Think like a community organizer: Do a power analysis.

As rational Americans, we're right to be enraged and afraid right now. The response from some folks has been to criticize elected Democrats for not shouting loud enough.

What we’re not hearing is your anger. We’re not hearing your outrage. We’re wondering whether or not you actually hear us.

My suggestion would be to shout as loud as you want. But when you're done, take a moment to think about the serenity prayer. 

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. 

There is a reason why the serenity prayer has been such a powerful tool in helping people who are dealing with addiction. Too often when we are enraged and/or fearful, we lash out at things that are out of our control. In the end, we are defeated and feel powerless. That's when the second part of the prayer emerges. Our energies are better focused on the things we actually have the power to change. The wisdom comes in knowing the difference, and in embracing the fact that we are not powerless victims. 

In the picture above, Barack Obama isn't leading an AA meeting. He's teaching community organizing. The picture cuts off the top right-hand corner, but it is clear that - much like the serenity prayer suggests -  he's talking about doing a "Power Analysis." That starts with learning the difference between where we do/don't have the power to change things.

I have been reminded of that as I watch Josh Marshall basically do a power analysis over at TPM.  He, too, invoked the serenity prayer.

But this is also fundamentally a battle for public opinion, which means it’s about the next election and sowing divisions in the majority party. That means it’s very much a long haul. Unsatisfying and scary, yes, but that doesn’t make it less the reality. The whole game here [for MAGA] is whipping up false perceptions of urgency that can’t be met, which leads people to despair and giving up.

I tend to think of these things in a political form of the “serenity prayer” usually attributed to the 20th century theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: know what power you lack, use the power you have to the maximum extent possible and do your best to distinguish between the two. “Serenity” sounds to many people to very much fail to meet the moment. But serenity is actually power. (It’s also resilience but let’s focus for now on the power part of the equation.) This is of necessity very much an asymmetric confrontation. It can’t not be. The White House has all the executive authority and, indirectly, the congressional power as well. When Trump or Bannon or Steven Miller talk about overwhelming the opposition, they really mean goading them to meet every new thrust as a pitched battle on open ground which they’ll of course lose since — to extend the metaphor — the Republicans have a big army and the Democrats have no army. Because of the 2024 election. So Democrats keep running out onto the open field with no power or defense and getting crushed, which creates these repeated set pieces of helplessness and impotence. That amounts to free programming for Donald Trump. To stretch the metaphor a bit further, this is for the moment a guerrilla conflict for the Democrats — cutting communications and supply lines, taking out fuel and arms depots and then running back into the hills. As we said yesterday: “Find what you can actually do that’s not begging or meaningless and then do it.”

The part we cannot change is the fact that we are very much in the midst of "an asymmetric confrontation" due to the results of the 2024 election. Democrats hold none of the traditional forms of political power. 

So we can keep beating our heads against a wall and feeling powerless, or we can assess what power we actually have. Marshall has laid out some possibilities.

1. We have the power to influence public opinion.

Sometimes, getting the message out to the people who need to hear it (ie, Trump supporters) involves working with those who have institutional power and are seeing their own self-interests affected by Trump/Musk. 

For example, we're expecting Trump to unleash his 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada today. While we've grown accustomed to backpedaling from Sen. Susan Collins, she just issued some dire warnings about what those tariffs will mean to her state of Maine. Similar warnings are coming from J.P. Morgan.  While Republicans probably wouldn't listen to Democrats complaining about things like tariffs, they're more likely to listen to Republican politicians and J.P. Morgan. We can all share their concerns with friends/family/coworkers.

As the fallout from Trump/Musk grows, there will be a lot of these kinds of examples that can be used to influence public opinion.

2. We have the power to challenge Trump/Musk in the courts.

I have bookmarked the "Litigation Tracker" being maintained at the web site, Just Security. As I write, 23 lawsuits have been filed against the executive orders issued by Trump. Marshall explains why that is important.

[C]ritical to a battle over public opinion in an onslaught such as this is slowing things down as much as possible, throwing as much sand in the gears as possible. That’s stretches out the time people can get an understanding of what’s happening. It increases their visibility of what’s happening...

But the point isn’t ‘courts will save us’ malarkey. (In any case, that’s now mainly the mocking phrase of wreckers and sad sacks.) It’s putting sand in the gears, slowing things down as one front in the battle for public opinion.

3. We have the power to force change when Republicans have to work with Democrats on things like the debt ceiling. Here's how that would work:

The clearest lever out there is that the White House needs a debt limit increase sometime this spring, probably pretty soon. There’s been chatter that Republican leaders are going to try to put together a spending deal with Democratic help that would include a debt limit increase or suspension. That has to be taken off the table. No debt limit increase unless the President renounces illegal and constitutional actions. That’s the clearest place where opposition Democrats can take the initiative and force the President and GOP leadership to come to them. Anything that doesn’t force that is basically meaningless.

You’ve probably heard me say before that no one should ever play chicken with the full faith and credit of the United States. Well, these are extraordinary circumstances.

I have to admit that I have reservations about that one. We've always understood that it is dangerous to play chicken with the debt ceiling. But I'm willing to at least entertain the idea given our current circumstances.

Those are the tactics Marshall has put forward. I suspect that there are a lot more guerrilla tactics that could be used at this point. It's time to do a power analysis, let go of the things we can't change, and get on with using the power we DO have to be the opposition.  

P.S. I'm quoting Josh Marshall a lot because, as far as I can see, he's doing the best job of analyzing our current situation and proposing pragmatic steps for going forward. If you haven't already, I urge you to subscribe to his site, Talking Points Memo. It is an invaluable resource.