Labor Network for Sustainability

By Jeremy Brecher,
Senior Strategic Advisor, LNS Co-Founder

The Democratic Party has been spectacularly ineffective in providing an opposition to Trump’s drive for authoritarian domination. Merely electing Democrats is no solution to the crisis of American democracy. But popular defense of free and fair elections, and a massive electoral repudiation of Trump and MAGA in November, can play an important role in the struggle to democratize the U.S.

With a few honorable exceptions, Democrats have done little to resist Trump’s juggernaut or to present an alternative program to meet the needs of the American people and reverse the damage Trump and his minions have done to them. Far less have they mobilized their constituents to stand up to Trump’s depredations.

In democratic theory, elections give every person equal weight in deciding political outcomes. Of course, we all know that the reality of actually existing democratic systems barely resembles this. The power of money, oligarchical control of parties, institutional skewing of the playing field, disorganization of subordinate groups, and many forms of racial, gender, and other inequality make our so-called “democracies” highly undemocratic.

That doesn’t mean that elections are meaningless. Rather, they are part of the jostling through which various dominant and subordinate groups negotiate their relationships. They are part of the process that Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci characterized as “hegemony” — the way a ruling class maintains power through the active consent of the public, rather than through military force or physical coercion alone. To exercise hegemony, ruling groups must engage in negotiation and compromise with subordinate groups. Elections and the ecological systems surrounding them are part of the way such compromise is negotiated and implemented.

MAGA’s Strategy for Unending Domination

Trump, MAGA, and their supporters want to ensure that the upcoming mid-term elections are not free and fair, but rather a vehicle to perpetuate their power. Their goal is power that is permanent and uncontested – an equivalent to Hitler’s Thousand-Year Reich.

Trump/Republican attempts to prevent free and fair elections have been going on for years and have escalated since his inauguration. Successful recent actions have included the gutting of the Voting Rights Act and extreme gerrymandering. Key methods include intimidation, confusion, induced hopelessness, physical obstruction, and legal obstruction.

A just-released report called “The American Crisis” by a group of progressive scholars lays out what we can expect going forward:

• In the months and weeks preceding Election Day, we anticipate that election administration roles and responsibilities will be seized from states and cities, or attempts will be made to disrupt, sabotage, or seize their administrative powers. That could include the seizing of voter rolls, the threatening of election officials, and the disruption of vote-by-mail systems.
• In the days leading up to Election Day, and on the day itself, we anticipate a substantial increase of voter intimidation and election disruption tactics, with new deployments of military and paramilitary forces across U.S. cities, elections offices, and polling stations. The National Guard occupation of Washington, DC and the “Memphis Safe Task Force” provide proving grounds for these tactics, including street patrols, traffic stops, warrant service, fugitive apprehension, and court-authorized searches of residences. We expect that “state of emergency” declarations by federal and state officials will increase as well, to enable immediate deployments of military and paramilitary forces, and with fewer restrictions on those deployments.We expect these military and paramilitary intimidation tactics to extend to other non-state or subnational actors, like nonprofit and community-based organizations, unions, and universities, who are involved in monitoring and maintaining free and fair elections. We also anticipate a significant increase in disinformation and misinformation campaigns about polling places, hours, and practices, as well as voter intimidation at polling locations by national, non-state, and paramilitary actors.
• On and after Election Day, we anticipate major obstacles to a democratic transition of local, state, and federal seats and offices. At the state and local level, efforts to impede the post-election transfer of power include interference with vote tabulation and election certification by state and local governments through the use of force or police force or by other means, e.g. by proxy through militias or so-called “sovereign sheriffs” groups. At the federal level, efforts to obstruct or delay the swearing-in of newly elected officials include the removal of the Clerk in the House of Representatives or the refusal of the U.S. Vice President and outgoing House Speaker to swear in newly elected Members of Congress.

Current house speaker Mike Johnson told the September Republican Convention, “We cannot and will not allow them to take the majority in Congress. We’re not gonna do it.” The midterm elections will kick off an ongoing struggle that is likely to continue indefinitely – or at least until the next presidential election.

Social Self-Defense Against Election Subversion

The struggle to defend society against Trump and MAGA is likely to be long and difficult. It will require the self-organization and action of tens of millions of people. It is likely ultimately to require forms of resistance like social strikes that make the country impossible for MAGA to govern.

The struggle around the 2026 mid-term elections is only one piece of the struggle against Trump and for democratization – but it is an important one. It is a struggle not primarily between political parties, but for the protection of society against the MAGA attack. It is part of the broad defense of society against fascism – what I have elsewhere described as “Social Self-Defense”:

The protection of that which makes our life together on earth possible. It includes the protection of the human rights of all people; protection of the conditions of our earth and its climate that make our life possible; the constitutional principle that government must be accountable to law; and global cooperation to provide a secure future for people and planet.

Ending Republican control of the House and, if possible, the Senate will put a brake on the U.S.’s wild ride into fascism – especially if the scale of the turnout and the majority are overwhelming. That will show that a post-election coup is futile. It will also be an important marker on the road to a repudiation of Trump and all he stands for – an indication to all that not only is he vulnerable, but that he is doomed.

Recent polls indicate that such a massive repudiation is within reach. In a September New York Times poll,  a majority of voters disapproved of Trump’s handling of every major issue included in the poll: the economy, immigration, tariffs, the war, and the cost of living. Likely voters favored Democratic candidates over Republicans by close to 9 percentage points in their congressional district.

There is a wide swath of groups organized to defend a free and fair election against authoritarian subversion. They represent not one or the other political party, but rather nonpartisan social self-defense. I have described them elsewhere as a “Movement-Based Opposition.”

Many of these groups have initially been focusing on training. For example, Indivisible and the ACLU are collaborating on a series of “Hands Off Our Vote” online webinars. The Freedom Trainers network of nonviolence trainers has run in-depth trainings for thousands, and makes available an 83-page handbook presenting possible scenarios and how to deal with them. The May Day Strong coalition has held 750 “Solidarity Schools” and other actions from late August through mid-September nationwide, bringing together labor organizers and community members. The Voter Protection Advocate Network is building a nationwide cohort of trained and certified voter advocates. According to Deepak Bhargava of the Freedom Together Foundation, “Over one million people have been trained in organizing and nonviolence over the last year.”

Lines of Defense

HANDS OFF THE KENNEDY CENTER!!! Youtube short @tevindavisactor

The strategy for defending free and fair elections resembles the military strategy known as “concentric lines of defense.” That entails layered rings designed to “delay, detect, and respond to threats.” Diverse elements of the movement-based opposition are implementing such a strategy. Drawing on a review of their materials and presentations, here are the overlapping rings:

1. Make clear to people why they need to vote against Trump and MAGA. People need to understand that voting in this election is essential for their current and future self-protection and protection of their rights and wellbeing. Some Democrats are doing this quite forcefully, but much of the party is trying to sleaze by with vague promises about “affordability”; many Democrats are even advocating hyperscale data centers, despite the harm they do and their overwhelming unpopularity. Fortunately, civil society groups and the movement-based opposition can take actions that call out Trump’s depredations without waiting for Democrats to lead. Community-based actions against ICE transformed public opinion not only on ICE but on immigration as a whole; the Tesla Takedowns turned Elon Musk into a public pariah.

Such voter-education-through-action can be done locally and on short notice. For example, on September 18th thousands filled streets in Washington, DC and locked down traffic as they walked in a “Hands Around the Kennedy Center” action protesting Trump’s threats to shut or even tear down the iconic Kennedy Center. Indigenous groups have established the Thunderbird Nest resistance camp in Michigan’s Western Upper Peninsula to protest a planned copper sulfide mine which is backed by a $50 million taxpayer subsidy. May Day Strong is organizing “Corporate Campaigns to Reject Trump’s Attack on the Elections”; when an ICE agent shot a DoorDash driver making a delivery, May Day Strong among others called for people to “delete DoorDash” until the company issues a public statement against ICE targeting delivery drivers and calls for Trump’s occupation agents to leave DC.

Local demonstrations and protests can select locations like supermarkets with tariff-induced price increases; corporations supplying the Iran war and Israel; banks financing AI data centers; ICE facilities; agencies involved in voter suppression; and hospitals and clinics whose budgets have been cut. Such actions need not be large: Two dozen people with signs and leaflets at a local supermarket or Social Security office can reach voters directly and through local news coverage and social media. Such actions can connect the dots between the deprivations people are feeling, the machinations of Trump and MAGA, and the power people have to fight back through the vote.

2. Encourage an overwhelming turnout to oppose Trump and MAGA. This includes conventional get-out-the-vote methods, such as phone banking, door-to-door canvassing, registration drives, encouraging people to check that they are registered, providing transportation, and escorting voters. In the era of voter suppression, it also involves countering all kinds of misinformation that is being used to discourage people from voting, ranging from false information about when, where, and how to vote to threats of violence and arrest at polling places. The organizations listed above can provide information to counter such voter suppression.

3. Forestall interference with elections. Most direct vote suppression takes place on election day itself. To forestall this, election protection efforts are focused on encouraging people to vote early. The No Kings Coalition is organizing a massive “No Kings: Vote Early” day of action October 17. It will include block parties, rallies, and walks to the polls.

Voter suppression can include among other things openly biased poll workers, attempts to discourage or block voter registration, incorrect or unevenly applied requests for voter ID, misinformation about where, when, or how to vote, and similar abuses. The abusers may be election officials or MAGA vigilantes.

Hundreds of thousands of “Nonpartisan poll monitors” are being recruited to prevent vote stealing. These volunteers will observe the voting process on election days. They are trained to assist any voters whose votes are not being allowed or counted; to document any infractions and immediately report them to voting officials; and to immediately contact the Election Protection 866-OUR-VOTE hotline or the Election Protection website 866ourvote.org, both staffed by lawyers and law students, for help and guidance.

4. Contest intimidation through rapid response. Community based rapid response networks are a crucial part of election protection. According to the ACLU/Indivisible Election Protection Training 201:

When something happens that risks someone’s vote or risks impacting the election, the single most effective way we can counter it is by responding fast. Half a dozen people outside their local elections office with a few signs just a few hours after something happens are more powerful than a bigger protest that happens later after the news cycle has moved on. So, whether your goal is to have volunteers ready to redirect voters to a correct polling place if they have been misled, if you’re looking to speak out in support of targeted local election workers, if you’re thinking to shine a spotlight on misinformation or bad behavior, what we want to do is be ready before it’s time to actually respond.

Rapid response networks, utilizing mobile communications and trained volunteers, have been central to the protection of American cities against ICE attacks – think Minneapolis. Many immigrant justice rapid response networks are repurposing their organizations for election protection. Immigrant defenders in Wisconsin, for example, are repurposing the Signal infrastructure they built for ICE to arrange for rides to the polls.

Part of the preparation for rapid response is for local groups to reach out in advance to plan coordination with others in their area. They also need to connect in advance with regional and national networks that can provide support in a crisis.

We can assume that Trump/MAGA will attempt to covertly or overtly disrupt our election protection efforts. Community-based rapid response networks are likely to be the most powerful tool for exposing and defeating their machinations – and for publicizing them as one more example of MAGA’s attempt to destroy democracy.

Election Defense 201 training by Hands Off Our Vote

5. Foil electoral coups. We know from the January 6, 2020 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that Trump and his supporters are likely to stop at nothing to retain power even if they have met a devastating electoral defeat. In such a case, only an unprecedented national popular resistance is likely to stop them. Indivisible refers to this as a “peaceful nonviolent sustained mobilization,” aka a “national freak-out.” Others call for a general strike and other forms of resistance.

Some kind of “all in” action has been widely advocated as a response to another attempted electoral coup, though advocates have been somewhat reticent about specific plans for such action. We now have a model for such sustained mobilization in the resistance to ICE in American cities, highlighted by the “No Work, No School, No Shopping” days of action in Minneapolis. Cliff Albright of Black Voters Matter told the ACLU/Indivisible Election Protection Training 201,

What do we mean by sustained mobilization? We mean a situation where everyday people are maintaining an in-person presence at a significant or symbolic location to demand action until it is met. Like a multi-day protest at someplace like the state capital. This might be the appropriate response if Trump or his administration refuses to concede power.

This wouldn’t be just like other protest moments. It would be a rapid response thing rather than something that’s pre-planned. It can’t just be a 2-hour march on a Saturday and then everybody goes home. Building momentum over time, more and more folks gathering in whatever location, not leaving until every vote is counted and the winners of the election are seated.

Cliff Albright conceded that “there’s a lot of possible unknowns around this.” Writer Micah Sifry identified some pertinent unanswered questions about this strategy: Who will be making the decision to go “all in”? How will demands be conveyed to the relevant authorities? If the Trump administration refuses to concede, then what? I have discussed at length the possibilities, problems, and strategies for such action in my report Social Strikes: Can General Strikes, Mass Strikes, and People Power Uprisings Provide a Last Defense Against MAGA Tyranny? It addresses in detail such questions as bases of power, organization, decision-making, negotiations, strategy, and tactics for a “people power” response to an attempted Trump coup.

6. Lay the groundwork for democratization. Long before Trump and MAGA, the U.S. and its electoral system were far from fully democratic. Trump’s efforts to establish tyranny have aimed to demolish their remaining democratic elements– with considerable success. Social self-defense requires more than just reestablishing the marginally democratic system that preceded Trump’s juggernaut. It requires accountability for those who have tried to destroy our human, democratic, and environmental rights. It requires structural change that reinforces the democratic aspects of our political system and that eliminates the undemocratic and authoritarian ones. That requires a process of democratization that builds popular power from the grassroots. The election protection movement can provide a propitious starting point for that democratization from below.

Note: If you are not already connected to local election protection efforts, you can go to Ground Control to find volunteer opportunities near you.

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The post Election Protection vs MAGA Tyranny first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

By Jeremy Brecher,
Senior Strategic Advisor, LNS Co-Founder

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What does the global Greentech revolution mean for the American people? It could open new vistas of a Greentech New Deal. But as long as the US opposes rather than joining the Greentech revolution, it portends not only climate catastrophe, but economic catastrophe as well.

Collage (Art: alonesbe, Envato | Photo Credit of Trump: Gage Skidmore, Wikipedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0)

As we have seen throughout this series, the Greentech revolution is transforming energy production and use worldwide. Along with its other advantages, fossil free energy has become radically cheaper than fossil fuel energy. More than 90% of utility-scale renewable projects commissioned in 2025 delivered power below the cost of the cheapest new fossil-fuel plant built in their market. Natural gas energy is currently 3–4 times more expensive than solar and wind. Meanwhile, fossil fuels are increasingly vulnerable to disruptions like the Ukraine and Iran wars, which destabilize whole economies with shortages and higher prices for energy, food, and other necessities of life.

Donald Trump and the US government are doing everything possible to shut down fossil free energy and to expand our dependence on fossil fuels. That is already having a devastating effect on American workers and communities, and it is likely to get far worse in the future. We are being marooned on what two energy experts call a fossil fuel “energy island” as the rest of the world turns to an “electric world order.”

If Trump and his fossil fuelers succeed in defeating the Greentech revolution in the US, the result is likely to be a growing affordability crisis; devastation for the most fossil-fuel dependent industries like autos, coal, iron, and gas; a general decline of the fossil-fuel intensive US economy; disinvestment; a loss of international competitiveness; and macroeconomic effects like inflation and recession or both.

These trends can sometimes be seen in the day-to-day operation of markets, like the decline of the US and European auto industries or the worldwide shift to renewables after the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. But paradoxically, they can also be concealed by short-term fluctuations. For example, the sharp rise in the cost of oil after the closing of the Strait of Hormuz produced a boom in oil company profits. Similarly, the rising demand for electricity for data centers created a boom for natural gas generators. Such developments might appear to refute the argument that the fossil fuel-based US economy is increasingly uncompetitive and in danger of becoming a stranded asset. However, amid all the price gyrations, nothing seems to refute the fundamental underlying fact: Fossil fuel energy is and will remain more expensive and less secure than fossil free energy. I have seen nothing that indicates otherwise.

The long-term decline of the fossil fuel-based economy is manifested in many ways. In this commentary I will examine two impacts on Americans of our country’s failure to join the Greentech revolution:

• It makes prices higher for Americans
• It makes US-produced goods and services more costly and therefore less competitive at home and abroad

Crashing autos

Electric Car at Charging Station | Photo credit: sofiiashunkina, Envato

The headline example of eschewing the Greentech revolution is the US auto industry. For decades, the industry – supported by US government policies — failed to invest in EVs and concentrated instead on its highly profitable gas-guzzling cars and trucks. Briefly under the Biden administration the federal government invested in EV charging infrastructure and a $7,500 consumer tax credit. Electric vehicle sales grew 60%.

Then Trump abandoned pro-EV policies and subsidized fossil fueled vehicles with a panoply of strategies. EV sales plummeted. The industry began shutting down its EVs factories. In 2025 Stellantis wrote down $26 billion in EV-related losses; Ford reported a $19 billion loss. The auto journalist Martin Padgett told the New York Times, “We pulled a U-turn while the rest of the world was pushing forward.”

Fossil fuel dependence is costly for American car owners. Here’s what gas dependence means in dollars and cents for auto drivers: In January 2026, before the disruptions caused by the Iran war, the cost to drive 100 miles in an electric car was $5.77; in a gas car it was $11.23. By summer — after the closing of the Straight of Hormuz — to drive 100 miles in the electric car cost almost the same as before, $5.89, but in the gas car it cost $16.69 –three times as much as the EV.

Its failure to develop EVs and its addiction to gas guzzlers has made the US auto industry non-competitive domestically.  In 1965, US companies produced more than 90% of new cars purchased in the US; today, barely a third are built by the Big Three.

The failure of the US auto industry to adopt Greentech is at least equally significant internationally. A quarter of all vehicles sold globally in 2025 were battery powered. (That figure is projected to reach 29% in 2026 due to high gas prices caused by the Iran war.) Bloomberg analysts predict that by next decade fewer than half of cars sold globally will be gas-powered. China, which provides 30% of the global car market, has seen sales of internal combustion vehicles plummet by nearly two-thirds since 2017. China now makes 75 percent of all EVs sold worldwide; the United States makes around 5 percent. Susan Helper, a professor at Case Western Reserve University who was chief economist at the Commerce Department under President Barack Obama, told the New York Times that in the worst-case scenario the US auto industry will become a “shrinking island of ICE (internal combustion engines),” churning out outlandishly large trucks and not much else. At which point, the Times noted, the obsolescence of the mighty U.S. automobile industry” would be “all but guaranteed.”

About three million Americans work for automobile and parts manufacturers and dealers. About 24 million jobs depend on spending by car manufacturers, their employees, or car owners.

Vehicle and parts makers shed about 21,000 U.S. jobs in the last year, despite Trump administration tariffs designed to force them to manufacture domestically.

The fossil fuel island

Wind farm Shanxi, China, November 4, 2015. Photo credit: Hahaheditor12667, Wikipedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

The global shift from gas guzzlers to EVs is part of a more general long-term shift from fossil fuels to fossil free energy which is rendering the US a fossil fuel island. Two energy experts summarized the current phase of this process:

“Global clean energy investment reached a record $2.2 trillion in 2025, twice the flow into fossil fuels. In 2024, 91 percent of newly commissioned utility-scale renewable projects produced electricity more cheaply than the cheapest new fossil fuel alternative, and battery storage costs have fallen 93 percent since 2010, allowing utilities to use batteries to store solar and wind power even when the weather is uncooperative. In 2025, fossil fuel electricity generation fell in both China and India.

“Before the Iran war, this green transition was also spreading beyond wealthy markets. In 2024, Chinese solar exports to developing economies surpassed shipments to advanced economies. Pakistan imported approximately 17 gigawatts of Chinese solar modules that year, equivalent to almost half of its grid-connected capacity. In Indonesia, Thailand, and Mexico, the cheapest Chinese-made EVs have reached price parity with the cheapest internal combustion options.”

In July, China announced binding targets to increase wind and solar power generation by more than 50% over the next five years.

How the Greentech transition will develop in the future is of course a matter for speculation, but BloombergNEF’s (BNEF) New Energy Outlook2026 provides one plausible projection:

• Solar will become the world’s single largest source of electricity in the next six years, due to a major supply glut, technology advances, and falling prices.
• If countries continue on their current path of rapidly deploying economically competitive clean technologies, they stand to cut their reliance on imported fossil fuels and ultimately strengthen their energy security.
• Many countries that depend on fossil fuels are now able to reduce their economic exposure to energy commodity imports by adopting low-carbon technologies.

Energy investor Rob Carlson recently drew the implications for the US economy: Continuing to burn fossil fuels is a “self-imposed financial penalty” which will “ultimately degrade the country’s long-term global competitiveness.” The same applies to any nation or polity that “chooses to continue burning fossil fuels in any application in which electricity could instead be provided more competitively with renewables.”

The replacement of fossil fuel energy by Greentech has been greatly accelerated by the war in the Persian Gulf region. According to a June 30 report by NPR, “The Iran war and high oil and gas prices have supercharged the adoption of renewables and EVs worldwide. Global investors say these technologies make financial sense and increase energy security.” As fossil fuel prices soared, countries are “turning to these technologies that are basically impervious to whatever happens in the Strait of Hormuz. Solar batteries and EVs have gotten a lot cheaper.” Chinese battery exports rose 69% in March compared to 2025; their solar exports in March are up 84% compared to 2025.

The NPR report concluded,

“It doesn’t look good for oil long term. With all these new EVs, that means a lot less people filling up their cars with gas around the world. Before the war in Iran, the International Energy Agency was expecting global oil demand to rise this year. But the disruptions caused by the Strait of Hormuz led them to downgrade expectations to a decline in oil demand this year. In some ways, the U.S. is becoming an outlier in the global energy transition.”

In the face of the Iran war energy shortages some countries have been turning to coal. But analysis by the thinktank Ember found that even a worst-case return to coal would raise global coal-fired generation by no more than 1.8 percent in 2026 relative to a no-crisis baseline; indeed, global coal generation could still fall this year.

Currently there is little reason to expect the Straight of Hormuz to be reopened any time soon, or for fossil fuel prices to return to their levels before the Iran war. And there are plenty of reasons to expect further disruptions with further fossil fuel gyrations in the future.

The US trend towards ever greater fossil fuel dependence and the consequent rise of its energy prices is being further aggravated by the expansion of gas, oil, and even coal to provide energy for hyperscale data centers. That is likely to further increase the isolation of the US as a high-cost fossil fuel island.

If the US becomes ever more a fossil fuel island in a Greentech world, the consequences are likely to be dire. Bill Hare, chief executive of the thinktank Climate Analytics, said, “Any investment in new fossil fuels now is a fool’s gamble, while joining the race to renewables can only bring benefits – not just jobs and cheaper energy at stable prices, but energy independence and access where it’s needed most.”

Is the US doomed to be a fossil fuel island? Our next series of commentaries will lay out an alternative: The Green New Deal 2.0.

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The post America’s Future: Fossil Fuel Island in a Greentech World? first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Date & Time:  Tuesday, September 22, 2026 | 07:00 PM EDT 

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The future of the Republic and more will be at stake when voters go to the polls in November.

Can Trump, who this month celebrated the neo-Nazi AFD’s victory in East Germany, and his allies sufficiently rig the elections to reinforce their power & privilege, further undermine constitutional democracy, and continue their unprecedented economic corruptions?

Will Democrats, divided as they are, win control of one or both houses of Congress, hold those who have ruled illegally and brutally accountable?

Come election day, what can we and our movements do to defend and restore the rule of law, economic security, racial justice, and peace?

Our webinar is designed to help frame priorities, including actions as well as policy commitments, that state and community-based movement leaders should be thinking about as we approach November’s elections.

The post WEBINAR: Building and Defending Democracy in November’s Elections first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.