No Mercy / No Malice: Resistance Infrastructure
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Why are ICE operations in Minneapolis significant?
Why have the ICE operations in Minneapolis struck a nerve unlike anything else in the Trump era?
It's really important to understand that this is a radical administration. It is not a conservative administration.
I'm Preet Bharara. In this week, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Atlantic staff writer Anne Applebaum joins me to unpack what's happening in Minneapolis and why she argues this moment reflects a radical governing project, not traditional conservatism.
What defines the current political administration's approach?
The episode is out now. Search and follow Stay Tuned with Preet wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Scott Galloway, and this is No Mercy, No Malice. Political parties don't build movements, people do. We build resist and unsubscribe to serve as infrastructure for America's pro-democracy movement. Resistance infrastructure, as read by George Hahn.
I've struggled my whole life to discern the difference between being right versus effective. Over the past decade, the U.S. has been on a slow burn to fascism. The best description I've seen of America's current political landscape came from David Frum. If progressives won't enforce the border, fascists will. we are squarely in the fascist part of the program. Now that it's happened, to borrow from Sinclair Lewis, being right isn't enough. We need to be effective. The question isn't what to say or who to vote for, but what to build. A. Resistance Infrastructure Congress has the power to rein in ICE, restore the rule of law, and unwind authoritarianism in America. But to paraphrase a quote popular with self-help gurus and motivational speakers, Congress isn't coming to save you.
Last year's government shutdown over health care didn't result in a solution, but the assignment of blame. Democrats leveraged the recent partial government shutdown to negotiate for guardrails on America's Gestapo. Good. But banning federal agents from wearing masks and ordering independent investigations into the murders of American citizens are empty wins if the Trump administration is responsible for enforcing those policies. In addition, without true structural change, de-gerrymandering, reversing Citizens United, installing term limits, we'll continue to endure a bipolar America. Democrats, playing by a rulebook that's been incinerated, come across as neutered and voiceless. Meanwhile, Republicans are Jekyll and Hyde.
In private, they say Trump is a threat to American democracy. In public, they're sycophants, praising the president no matter what he says or does. The result? Congress is America's answer to the Russian Duma, i.e., nominally important but functionally irrelevant. When I interviewed historian Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny, on my podcast at the end of January, he said the current state of American politics is best understood as a system of competitive authoritarianism. A democratically elected leader erodes checks and balances, attacks institutions, and weaponizes the justice system against his opponents. There will still be elections, but you don't wait for the opposition party, Snyder said.
Instead, the people have to push out ahead of the opposition party.
How can individuals contribute to resistance infrastructure?
You have to set the moral terms, take risks, and build a coalition of which the opposition party is a part, but isn't necessarily leading. Pro-democracy movements aren't created by political parties. They're created by people. political parties are elected and returned to office for promising and then delivering tangible results to their constituents. Good jobs, better schools, clean drinking water, etc. Political movements are graded on a similar curve, but the connection between action and outcome is rarely a straight line. The 1955 Montgomery bus boycott began as a one-day protest. Despite a 90% participation rate, the single-day action achieved no tangible results. But after 13 months and a favorable Supreme Court ruling, the boycott successfully forced the integration of Montgomery's bus system.
During that long campaign, however, it would have been easy for onlookers to be cynical. Over the past decade, I've been a protest cynic, believing most actions viewed through the narrow lens of the moment are performative measures that generate selfies and make participants feel good about being right without having any actual impact.
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