Constitutional Crisis: How to Stand Up, Speak Up, Push Back

This month we’ll talk about civil resistance and how civil disobedience have succeeded or failed historically, seeking context for our current moment. What worked in the past, and what do we need now: protests, boycotts, tax resistance? What roles do institutions play: colleges and universities, the media, the business community? And what does the moment demand? What strategies and tactics work?

Special Guests:

• Graham Platner, lead organizer for Acadia Action, Hancock County branch of 16 Counties for Courage
• Alex Newell Taylor, Co-founder, Sweet Fern MDI; Distributed Organizer for National Nurses United; former Deputy Director of Voter Engagement at Second Chances Florida
• Vanessa Williamson, Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings

Learn more about this topic:

• Organizing and Mobilization during Democratic Backsliding |  Ash Center, February 2025
• Cyril Foster Lecture 2024: 'On the Declining Success of Civil Resistance', Erica Chenowith, May 2024
• How is civil society responding to the US constitutional crisis? | Brookings, Vanessa Williamson, February 2025
• From Crisis to Action: Turning the Tide on Democratic Erosion Through Organizing | Ash Center, Gina Goldenberg, February 2025
• Anat Shenker-Osorio's *actual* plan to beat fascism | The.Ink, February 2025
• People, Power, Change | Oxford University Press, Marshall Ganz, 2024
• Tyranny of the Minority | PenguinRandomHouse, Steven Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt, 2024
• Pro-Democracy Organizing against Autocracy in the United States: A Strategic Assessment & Recommendations | The Commons: Social Change Library, Erica Chenoweth and Zoe Marks, 2022
• Democracy Forum: Protest: Good Citizenship at Work?, June 2021
• The '3.5% rule': How a small minority can change the world | BBC, David Robson, May 2019

Tune into the broadcast at 4:00 p.m., Friday, March 21, on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, streaming at weru.org. If you miss the broadcast, check back here for the audio archive. Subscribe to our podcast: iTunes | iOS | Android | RSS | Feed | Instructions.