This was written for FB and twitter where my filter bubble is strongly Democrat / Blue Tribe. I'd ideally update some of my phrasing for the somewhat more politically diverse LW, though I'm hoping my actual talking points still land pretty reasonably.

...

I am not currently Trying For Real to do anything about the Trump Administration. If I were, I'd be focused on finding and empowering a strong opposition leadership with bipartisan support.

It's in the top 7 things I consider dedicating this year to, maybe in the top 4. I could be persuaded to make it my #1 priority. Thing seem pretty bad. The three reasons I'm not currently prioritizing it are:

1. I don't currently see an inroad to really helping

2. Figuring out what to do and upskilling into it would be a big endeavor.

3. AI is just also very important and much more neglected (i.e. ~half the country is aware that Trump is bad and out of control, a much teenier fraction understand that the world is about to get steamrolled by AI)^[1]

My top priority, if I were getting more involved, would be trying to find and empower someone who is, like, the actual executive leader of the Trump Opposition (and ideally finding a coalition of leaders that include republicans, probably ex-Trump-staffers who have already taken the hit of getting kicked out of the administration)

The scariest thing about what's happening is how fast things move, how much Trump-et-al are clearly optimizing for the this blitz of stuff that's constantly fucking up people's Orient/Decide/Act loop. A scattered resistance seems like it basically won't work, there need's to be someone thinking like a Buck-stops-here leader, who has the usual cluster of "good leadership traits."

I currently guess such a person is basically also gathering the support to be the next presidential candidate (I think they need all the traits that would make a good presidential candidate). 

(Their campaign slogan could be "Make America Great Again!", since Trump has seemed intent on destroying AFAICT that made America actually exceptional)

Anyone who's around and available is going to be imperfect. There's a fine line between "not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good" and "actually trying to find someone who is sufficiently great at leading the opposition."

(Gavin Newsome is the only guy I've heard of who seemed like he might be trying to play this role. I don't know that he is actually good enough, both in terms of competence and in terms of morals).

I also think the people in my mostly-liberal-network are not really grappling with: the opposition needs to be able to peel away Republicans. I think the priority right now really needs to be "stop the erosion of the constitution and our institutions", not "try to fight for what would normally be the political agenda you're trying to bring about." 

I see people getting approximately as worked up over constitutional violations as various normal liberal talking points. We need a strong allyship between democrats and republicans. 

I think a lot of democrats feel bitten by having tried to compromise in the past and feeling like the republicans kept defecting, and are now wary of anything that looks like compromise with republican leadership. This is reasonable, and I don't actually know what the solution here is. But, the solution doesn't look like enacting the standard playbook of how folk have been politically active over the past 20 years. That playbook clearly didn't work, whatever the solution is needs to look at least somewhat different than doubling down on the stuff you were doing already.

If I were spending more time on this, my next actions would be doing a more thorough review of who the existing leadership among the resistance are, what the existing networks and power structures are. I have a sinking feeling there's nobody who'll really stand out as a great contender, and I'm not sure what to do if that's the case.

But, the worlds where things go well, my current guess is we get a democrat-ish leader with a republican second-in-command, who are are able to lead a strong coordinated resistance, and who naturally transition to being a presidential/vice-presidential candidate in a couple years.

1. ^{^}

   It's plausible I do end up focusing on "civilizational level 'improve discourse', as opposed to my normal focus on the rationality/x-risk community", which could pull doubleduty for "somehow help with Trump" and "somehow help with AI"