Todd Brogan: When performing resistance is not enough

Mayor Muriel Bowser made headlines recently with her smooth retort to President Donald Trump’s outlandish claim that local elected officials were responsible for the postponement of his military parade.

“The local politicians who run Washington, D.C. (poorly) know a windfall when they see it,” Trump tweeted. “When asked to give us a price for holding a great celebratory military parade, they wanted a number so ridiculously high that I cancelled it. …”

Of course, DC elected officials had nothing to do with the cancellation — the Pentagon estimated the cost at $92 million. Trump, trying to save face, blamed the cost on the DC government. In fact, the District’s estimate of $22 million for its share accounted for only a small portion of the overall cost. Nonetheless, Trump picked a fight, so the mayor had to do something.

Bowser chose to hit back on Twitter. “Yup, I’m Muriel Bowser, mayor of Washington DC, the local politician who finally got thru to the reality star in the White House with the realities ($21.6M) of parades/events/demonstrations in Trump America (sad),” she tweeted on Aug. 17.

It was politically brilliant. It was cathartic for residents of a city occupied by a federal government that meddles in our affairs and denies us the vote. It was also stomach-churning for people fighting Trump on the front lines.  

While many DC activists were planning to counterprotest the parade, the most sustained organizing by local residents against Trump’s policies has centered on immigration, particularly around the issue of what it means for DC to call itself a sanctuary city. Trump has activated the entire machinery of the federal government to target immigrants, including undocumented people in DC. Immigrant communities, advocates and organizers here have been pleading with Mayor Bowser to stand up to the president and enact policies that would help protect them from his attacks. Behind Bowser’s tough talk, unfortunately, there has been little action.

But wait, you say, didn’t the mayor say DC is a sanctuary city? Didn’t she create a legal services fund to help immigrants? Yes and yes. In January 2017, Bowser reaffirmed DC’s sanctuary status in a brief statement. Protesters confronted the mayor soon after, demanding more specific commitments. The mayor shot back, claiming that her support for Hillary Clinton and her statement should be good enough.

Realizing that it wasn’t enough, Bowser soon announced $500,000 for an “immigrant justice legal services grant program.” The program was a step in the right direction. It offered grants to organizations that, among other things, assist immigrants seeking citizenship and offer “Know Your Rights” training sessions. Alas, the funding, which was recently increased to $900,000, is hardly enough. DC is home to about 25,000 undocumented immigrants. That works out to $36 per person.

Moreover, the fund doesn’t apply to people who have already been detained. It should have become clear that, when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted nationwide raids targeting sanctuary cities in October 2017, more needed to be done. Fourteen people in DC were detained. Sanctuary DMV, a network of individuals and organizations focused on immigrant defense, responded immediately. They marched from ICE headquarters to the Wilson Building and asked Mayor Bowser to speak out. She refused.

As ICE’s Gestapo-like detention and brutal treatment of immigrants reached fever pitch, DC Council members such as Ward 1’s Brianne Nadeau and Ward 6’s Charles Allen, as well as lesser elected officials like me, joined a national call to abolish ICE. The mayor? Silent.

In July 2018, ICE again conducted a series of raids, this time detaining at least a dozen people in wards 1 and 4. Hundreds gathered in the streets of Columbia Heights. They made their demands crystal-clear. They asked the mayor to: 1) call for the detainees’ immediate release, 2) provide them with legal counsel, and 3) institute a stronger sanctuary policy that would prevent any city worker from cooperating with ICE. They also asked DC Attorney General Karl Racine to investigate reports that individual DC police officers had broken MPD protocol to collaborate with ICE agents.

Once again, Bowser did nothing.

On Aug. 16, Sanctuary DMV organizer Gaurav Madan authored an op-ed in The Washington Post, “DC fails as a sanctuary city.” He shared a conversation between advocates and the head counsel of the mayor’s office, Betsy Cavendish. They asked Cavendish why the mayor would not speak out on the July detentions. “What if they’re murderers?” she responded.

With federal agencies on our doorstep empowered to ruthlessly execute Trump’s xenophobic policies, we can’t afford to applaud people with power for making easy public statements while they privately echo Trump’s rationale.

This is one of the great deficiencies of the anti-Trump resistance. At its core, there are dedicated people giving their time, money and health to defend themselves and their neighbors. They are organizing not only to defeat Trump but also to reform or replace the broken system that let him through the door in the first place.

Unfortunately, they are overshadowed by people who perform resistance. The most egregious group are performers with power, people who have the positions and resources to turn tough talk into tough action yet choose not to do so.

Mayor Muriel Bowser is performing resistance instead of enacting it. When we reward her for doing so, we are endorsing inaction.

Their anti-Trump credentials renewed, Bowser’s team no doubt feels emboldened. They will likely point back to an inadequate, inapplicable fund the next time ICE raids our communities. They will continue to make words like “resistance” and “sanctuary” meaningless so long as the electorate for which they perform applauds. Meanwhile, dozens more of our neighbors will be taken, and thousands will continue living in fear in a city that refuses to help.

Todd Brogan is a labor organizer and represents Ward 4 Democratic voters on the DC Democratic State Committee.