Activism

On Violence and Resistance

Taking notes from Bandy X. Lee

Sonya Huber

29 Jan 2025 — 8 min read

I. On Violence

Dr. Bandy X. Lee is one of my heroes (and she has a Substack!). She is psychiatrist who had the courage to try to warn the country about the psychological imbalances of Donald Trump. Her other books include The Psychology of Trump Contagion: An Existential Danger to American Democracy and all Humankind and Trump’s Mind, America’s Soul. Another book is a 300-plus page comprehensive textbook, Violence: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Causes, Consequences, and Cures. I am reading this right now, and it’s so very relevant.

What’s happening now, with the abrupt stop of all government grant money including the funds for SNAP, WIC, heating assistance, and Medicaid, is violence, and it’s on purpose. The effect is the goal. Rather than focusing on how important these services are—we know they’re important, and I as a former WIC recipient am so aware of this—we have to witness and record the harms. The world in which help is given to citizens of a nation who need it is, unfortunately, not the world we are living in anymore.

Bandy X. Lee writes that structural violence “refers to the avoidable limitations society places on groups of people through structures that prevent them from meeting their basic needs (Gilligan, 1999). It is the most lethal form of violence and calls for foremost consideration in any definition. Structural violence may at first seem a misnomer, for it concerns structures that are relatively stable and contrasts sharply with the dramatic manifestations of behavioral violence; however, it is a product of human decisions and ultimately has effects similar to those of individual violence (Morgan et al., 2014).”

Let me just repeat that part: “it is the most lethal form of violence.” It’s not an inconvenience. It kills. And the moments we are living in right now have escalated from structural violence to a weaponizing of those structures.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about domestic violence, because this is domestic, violence unleashed at home, in our country, on the people of the country who live here and pay taxes to fund government services that we now are not receiving.

The juice that our abuser in chief and his many minions get from this violence is the raw juice of power and adrenaline, along with the satisfaction (if you’re wired in this deeply wrong way) of seeing how many people’s lives you can throw into chaos. The violence is a short-cut to hopes of adulation. Power unleashes violence in the hopes of finally getting what it wants: no dissent, only praise. The praise, however, will begin to recede as people feel the effects of the violence, which will frustrate the abuser into more violence.

I remember, in a scary situation, being yelled at “for looking so scared.” It might seem unbelievable, but this will, increasingly, be the response we receive. Our natural human reactions to the violence will also be stigmatized and framed as disobedience. Even being afraid of the aggressor becomes another story the aggressor can tell himself about being a victim.

The cycle of domestic violence normally begins to repeat when the aggressor experiences a twinge of remorse at seeing the effects of their actions and the harm they have caused. Our abusers are trying to root out even that impulse. It was beyond disturbing to see, in a MAGA comment about Rev. Budde after she asked for mercy for the many people who will and are already being harmed by MAGA, that “empathy is evil.” This, of course, is very much Nazi logic, the idea that they have a job to do, one that involves harm, and the end goal of that harm is some concept of a better world for a select few.

But what actually happens is that the lust for violence and harm can never be slaked because the end goal is so opposed to the means that one will never produce the other. The aggressor can lash out, over and over, but the result that the aggressor is fixated on—this fantasy of adulation and a perfect world—only recedes. And ultimately, because the victim is the one who sees what is being done, that person becomes the most loathed.

Cultural violence—the culture that MAGA and the far-right including right-wing evangelicals have built—enables this, as Lee explains:

“Direct violence occurs through physical and verbal abuse, but it is also in synergy with structural and cultural violence (Galtung Institut, 2016). The concept of cultural violence includes the beliefs and attitudes of a group of people that define their heritage; aspects of culture such as religion, art, ideology, language, science, and other communal, symbolic elements that embody these beliefs are used to justify or legitimize either direct or cultural violence.”

So, naming everything that we are seeing as violence, and keeping in mind who the perpetrators are, is important, and it’s equally important to somehow not take on the shame and self-blame that is being directed at us: “Symbolic violence is a term that applies to power structures that result in the internalization internalization of humiliations and legitimizations of the hierarchy, resulting in self‐blame for misfortunes and a naturalization of the status quo.”

A field of bright orange, pink and yellow zinnias

II. On Resistance

Lee writes that, given the power of these systems working together, “It almost takes a conscious, countercultural noncompliance on the part of the individual to reverse some of this relentless trend.” (136) If you’re a mantra or affirmation type of person, why not add this to your daily collection of Post-it Notes or reminders?

Later in the book Lee delves into specific forms of non-violent resistance, and it has a far greater range of options than you might think. I’m just going to quote a whole long passage because it has important practical considerations that may spark something in you that you need:

“Gandhi likened the rigorous preparation for and ongoing practice of nonviolent discipline to the training of a soldier (Gandhi, 1993a). Contrary to surface appearance, starting within the individual may require more courage than waging war, for one is generating the preconditions for peace through justicemaking and rebellion in defiance of the status quo (Adams et al., 1990). Indian journalist Krishnalal Shridharani wrote in War without Violence (1939) that nonviolent action resembles military action, except it uses psychological, social, political, and economic pressures rather than violence. It is also nonconformist: by emulating as little as possible the army that one fights, one is refusing to reproduce the violence while usurping ‘the greatest weapon in the hands of the oppressor,’ which is the mind of the oppressed (Biko and Stubbs, 1978). It is the opposite of passive submission, impotence, or acceptance and should not be confused with it because of surface appearances.”

“Nonviolence, far from doing nothing, represents a radical break from ‘business as usual’ and requires courage as well as inventiveness and active imagination. Mobilizing the power of the mind allows for violence to lose its power of deception.” (273).

And here are some more helpful terms that break down specific options:

“Noncooperation, or civil resistance, is the purposeful withholding of support through one’s activity, time, finances, and verbal allegiance to authorities. One may practice civil disobedience, stop paying taxes, engage in sit‐ins, boycott, break laws that are unjust, strike, and resign from posts in administrations that one opposes. By an act of conscience, one is stating that while one cannot actively fight against all the injustices of the world, at the very least one can withdraw one’s share of resources from an unjust system….Of course, civil disobedience is not easy: one practicing it risks losing one’s job, being rejected by the larger community, being jailed, tortured, or even killed. However, if enough people choose the simple act of ceasing to participate in an unjust system, the government is left just making noise, and that will be the end of the regime.”

“Nonviolent intervention or disruption is a more direct method of nonviolent action (Sharp, 1967). Its strategies actively disrupt the normal operation of policies or systems by deliberate physical, psychological, social, economic, or political interference. This is often more immediate and effective than noncooperation, but also more difficult for the resisters to sustain and harder on the opponents. It encompasses fasting or hunger strikes, occupations, blockades, exposure to the elements, sit‐ins, pray‐ins, nonviolent raids, truck cavalcades, alternative markets, and other parallel systems. Tactics have to take into account political and cultural circumstances with a strategic larger plan, and the knowledge that they can provoke speedier and more severe repression than either protest or noncooperation. A powerful method of nonviolent intervention is to provoke public or international scrutiny of the oppressors by meeting violent repression with nonviolence: if the police or military attempt to repress nonviolent resisters with violence, power shifts from the oppressors to the resisters. Resisters’ fearlessness and willingness to suffer have a profound effect on those acting on behalf of the oppressor, and the police or military will have to accept that they no longer have authority over their opponents (Sharp, 1973). Sharp (2005) notes that participants in a nonviolent struggle often suffer harsh penalties for their defiance, but victories in nonviolent struggle generally have fewer casualties than violent struggles with similar objectives, and sometimes none.”

“Constructive programming is what Gandhi called ‘silent plotting’ (Schell, 2004). He advised, instead of directing fire at the destructive regime, just going out and doing the things that one believes need doing: if the environment is dirty, clean it up; if people do not have enough income, give them some money; if people are not participating in politics, then organize the village. In other words, rather than waiting to seize power and then pass some legislation, one starts in one’s own community and does the things that one can. With action on behalf of one’s beliefs, and above all when acting together with others, one generates power. Those in the Solidarity Movement in Poland acted in this way, engaging in what they called ‘social work’; they began to organize universities, environmental groups, and social justice groups—there was an explosion of civil society. They called themselves ‘the self‐limiting revolution,’ meaning that they were not going to seek state power but let the government remain in its formal apparatus. However, they discovered, much to their own amazement, that if they were running society, then power eventually fell into their hands. (275)” I see mutual aid as falling in this category.

III. Dear Reader

Dear Reader,

You might feel hopeless, and everything that is happening probably also retriggers any trauma you’ve already experienced. But you matter. Your loved ones matter. And everything you do now will matter.

Record: If you can’t process everything now, just keep a record of what happens to you and those you love. It will be import later. I have a binder that records everything. I brought it to court and did not use it, because the threat of the binder was enough.

Name It: When I was in a violent situation, it was difficult to admit that this was actually where I was located. I could only hold this in mind for minutes at a time. But in naming it, I was also able to feel less alone, and this short-circuited my tendency to blame myself for struggling emotionally with all of the effects and with my fear.

Take Direction: People who have been fighting for their survival against these forms of violence for decades or their whole lives—Black people, trans and queer people, poor people—know what to do and have experience. Take direction from them.

Embrace the Opportunity: What is coming will be, for most of us, the most important fight of our lives, because the fate of the country is in the balance. This might seem intimidating, but I prefer to reframe this by thinking that, starting now, everything you do to help save or rebuild democracy is going to have enormous effects. There is a momentum that needs to be built, and as it gets going, you will find that the force of resistance is exponential and will deliver its own reward: a feeling of being truly part of something. If you can donate money to people who need it, if you can help in other direct ways, you will feel a sense of mattering that you will never forget. In these moments, don’t tell yourself that you’re only helping in tiny ways. Don’t diminish your contribution. Tiny efforts against an oppressive regime are each extremely meaningful.

You have many assets and skills. You know: