The new regime takes the reins of the government on Monday – and things will probably not go as planned.

All signs point to a MAGA overstep and a fierce reaction.

Trump will be inaugurated for a second term as president on January 20^th and there is perhaps no greater ironic symbol of the national mood than half-staff flags being be raised to full height for Trump’s ego on one day, only to be lowered in mourning again the next.

Inauguration Day is sure to be a spectacle. There will be the predictable ‘deplorable parties’, the melodrama of competing tech titans showing up to grovel for preferential treatment, and, of course, widespread protests. What will be far more interesting and impactful, however, will be the weeks immediately afterward.

In the coming weeks, there is likely to be a blizzard of executive orders, legislation, and edicts that make real impacts on our lives and communities. Since the GOP has the federal ‘trifecta’ of a MAGA dominated Congress, Supreme Court, and Executive Branch, the slide is greased for a deluge of horrid policies and actions. While the election results do not indicate overwhelming support in the country for his vision (Trump won the national popular vote by a margin of 1.5%), the new president and his supporters seem to think otherwise. Many of the incoming officials have crowed about a ‘mandate’ and explicitly called for a range of damaging and unpopular policies like mass deportations, the dismantling of public education, enhancing misinformation, making changes to electoral processes that benefit conservatives, firing thousands of experts in government agencies and replacing them with partisan hacks, gutting environmental protection and climate initiatives, withholding disaster aid to force states to accept unpopular policies, and even rewriting the constitution to enshrine discriminatory policies and corporate power.

As likely as it is that the new administration will ram through the most offensive parts of the agenda immediately, it is equally likely that resistance to the new government’s plans will escalate dramatically.

The overstep is coming

If there is a clear pattern I have seen in political activism over the years, it is that activist action skyrockets when the reality of a threat actually hits. When the raids start, when the tragedy strikes, when the construction equipment is on its way to destroy something sacred, when the travel bans are put in place, when the police kill, when the bombs fall – that is when the scope and intensity of activism can explode to degrees that surprise opponents and supporters alike. It is worth preparing for this very real possibility.

This is because the coming administration is tailor-made to provoke a huge reaction. One reason for this is that many of the actual policies Trump has proposed are unpopular among wide swaths of the population. The second reason is that that Trump has the strategic nuance of a chimp with a machine gun. Through a combination of Trump’s dictatorial impulses, his disdain for the opinions and rights of people he sees as ‘opponents’ (or even allies who question him), and his long-time tactic of trying to bulldoze his way into getting what he wants, this administration is certain to egregiously overstep and piss off a lot of people at the same time.

There are even reports that there could be a purposeful attempt to create a national state of shock by trying to ram through a multitude of horrors all at once. But that could also backfire spectacularly. Why? Because when a government comes after things which so many people hold dear all at once, it can be disorienting – but it is also galvanizing. It can create a strong sense of solidarity and urgency which can electrify a movement.

Afterall, there is no way opponents of Trump are going to just give up, right? While some people have voiced concerns that progressive politicians may be ‘surrendering’ to Trump, most of us not only won’t, we can’t. The incoming regime is threatening to take measures that will directly impact our lives in such negative ways, and violate ethics we hold so deeply, that there is no way most of us will go along with them. So when I say, “We won’t surrender”, I don’t mean that in a quixotic, Braveheart scream of defiance in the face of what we actually think are impossible odds. No, it’s simply a calm and determined statement of fact. For most of us there won’t really be any choice. To paraphrase the iconic speech of Churchill: “We shall fight in the workplaces, we shall fight in the classrooms, we shall fight in the libraries, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets; we shall never surrender.” Why? Because we are workers, teachers, students, librarians, farmers, and citizens. If someone’s coming after us, what other choice do we have than to fight?

We know resistance is coming, but we do not yet know its form

On Monday the state will become even more firmly enmeshed with power structures that nakedly promote intolerance, insatiable capital accumulation, and the reckless (mis)management of our planet’s life support systems. The U.S. federal government – which has been at best a fickle and reluctant friend to those who us who believe in inclusion, justice, and sustainability – is going to lose all pretenses of serving those ideals.

The fact that the U.S. federal government will be in the hands of exceptionally unqualified and dangerous people is obviously a perilous thing, but let’s not oversell it either. By taking the reins of the state, the MAGA agenda has gained control of a powerful terrain, but it is far from the only ground that matters in social struggles. As I’ve stated in past posts, the federal government does not control what happens in our daily lives as much as you might think. And there are many types of tactics we can successfully deploy at local, national, and global scales that can thwart the plans of even the most unabashedly dictatorial state. I think that some of the traditional tactics for making positive changes to government policy (conducting protests which make demands of the government, petitions, and lobbying) are going to be uniquely ineffective in the coming years. We will, however, find other ways to build a better world – together – in the midst of the troubles to come. We don’t really have any other choice.