Do Not Obey In Advance: How Democrats Have Broken the First Rule

And How We Fix It

Anticipatory obedience is a political tragedy. ~Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny

There are some books that stop you in your tracks, practically grab you by the ear, and force you to listen to them.

On Tyranny is that book for me.

It was during the sharp early days of the Trump administration in 2017 when Timothy Snyder, the Levin Professor of History at Yale, published On Tyranny: 20 Lessons From the 20th Century. I don’t want to oversimplify the book, but Snyder masterfully distills from the history of the 20th Century twenty very practical lessons about democracy, governance, and humanity – lessons that we can choose to heed, or ignore.

It’s a short, if dense, read; considering it was a New York Times bestseller, perhaps you’ve already read it.

If you haven’t yet, I hope you will. (And at just over a hundred pages, or an hour and a half of listening time, it’s easy to do.)

It had been a while since I’d read On Tyranny, and a friend recommended a refresher. So over the weekend, I checked out the audio book and fired it up while on an early morning walk through a local park. Past dog walkers and joggers, in the dappled shade of the towering cottonwood trees, along the blooming rudbeckia and wonky stone bridge, I listened to Snyder lay out the rules of engagement.

The first lesson?

Do not obey in advance.

Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do. ~Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny

I paused the audio but continued my walk, thinking about this concept of obeying in advance – and what that looks like today, right now, in this moment in American history. I came to the alarming conclusion that it’s … everywhere.

It’s in the indifference and detachment, disinterest and distraction. It’s in the doomsday predictions, the op-eds proclaiming the pointlessness of voting, the refusal to hold hearings because “nothing can be done anyway,” and in the pundits jumping over one another in the race to have the first (bad) hot take that boosts their profile – but damages our efforts to keep Trump out of the White House.

It can be even more insidious.

Because obeying in advance can look like efficiency. Or even strategy.

I say that because Democrats have unwittingly made obeying in advance part of their strategy for decades by conceding huge swaths of the country. In red state after red state, Democrats have left dozens of races (both congressional and state legislative seats) completely uncontested and undersupported.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

There are plenty of examples, but let’s take Tennessee first (just because I happen to have the numbers at my desk). In 2022, Democrats left 45 of Tennessee’s 99 state house districts completely uncontested. That means 45% of Tennessee’s Republican state legislators won by default.

Another 24 Democrats were underfunded – with 13 of them having less than $5,000 to campaign across a district with 64,000 people.

Do you see now why Tennessee Republicans believe they can act with such impunity and arrogance?

That’s the impact of unchecked power. By not contesting their races we’ve taught them that we will give up before the fight begins if it looks too tough to win – and we won’t even try to hold them accountable.

Tennessee isn’t unique.

You can see the same story repeated again and again in red state after red state. Last week I mentioned Mississippi’s 2023 elections, where Democrats left 56% of the races uncontested. The same was true in Louisiana, where Democrats failed to contest 59 state house seats out of 105. (The Republican who sponsored Louisiana’s Ten Commandments bill was in one of the many districts that Democrats didn’t contest at all.) In Arkansas, 52 of 99 state house seats were uncontested. In Alabama it was 58 of 105.

I could go on, and on.

It’s not just the states, either. On the congressional side, 23 congressional races were completely uncontested by Democrats in 2022. Another 126 were underfunded, averaging just $62,386 to campaign in a district of 762,000 people.

Conceding territory has become part of the Democratic strategy. It shouldn’t be.

Do not obey in advance.

We have taught Republicans that Democrats will give up and walk away if we think the race is too difficult to win. If it feels inefficient, we will withhold resources and send those resources to purple districts that look winnable.

Republicans have learned from our concessions.

Once they saw how easy it was to get us to give up vast swaths of rural America that used to vote solidly blue, they pushed even harder. They gerrymandered more. More races looked unwinnable. Support consolidated further. We contested fewer races. Rinse, and repeat.

We’ve been in a steady retreat mode for decades. It’s not that it was the wrong decision in any one election – and God knows red state Democratic parties lack the financial support they need to be able to fully support every nominee. But over time, this strategy of obeying in advance – of not even putting up a fight – has hollowed out the support structure for Democrats in much of rural America.

We’ve baked obeying in advance into our actual strategy for so long that it’s a foregone conclusion. It’s edgy and revolutionary to believe we should campaign vigorously in every corner of the state.

Think about that for a second.

It is actually controversial for me to say that the Democratic party should be investing more of its time and energy in red districts.

It is controversial for me to beg Democrats to not obey in advance.

So that’s the stark reality of where we are today. Where we are tomorrow is up to you. Because we can stop obeying in advance right now.

The only way out of this mess is to do the simple, but difficult, thing: show up and disobey.

Refuse to focus only on flippable districts and recognize the value and the need to push back everywhere. Knock the rural doors. Put yard signs up in fields. Give the people who are doing the hard work in red and rural spaces what they need to be successful. Write postcards, send donations.

It’s easy to fall prey to the idea that you can’t make a dent, can’t make a difference, so why even try. But that’s not even close to the truth. Let me tell you how I know.

Blue Ohio crowdfunds for underfunded Democrats running for state legislature. Individually, members kick in a few bucks a month (the average is $10, I think). But over time, over the months and now years since it launched, the collective contribution is tremendous. Now we have raised and distributed over $285,000 to 56 Democratic nominees for Ohio state legislature.

A grassroots community of regular people like you and me is now one of the largest donors in Ohio politics.

Friend, that’s what it looks like when you refuse to obey in advance.

Most of the Blue Ohio supported nominees are in the reddest districts in Ohio. They are professors, doctors, accountants, teachers, mothers, fathers, and – as one nominee told me – your neighbor next door. Their chances of winning may (or may not) be slim. But that’s not the point, and that’s not why they’re running. Over and again I heard from them that the reason they were running was because they wanted to hold the person who was in that district accountable. They were tired of watching them have free rein to do terrible things.

And so they decided to do something about it.

They decided not to obey in advance.

I finished out my walk thinking of all of the ways that we can heed the lessons from history and refuse to obey in advance, and I marveled at our potential power. We just need to nurture it, harness it, and direct it.

Mayor Pete once said “There’s no such thing as a permanently red state.” He was right – with one caveat.

There’s no such thing as a permanently red state – so long as people like you and I don’t give up.

Be disobedient with me, friend.

Let’s get to work.

Small Deeds to Do for the Week of July 9, 2024

Here’s the part where – if you are so inclined – we roll up our sleeves and engage in what I like to call Action Therapy. Each Tuesday I share a few “small things” – usually a Small Thing to Read, a Small Event to Attend, and a Small Call to Make or Action to Take. You can tuck these actions into your week with ease – and know that you’re doing something today to make tomorrow better.

Small Event to Attend: Join Center for American Progress *TODAY*

Friend I know this is short notice, but it sounds like an excellent event: The Center for American Progress is hosting an event to explore the very specific and draconian ways in which the Project 2025 authoritarian playbook would destroy our system of checks and balances and give far-right politicians, judges, and corporations more control over Americans’ lives. Experts will discuss how this radical policy agenda would target reproductive rights, labor, and civil rights, as well as how it would concentrate federal power in the presidency.

This sounds like an excellent event – happening both in-person and virtually. They are checking IDs at the in-person event, and you need to register in advance for the virtual meeting.

Register here: https://www.americanprogress.org/press/event-advisory-project-2025-exposing-the-far-right-assault-on-america/

Small Event to Attend: Project 2025 Event Thursday

Thursday night, Fourth Branch Action is hosting a 1.5 hour virtual teach-in about Project 2025. After registering, you’ll receive an email confirmation that includes a link to Project 2025 and some additional excellent one-pagers and Project 2025 analysis. (Kudos to the organizers for providing those reading materials in advance.) This sounds like a really practical and galvanizing event!

Here’s part of the description from the event page: “Fourth Branch Action is hosting a virtual teach-in on Project 2025. Please join us for this important event. … We will give you basic information on Project 2025's contents, where we are and where we are headed if a Republican is elected President. We will impress you with the urgency for every American to act, and we will share some of the actions you can take. This is not a hypothetical threat. It is real. It is here.”

Sign up here: https://events.democrats.org/event/636728/

Small Thing(s) to Read: On Tyranny, Popular Information

First, if you have not yet read On Tyranny, I hope I’ve convinced you to grab a copy from your local library. Timothy Snyder also has an excellent substack, which you can subscribe to here: https://substack.com/@snyder

Second, Judd Legum of Popular Information has an incredible piece (again) this morning about the impoundment power that Trump is planning to use in a second term. As he notes, this issue has received little attention – even though it’s a significant lever of power. It’s is a quick and important read. The alarming new power Trump will claim in a second term

Small Call to Make: Tell the Judiciary Committee to Not Obey In Advance

Honestly, I continue to be flabbergasted that the Senate Judiciary Committee isn’t announcing public hearings about the Supreme Court. There’s no shortage of things to hold hearings about – from flying insurrectionist flags to accepting millions of dollars in lavish gifts from billionaires who benefit from their rulings.

The hearing is the point. We need to help highlight the damage that’s been done, and help people understand the implications in November. Keeping the Supreme Court’s importance (and unethical behavior) front and center helps on both counts. Let’s push Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin to make it happen.

Their phone number is: (202) 224-7703. If they are not answering and their mailbox is full, you can call Senator Durbin’s number at (202) 224-2152. When I called yesterday, I got TWO full mailboxes! Let’s keep that energy going, shall we?

Script: Hi, my name is [name] and I’m calling on Senator Durbin as the Judiciary Committee Chair to hold hearings on the ethics violations of the Supreme Court. We also now know that the justices who told the Judiciary Committee during their confirmation that they did not believe the president was above the law were lying. They did the same with Roe. And they threw out decades of precedent by overturning Chevron deference – even though they claimed during their confirmation that they respected precedent and the rule of law. When is the Committee going to stand up and try to get some answers for the American people?

Small Action to Take: Yes, You Can Help Red State Democrats

Democrats running in red districts in red states typically have a hard time getting support, even though they’re doing the hard work of talking to their rural neighbors and organizing their communities. I don’t mean to harp on about it all the time, but getting those folks the resources they need is my reason for being – my personal passion and my life’s cause.

An easy way to not obey in advance is to join an Every State Blue project boosting Democrats in Missouri, Ohio, or Tennessee, or nationally with Forgotten Democrats. Like I said above, we’ve already raised and distributed $285,000 in Ohio this cycle. Learn more here and support our work here.

Thanks for reading, friend – I’m glad to see you here! I sure hope you subscribe and share with your network. And if you like what I do and you want to support it, consider becoming a paid subscriber. It means a lot.