We relaunched the Democracy Seminar back in 2018 as a “worldwide committee of democratic correspondence” in the hope that “democrats of the world can learn from each other as we oppose the dark forces of our times.” Unfortunately, we still have much to learn and much work to do in response to the attacks on democracy. And we have decided that one thing we can do is to share stories of the small acts of resistance that often go unnoticed. For it is through the accumulation of such acts that citizens can come together to defend themselves and thus to defend democracy. For, as Vaclav Havel once famously said, “even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance.”
Epigraph
Amos Oz’s Order of the Teaspoon
I believe that if one person is watching a huge calamity, let’s say a conflagration, a fire, there are always three principle options.
- Run away, as far away and as fast as you can and let those who cannot run burn.
- Write a very angry letter to the editor of your paper demanding that the responsible people be removed from office with disgrace. Or, for that matter, launch a demonstration.
- Bring a bucket of water and throw it on the fire, and if you don’t have a bucket, bring a glass, and if you don’t have a glass, use a teaspoon, everyone has a teaspoon. And yes, I know a teaspoon is little and the fire is huge but there are millions of us and each one of us has a teaspoon. Now I would like to establish the Order of the Teaspoon. People who share my attitude, not the run away attitude, or the letter attitude, but the teaspoon attitude – I would like them to walk around wearing a little teaspoon on the lapel of their jackets, so that we know that we are in the same movement, in the same brotherhood, in the same order, The Order of the Teaspoon.
“Good Trouble:” Resisting in Florida
Pastors Ben Atherton-Zeman and Andy Oliver protested the state of Florida’s attempts to erase a “Black History Matters” asphalt mural outside the Woodson African American Museum in St. Petersburg. Florida governor Ron DeSantis had ordered a crew to remove the mural as “non-standard road art.”
Resisting in Washington DC: For Our Unhoused Neighbors
I live in Washington, DC and I am the Policy Director for a homeless services agency called Miriam’s Kitchen. Since Trump won the election, we have been involved in organization efforts to both plan for and then defend potential threats that the Trump Administration poses across numerous issue areas. The week after the election last November, I attended the first convening of Defend DC, a loose coalition of organizations that …
Fatigue-Resistant Resistance
If the upending of democratic society by the Trump administration were a literal nightmare, then it would be plausible to expect to wake up to a reasonably sane reality. The dream could be shaken off. Or if the venomous ideology of this administration could be understood as performative, dystopian theater of the absurd, then it would be possible to laugh, however nervously, at the ridiculousness of its palpable lies and its self-serving manipulations of public policy, the legislature, the courts, the armed services, and foreign relations.
The Far Right Alternative for Germany (AfD): Another Crack in the Firewall
“Democracy is not so much a form of government as a set of principles.” —Woodrow Wilson February 2025: It was my third year serving on one of Berlin’s integration advisory boards, an appointment I had eagerly sought as a way to help residents in my district who had fled their homelands for a safe haven in Germany. But my enthusiasm at being appointed to my first German advisory …
Empathy as Resistance
Lynn Feinerman is the producer of Women Rising Radio, which she describes this way: Women Rising Radio project had its first broadcast in 2003, profiling visionary women in leadership across the globe for all the critical issues of today, including human rights, democracy and civil society, ecology and sustainability, and all the freedoms. Based in California, we’ve been syndicated on over 200 radio stations in the USA, and in …
Valentine for the Planet
Photo: artwork by Sarah Jane Lapp I reproduce my paintings as jigsaw puzzles to invite dialogue and delight, joy and justice, maybe some jokes, too. My producing partner, Rani MacNeal, and I produce several public art-oriented resistance initiatives under the rubric of Puzlkind Jigsaw Puzzles. Our most popular event, “Puzzical Chairs & Pie with Live Music,” asks strangers to puzzle together despite partisan politics. In a public space we …
“I Did Not See”–A Bit of Weimar Cabaret Revisited
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Pressure and Protest
How many small actions (like Emily Feiner’s civil disobedience at a Mike Lawler townhall) are “making a dent” in the MAGA onslaught. Two weeks ago, Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) held a congressional town hall meeting in Somers, a small suburban town in northern Westchester County. Even though his team imposed a set of ridiculous requirements on attendees—that they had to prove they were residents of the district, that they couldn’t …
Digital Christian “Small Acts of Resistance”
Jess Fisher is a graphic designer and liturgical artist. She served for a time as Digital Minister at the Washington D.C. Presbyterian Church of the Pilgrims, which introduces its website with the title “Where all are pilgrims, but none is a stranger.” The church, under the leadership of Rev. Erin Counihan, has joined with the Washington Interfaith Staff Community in organizing “Faithful Witness Wednesdays,” weekly vigils at the Capitol “call[ing] on Congress to …
Small Acts of Legal Resistance
May 15, 2025 While the Trump administration has initiated dangerous Executive Orders and policy changes at a dizzying pace, it has been countered at every step by litigation. And while the administration has succeeded in cowing some top law firms from challenging its edicts, there remain many attorneys, and legal organizations, that are uncowed and unbowed, and who have been steadfastly committed to using every legal means necessary, …