Tom CZarnik, a member of the PDR Posse, called into our Politics Done Right morning show recently to detail what we need to do to defeat Trump and Trumpism.
Caller with a recipe to defeat Trump.
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Summary
Tom Zarnick’s call urges listeners to escalate beyond traditional marches by preparing for a coordinated, non‑violent general strike that can paralyze the economy if Donald Trump triggers authoritarian measures. Drawing on Thoreau, Gandhi, and King, he stresses disciplined resistance, warns of potential martial law under the Insurrection Act, and outlines “Operation Monkey Wrench,” a strategy of peaceful but disruptive non‑cooperation. The host embraces the plan and highlights even conservative writers’ growing alarm as proof that such action is necessary.
- General strike as next step: Tom argues that withholding labor and commerce will exert real pressure where symbolic protest cannot.
- Non‑violent lineage: He grounds the tactic in the moral tradition of civil disobedience championed by Thoreau, Gandhi, and MLK.
- Insurrection Act concerns: The caller anticipates Trump declaring martial law, making organized, peaceful mass action essential.
- “Operation Monkey Wrench”: Drawing inspiration from the French Resistance, Tom proposes non‑violent sabotage—misdirecting authorities, refusing cooperation, and disrupting communications.
- Broader consensus building: The host cites columnist David Brooks’s recent endorsement of civic uprising as evidence that resistance is transcending ideological lines.
From a progressive vantage, Tom’s blueprint embodies proactive solidarity against creeping authoritarianism. By marrying labor power to disciplined non‑violence, the strategy routs cynicism, centers working‑class agency, and affirms that multiracial democracy can—and must—be defended through collective economic leverage rather than isolated outrage.
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The caller, Tom Zarnick, proposes nothing less than a disciplined escalation from street protest to a nationwide general strike. He invokes the lineage of Henry David Thoreau, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. to frame a strategy of non‑violent mass action that can withhold labor, freeze commerce, and—if required—physically surround the centers of federal power while maintaining strict non‑violent discipline. Trump’s threats to invoke the Insurrection Act only heighten the urgency for such civic muscle. The exchange crystallizes a core message: petitions and marches alone will not neutralize an authoritarian project that openly prepares to criminalize dissent.
Unlikely allies underscore that assessment. Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks recently startled readers by calling for a “comprehensive national civic uprising” that blends mass rallies with strategic strikes to counter “Trumpism.” Progressive economist Robert Reich applauded Brooks’s about‑face, arguing that when even center‑right elites feel compelled to endorse labor‑based disruption, the political ground is shifting beneath the MAGA edifice. Brooks’s conversion validates the caller’s intuition: only rival power—organized across workplaces, campuses, and faith communities—can check the executive branch when institutional guardrails buckle.
Social‑science evidence strengthens that case. Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth’s landmark dataset demonstrates that non‑violent campaigns succeed twice as often as violent ones and that every campaign engaging at least 3.5 percent of the population has prevailed. The so‑called “3.5 percent rule” is not mystical; it reflects the economic paralysis that follows when millions refuse to work, shop, or obey unjust directives. Chenoweth’s findings demolish the myth that democratic change requires armed insurrection. Instead, disciplined non‑cooperation—strikes, boycotts, sit‑ins—reliably erodes authoritarian power while preserving broad public legitimacy.
History supplies concrete American precedents. During the 1946 Oakland general strike, more than 100,000 workers shuttered an entire city for fifty‑four hours, winning wage gains and demonstrating the raw leverage of solidarity. General strikes re‑entered the global imagination in 2019, when six million people walked out in the climate strike wave, proving that digital‑age organizers can still mobilize cross‑sector disruption. Labor journalists remind readers that the last full‑scale U.S. general strike occurred before the Taft‑Hartley Act tightened legal screws on unions—yet even that statute cannot ban workers from staging rolling sick‑outs, consumer boycotts, and campus shutdowns. Tom’s proposal, therefore, rests on a sturdy historical footing.
The legal landscape, however, will prove treacherous. Trump’s advisers openly discuss re‑deploying the Insurrection Act to send federal troops or deputized National Guard units into immigrant communities and protest hubs. The Brennan Center warns that the Act’s vague wording could allow a hostile executive to override governors and crush demonstrations in the guise of “law and order.” Al Jazeera’s legal round‑table confirms that, while genuine martial law remains unlikely, the threat itself chills dissent and demands pre‑emptive mass organization. Meanwhile Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a second Trump term, calls for purging civil‑service protections and weaponizing the federal bureaucracy—another signal that time to build coalition muscle is short.
Tom’s musings about an “Operation Monkey Wrench” evoke the French Resistance, whose clandestine networks sabotaged rail lines, telegraph wires, and supply depots without resorting to indiscriminate violence. Modern activists could translate that ethic into twenty‑first‑century tactics: coordinated sick‑outs in logistics hubs, encrypted misinformation to misdirect ICE raids, and mass refusal to comply with data‑sharing mandates. Britannica’s overview of European resistance underscores that targeted, strategic sabotage can slow authoritarian machinery while minimizing civilian harm—so long as movements maintain moral clarity and avoid actions that alienate swing constituencies.
A progressive reading of this moment highlights three imperatives. First, labor unions, immigrant‑rights groups, climate activists, and faith leaders must fuse into a single strike‑ready coalition capable of sustaining pressure beyond a single news cycle. Second, organizers must marry protest optics to material disruption—halting ports, warehouses, and digital ad flows—to impose real costs on corporate allies of authoritarianism. Third, movements must narrate their actions as a defense of multiracial democracy, not merely an anti‑Trump tantrum. Polling shows majority support for living wages, reproductive freedom, and climate action; framing the strike as a demand for those popular policies flips the script on the minority rule that MAGA seeks to entrench.
In sum, the caller’s “recipe” aligns with empirical research, historical precedent, and an emerging bipartisan alarm about executive overreach. A well‑planned general strike, grounded in Chenoweth’s 3.5 percent threshold and fortified by the discipline of King’s non‑violence, can block Trump’s most draconian maneuvers—even under an attempted Insurrection Act crackdown. Progressives therefore confront a strategic choice: lament democratic erosion from the sidelines, or build the infrastructure of non‑cooperation that past generations wielded to end colonial rule, topple dictators, and expand labor rights. The caller and host choose the latter path; history suggests they may yet prevail if enough people join them—before the next executive order drops.
