There’s going to be a lot of alternatives for folks to show and protest. And I believe increasingly symbolic protests shall be essential to sign to those who there’s lots of people such as you. So there are excessive percentages of the US inhabitants which might be involved and usually are not nicely conscious of the variety of people who find themselves already in movement. So all of us have a duty to inform that story to different folks, to inform tales of non-cooperation, of the protests, of the International Days of Motion, and so on. And so shops like yours, Kelly, are so essential as a result of folks want that message as a result of the mainstream media has been horrible, completely horrible, at a few of its worst by way of speaking about examples of non-cooperation and non-compliance and protests which might be taking place proper now.
When it comes to symbolically getting arrested or among the civil disobedience actions, the place that we have to get to is materials challenges, taking up establishments, taking up buildings which might be at the moment being battled for. And so issues like Tesla Takedown signify a cloth achieve, inflicting direct financial harm to Elon Musk. That, strategically, is extra essential than mere symbolism. That may transfer just a few extra folks, however we’re going to have quite a lot of alternatives to doubtlessly get arrested later down the highway.
I actually agree with that. I think about arrests a useful resource. I can solely get arrested so many instances earlier than the implications turn out to be more and more dire. And we now have an extended highway forward, and should have alternatives to cease materials harms from taking place by placing ourselves in arrestable conditions. I wish to be prepared for that. I additionally wish to make clear that I’m not speaking about staying throughout the strains and never breaking the legislation, however about evading arrest every time doable, until there’s a cloth influence concerned, or the chance to stop one thing dangerous from taking place.
I simply wish to affirm that there are some implausible makes use of of civil disobedience taking place proper now, just like the Dawn Motion doing an action on the Division of Training when it grew to become clear the division was at risk of being taken out totally. A small variety of folks risked arrest, and that motion grew to become the picture of resistance across the Division of Training. They gave mainstream media who want a hook a picture of a bunch of younger folks taking a stand. FreeDC did one other sort of comparable motion. And so these are very important and are very a lot items to the motion in that regard as a result of they help in telling a narrative, however this didn’t contain a bigger push for folks to get arrested in that second.
What sort of motion do you encourage folks to take proper now? What’s your imaginative and prescient for the way we transfer?
This can be a actually essential time for some experiments, and so for folks to be at liberty to strive some various things, to search out ways that transfer broadly, and particularly chatting with the “disrupt and disobey” folks right here. It’s additionally a very essential second to have conversations with establishments to arrange them for what may very well be coming their method. So there’s been quite a lot of dialog about, for instance, the capitulation of Columbia College at a number of ranges, however they’ve signaled that they’re keen to capitulate to the Trump administration. Equally, we must always take note of Georgetown College, which has signaled its refusal to capitulate. And in reality, they had been informed that the administration wouldn’t rent any of their graduates they usually got here again sturdy with a really principled stance, after which escalated their response by saying that they might give tuition discount to federal employees.
In order that Georgetown letter is an instance of what an establishment does when it’s holding quick. And we want extra examples of that. We additionally want to inform that story to establishments, as a result of Georgetown has not gotten increasingly repression on account of it. And Columbia, by being smooth, truly has proven its weak point, its underbelly, and due to this fact gotten extra severely focused. And that’s commonplace in authoritarian regimes. So a bit little bit of what we now have to do for these of us who’re within the disruption class, is to have conversations with establishments to assist educate them the technique of non-cooperation and the technique that there shall be no place through which you can be protected by complying. That may be a delusion that you just’re making for your self.
As a result of if anyone remembers watching The Sopranos, once you’re coping with the mafia, as quickly as they know you’re weak, they know they will maintain going again to make the most of you. And so the choice is to indicate your energy. And that doesn’t assure you received’t get repressed, however repression has already occurred at Columbia: $400 million getting misplaced of their budgets. So a part of what we now have to do is assist folks perceive and get an evaluation of the second of the place we’re. We’re very late within the day for folks making an attempt to conform to make it by way of. It’s not going to work out.
Yet one more factor that I’m conscious of, based mostly on what I can see, is that it appears as if quite a lot of our adrenaline is starting to put on off at round this second. For lots of activists, there’s a drop taking place. Physiologically, what we learn about adrenaline and oxytocin is that this stuff get lodged in your physique. And so if you happen to haven’t been—which, I haven’t been as a lot—this is a vital time to maintain your physique in bodily movement: working, leaping, having intercourse, no matter it’s, however getting quite a lot of that, simply issues in your system transferring.
And the second factor: what I’ve seen or noticed is, for teams which were in fixed movement, their triage mechanisms at the moment are starting to fracture a bit. Individuals’s exhaustion ranges are rising. And so this is a vital second for checking again in about how a lot you possibly can deal with, and the tempo that you have to transfer at.
I believe we all know sufficient in regards to the rhythm of the administration’s technique, you can sort of belief your self, if you happen to’ve been monitoring, to not learn the information in the best way you could have been earlier than, as a result of you recognize the outlines of what they’re doing. It could be a second to downshift the quantity of tasks you’ve been as much as, or additionally simply discover the judgment that you just’ve been laying in your colleagues that perhaps you possibly can let go of a bit bit, as a result of there’s simply been a lot happening.
Individuals have been working within the context of overload. And we won’t be able to outlive if we burn ourselves out by treating this like a dash. And so once more, psychology is de facto essential on this second. And what I’ve seen is there appears to be an lively shift round this time period. And in order that appears to be essential for me as I’m chatting with folks, to simply remind them that is the second to discover a new gear.
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