The ‘Hands Off’ rallies: Saturday was a good day

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Last Saturday at noon, I felt better than I had in weeks. I was at the State Capitol grounds with thousands of other Minnesotans at one of the 1,200 “Hands Off!” rallies around the country organized by the group Indivisible and dozens of partners to protest the policies of President Donald Trump.

I think my principal emotion was a feeling of safety. For two months I have felt the seemingly solid ground of democracy, the rule of law and international leadership — the bedrock underlying my entire professional life — eroding beneath my feet. Every day brought more insidious crumbling: The venerable Department of Justice, where I started my career, turned into just another political tool — one where the prosecutors get stern instructions from the attorney general herself about, yes, eliminating paper straws; millions of people starving in Sudan and USAID food supplies cut off. On and on.

But on Saturday, sandwiched into a throng of good-natured Minnesotans stretching from the Capitol steps to beyond Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, I once again felt bedrock under my feet. American democracy is in a bad storm, but it will not wash away that easily.

The day provided plenty of memorable moments: The echo of 25,000 voices chanting “HANDS OFF!” bouncing off the beautiful Capitol building. The number of people in the crowd using walkers. The talent of Minnesotans for creating signs. On Saturday they ranged from the rather crude (“Resist Dicktators”) to the clever (“Porsche: Fast. Ferrari: Faster. Tesla: Fascist.”) to the just plain sad (“Hands off librarians”).

So April 5 was a feel-good day. But I was also doing more hardheaded thinking about the rally’s political significance. Can a rally really slow the erosion of the institutions of democracy?

Universities, media outlets, law firms, cultural institutions and government departments staffed by career professionals are either knuckling under to the Trump onslaught, being gutted or preemptively cowering.

The administration thinks it can disappear an innocent person like Kilmar Abrego Garcia and then refuse to correct its mistake.

Congress … well, words fail me in describing the Republican-controlled Congress. Even the inevitable talk about a third term has started.

I am proud of the independent role of the courts so far. But the courts are also under attack. When and if the Supreme Court stands up to Trump in a major case, can anyone actually picture this man obediently submitting?

But there is one final foundation of democracy that remains intact — us. People in the streets. I grew up watching how people in the streets ended legalized segregation and undercut the Vietnam War. Over the decades since we have all seen inspiring examples of the power of people in the streets: the fall of the Shah of Iran, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of apartheid in South Africa, the Arab Spring and many more.

I have always been curious about why people in the streets have been so successful in stopping autocrats. I am sure many hardened autocrats would happily shoot protesters rather than give in. I found one answer in the 2011 book “Why Civil Resistance Works” and subsequent publications by Harvard scholar Erica Chenoweth.

Crowds don’t somehow melt the heart of the autocrat; rather, they undermine the loyalty of the allies and supplicants that he needs. Chenoweth explains the significance of defections. An autocrat loses power when a large, crosscut political movement pulls out from under him his “pillars of support,” such as economic or social elites, labor unions, government bureaucrats or security services.

Chenoweth has been able to quantify the subject of nonviolent resistance. Most major nonviolent campaigns since 1900 have been successful, far more than violent struggles. Her exhaustive research demonstrated that every single nonviolent campaign succeeded once the portion of the population that actively participated got to 3.5%.

In the U.S., 3.5% of the population is about 12 million. Estimates of crowd size are unreliable, but it sounds like for 1,200 rallies the total was in the millions.

Chenoweth has principally studied nonviolent campaigns with aggressive goals — regime change, expelling occupiers or secession. Our goals on Saturday were more modest: not to change something but to guard against something changing — “Hands off!” our democracy.

But the principle is the same — buck up potential defectors and the fearful. On Saturday we were telling the university presidents, the newspaper editors, the managing partners of big law firms, the judges, the legislators: “Donald Trump is not the only force in this country. Millions of committed people will applaud your acts of courage and support your defiance.”

Now, one rally on a sunny Saturday afternoon is not going to change history. The successful movements saw 3.5% of the population engaged in sustained activity, often involving mass strikes, boycotts and stay-away activities. But Saturday was one heck of a good start.

My wife likes to look up stirring historical photographs on the internet. Some of her favorites are of the Dunkirk “little ships.” In late May 1940, this motley flotilla of small civilian vessels ventured across the English Channel under Luftwaffe attacks to help rescue the 338,000 men of the British Expeditionary Force bottled up against the ocean by Panzer divisions.

I remembered those little ships on Saturday. Britain would have been left defenseless by the capture of its army at Dunkirk. Democracy in Europe was saved not just by grand plans or brilliant leaders, but also by hundreds of ordinary folks who launched their boats in a crisis. The thousands of people streaming into the Capitol grounds from all directions on Saturday seemed like once again a flotilla of ordinary people taking it upon themselves to save democracy.

On Saturday I saw a forest of hands raised in response to the question, “Is this your first political rally?” The small craft are venturing forth. The objective this time is not to rescue soldiers but to reclaim the Constitution.

There will be many more demonstrations. Good. It may be the most important thing we can do.

Bruce Peterson is a senior district judge and teaches a course on lawyers as peacemakers at the University of Minnesota Law School. He was a federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., in the 1980s.