‘Resistance’ the New Watchword
VOCABULARY — PERHAPS THE MOST ESSENTIAL TOOL of journalists — is my theme this week.
My reporting life has until now been divided into two main phases. I first joined the profession in my country of origin, Britain, which often describes itself as the Cradle of Parliamentary Democracy. That claim dates back to England’s king once being somewhat restrained by the Magna Carta agreement, in the year 1215 -- a deal made between the monarch and some of the nation’s barons. That hazy foreshadowing of real democracy was eventually given some necessary boosts, very much later, by the Reform Act of 1884 which extended the popular vote to most men … and eventually women won the right to vote in 1918.
Toward the end of that last century I moved to this country, which confidently asserts itself to be the oldest democracy in the world, starting in the 1770s of course with its famous “We the People …” declaration. There was then a long delay until the granting of women’s franchise in 1920 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which aimed to halt the denial of votes to Black citizens. We should appreciate, though, that the 1965 Act has been considerably rolled back by our current, conservative-tilted Supreme Court, on the contentious grounds that the law’s protections are no longer needed.
In both those phases of my reporting on democracies-at-work, journalists like myself would talk about a government (in the UK) or an Administration (in the US) plus its inevitable battles back and forth with its political “Opposition” – and I’d like you to please note that conventional word, opposition. Such was what we expected to be the perpetual warp-and-weft of democracy. Those in power on the one hand and those in opposition on the other. Even the Loyal Opposition was once a favored term for those out of power. Such were the old-fashioned courtesies of a traditional democracy.
Now though - very revealingly – journalists covering Donald Trump’s Administrations (even more with the current, second one than with the first) are increasingly resorting to a new label for those who oppose Trump. That label is “The Resistance.”
THE IMPLICATION OF SUCH ALTERED VOCABULARY is obvious. The Media Beat has been among the many news outlets that have charted the erosion of democracy by America’s current set of rulers. Some in the press are going further verbally - the more intense or more outraged among our reporters and commentators now employ the term regime for the Trumpists who are in control. A “regime” of course has the ring of requiring resistance, just like any autocratic or totalitarian dictatorship anywhere in the world has to be resisted. And I have to say I’ve reported on a lot of such resistances, against oppressive regimes like Soviet-dominated Poland and Hungary … African dictatorships like Idi Amin’s in Uganda and Mobutu Sese Seko’s in the Congo or Zaire … and for a very long time the white-racist Apartheid regime in South Africa. All of them had to be resisted — often heroically and at great cost.
So what exactly, in these United States of today, does a meaningful Resistance really consist of?
We’ve very recently seen signs of it at the voting station – starting with all those Democratic advances last week, at state and metropolitan levels. Among our cities … Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Minneapolis, and Seattle were all Democrat wins – in addition to the already well-ballyhooed victory here in New York City for Zorhan Mamdani (right).
Two very different electorates, in Detroit, the Motor City, as well as in the somewhat swinging, pendulum-like, great State of Virginia, each chose its first woman to occupy the top seat of government.
And of course for the mechanics of national politics, California’s Democrats won approval for the redistricting of their state (which will of course favor the Dems themselves) in time for our forthcoming Mid-term elections to the US Congress. More individual states will in their turn be joining that redistricting contest.
CBS News labeled the entire November 4th outcome as a “sweep of Democrats” – an answer to what they said was in essence “an early referendum on Trump.” Naturally enough it follows that the 2026 mid-terms will be the next big opportunity to significantly restrain and perhaps effectively weaken Trump’s rule.
IN THE MEANTIME … a Resistance wouldn’t be a Resistance without some internal disagreements. And the Democratic Party wouldn’t be the Democratic Party without a lot of vigorous argument within its own ranks. Its leadership in the Senate under Chuck Schumer is now being berated by his own side for caving-in to the Republicans over the Government Shutdown – agreeing to end it without what Democratic Senators were supposed to be holding-out-for, ever since the shutdown began 44 days ago. That is, a guarantee that subsidies, tax credits, to ease the now rocketing costs of health insurance would be continued – not stopped as Republican plans intended – for an estimated 22 million Americans. I have, though, heard Schumer supporters – centrist Democrats – saying that the deal to reopen government was NOT caving. They’d prefer to use the term tactical retreat..
Maybe, is all I can say.
But then consider this. What I’m about to pass on is far from an exact analogy, but I think a Democratic Senate staffer was trying to be realistic with me, when he cited the following scenario. If the French Maquis, during World War Two, might one night miss their target as they sometimes did, because (say) the Nazis re-routed a train carrying troops and armaments – then all was not lost, necessarily. There could be more opportunities for a disabling attack further down the line. I’m not sure I’m persuaded by that.
On the other hand it is quite possible that a sharply-focused Democratic campaign through the next 12 months could work, if it’s aimed at capturing the votes of what Gallup polling says is a full sixty-two percent of Americans who believe … it’s the federal government’s responsibility to ensure that healthcare coverage extends to everyone. This would include the one-third of our population who currently tell pollsters they simply cannot afford health coverage.
Such a comprehensive plan, offered robustly to the public by the Democrats, could be tightly wrapped with a fresh emphasis on affordability across all areas of everyday American life. If you distill a simple message out of all the Democrats’ successes last week (– before this week’s evident collapse or retreat?) it is that what is needed for a successful Resistance (we may as well get used to that term) is indeed such a one-two punch: a policy for full healthcare provision, along with an all-out attack on the general rising cost-of-living.
THAT ISSUE OF AFFORDABILITY WAS above all else what ensured the triumph that New York voters delivered to Mamdani. That and his general affability and youthful vigor – which in turn inspired hordes of youthful supporters to canvass for him -- and produce the biggest voter turnout in decades.
I couldn’t help recalling from 2016 the profile I delivered for the PBS NewsHour, a profile of the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, shortly after he took office. (Play the video, above.) Similarities abound between these two winners, Khan and Mamdani. Both have parents born in the Indian subcontinent; both are Muslims – and they each had to fight off Islamophobic attacks from their opponents. Both emphasized affordability in their campaigns, for housing and city transportation especially.
One difference, I’d say, was boxing. Khan grew up in a tough South London housing project, where he and his brothers suffered much racist bullying. So he learned to fight back by getting trained at a local boxing academy.
He and I had an exchange that I’ve never had with any other leader I’ve interviewed. I suddenly found myself asking him if his street-fighting skills were of any help in politics. He agreed that maybe they were.
“You have to defend yourself,” he said … “make sure you expose your opponent’s weaknesses … always be moving, don’t stand still.”
A different, and more generalized quotation from Khan, about the city he was just starting to preside over, stands out in my memory:
Listen, it's not perfect, but actually, we're a great city. You've got in London: Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, those not members of any organized faith, rich, poor, old, young; all getting on with interconnecting lives, breaking bread together, studying together, working together.
That vision of his (which does sound now a lot like Mamdani’s) must have had some lasting potency. Very nearly ten years have passed since that interview, and Khan is now the first London mayor ever to be re-elected for three terms.