The looming question after the No Kings nationwide protests last month was, now what?
Longtime San Diego political scientist Carl Luna, who has written extensively on presidential power and civic engagement, has an answer. In fact, he has a roadmap and he shared it with KPBS.
Carl, you have said that America's democratic backsliding requires mass leadership. What does that look like at the local level in San Diego, and who needs to be involved?
Luna: What it looks like is you get the leaders of all the major social and political institutions, the university presidents and chancellors, the church leaders, the bishops. You bring together the social activist community and the labor unions. You get their leaders in a room to hammer out a clear agenda for what you want people to be protesting for. And that becomes the political power to try to move this forward.
How does this coalition fight back against anti-democratic moves, given that some of the checks, that is, the courts and Congress, have been weakened?
Luna: The idea of mass mobilization is you're creating a political army. Today we protest, tomorrow we vote, and then the people in power better pay attention or they'll lose their jobs. If that's not changing it, you do more protests. And ultimately, you have to be willing to paralyze the country until you get your say — national strikes become an option.
What you're describing takes will, a clear goal, and a detailed plan. You mentioned that this coalition needs to come together and have a crystallized agenda. What do you see as the agenda?
Luna: Right now, the number one cornerstone of any agenda is to restore checks and balances so the executive branch can't subvert democracy, can't do whatever it wants. That's the definition of authoritarianism. That means you have to hold the Congress and the courts accountable, and the people in them who are not defending democracy — you have to remove them from office, through the ballot box, through new appointments.
Much of President Trump's agenda so far is inspired by Project 2025. Does the opposition to the administration have a similar blueprint for what it wants?
Luna: I think the problem was the opposition to the administration never really treated Project 2025 seriously. Its playbook is what happened with Viktor Orban in Hungary — how the executive branch takes over government and becomes basically a competitive authoritarian regime. It's not really a democracy. So the leadership of the various different factions of the progressive movement had their own agendas they were pursuing. They never realized that unless you get together to defend democracy first, dealing with the environment, dealing with trans rights, dealing with immigration, it's never going to be accomplished.
How urgent is your action plan? How much time is left before you believe the country will have crossed fully into authoritarianism?
Luna: Well, the problem is that we're not sure. How long does it take to dismantle a real democracy? The next election is in November of 2026. Do we have a democratic election? In which case, the party in power should lose a lot of seats in the House, maybe even the Senate, because of the problems in the administration's policies? Or are you going to see an action over the next year to basically rig the next election? If that's the case, if the election looks like it's going to be rigged, then you have to really take to the streets to protest, because democracies can disappear in a very short period of time.
How hopeful are you that what you have prescribed can actually happen?
Luna: If people of goodwill come together with a simple agenda — we want our Constitution and checks and balances to be protected, and we will work to remove from office people who do not — then we have a shot to try to protect American democracy. If you get bogged down in "Yeah, but I want to look at car emissions" or other specific policies, then the opposition starts fighting with itself, and the administration will just steamroll right over them.
Do you think that's what's happening now?
Luna: Right now, you don't have a coherent voice in opposition to what many perceive as threats to democracy. Until you get that coherent voice, the number one task is to hold the administration accountable and the people who support it. Then everything else is just a distraction.
The answers have been lightly edited for clarity.
