The Attack on Civil Society

Trump's goal is clear: destroy functioning government, cripple the nonprofit sector, and obliterate the hard-earned bonds of 80 years of post-war progress.

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For those of us working for nonprofits, government aid agencies, and other organizations engaged in the hard work of helping others and trying to improve society, both in our own country and around the world, the question this morning is a simple one:

Do we hide under the covers and hope (or pray) that it’s all just a passing thunderstorm and that next week, next month, or next year our public life will return to some semblance of normalcy or at least stasis?

Or do we stand up collectively as a sector, help the leadership of the minority party locate its spinal column, and rally Americans of goodwill from all backgrounds to oppose the Trump Administration’s callous and deeply evil attack on civil society in the United States?

On Friday, I published an op-ed column in Democracy Docket, the excellent online journal that complements the work of civil rights attorney Marc Elias and his team - who are taking the fight to preserve liberal democracy to the courts, on a daily basis, often with great success. (They absolutely deserve your support - click here to help out). In the column, I made the argument that the Administration's explicit goal was to weaken the nonprofit profit sector specifically, civil society as a whole, and with them our liberal democracy itself.

The United States has the largest GDP in the world, and the largest GDP per person of any country with more than 50 million people. While private business drives a great deal of this country’s wealth and prosperity, our public and nonprofit sectors — the intersection that we sometimes call civil society — provides the stability, structural investment and social integration that a truly liberal democracy needs to reach its full potential and highest aspirations.

For little more than a week, President Donald Trump and his gang of extremist gangsters has been trying to destroy it.

The goal has always been clear: destroy functioning government, cripple the nonprofit sector and obliterate the hard-earned bonds and benefits of 80 years of post-war American progress.

There’s no hiding from this, because it will touch every aspect of life in the U.S.

Events over the weekend have sadly made this argument even stronger. And I don’t think the use of the term “gangsters” in this instance is - in any way - alarmist or hyperbolic.

• What can only be described as a raid by private corporate contractors reporting to Elon Musk, the billionaire shadow President now running policy for the Trump Administration, illegally shuttered the United States Agency for International Development - or USAID - which helps millions of people around the world. Musk’s comment: “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die."

• Today’s closing of USAID (employees were ordered to stay home) came after two senior senior security officials bravely resisted the incursion by the private contractors of the so-called “DOGE,” an informal and unchartered initiative launched by Trump and Musk to attempt to shatter the U.S. government and its budget. “DOGE” has no authority under the law, no Congressionally approved budget, no public employees, and no official standing - but it apparently now has thuggish operatives given access to U.S. government data and facilities.

• In a related but less publicized action, Musk announced over the weekend that he was apparently stopping federal grants to Lutheran Family Services, an effective direct service provider working around the country to help people. This action apparently came at the behest of the disgraced former general Mike Flynn, a radical right conspiracy theorist. Many of the grants targeted by Musk and Flynn help immigrants and refugees to assimilate in the U.S. These grants were described as a “money laundering operation” by Kelly, a white nationalist.

To be blunt: if the work undertaken by the nonprofit network associated with the Lutheran church in America is in the crosshairs of Musk and his team, no nonprofit providing direct service to underserved communities is safe. Their goal is the destruction of the post-war liberal order, the bonds of charity of cooperation that hold the more vulnerable parts of our large and diverse society together.

As the great analyst and civil society critic Lucy Bernholz argues today: “It's a coup attempt. See if for what it is. Only then can we stop it. And it will take all of civil society to do so.”

We simply cannot hide away and hope the storm will pass. The best course of action is a combination of public courage and collective action. As a consultant and analyst with 25 years of experience in the nonprofit sector, I know that we’re often both hidebound in our ways and resistant to change - and frankly, we have long accepted the dog-eat-dog ways of competitive philanthropy for too long. The wrong end of the train (funders) is usually driving. We need to quickly assemble a strong collective response that represents fully 10 percent of the American workforce. In my view, this is where the big funders can be the most helpful - special emergency grants and the power of convening leaders from around the sector. As I wrote on Friday:

Our nonprofit sector must band together to oppose the dismemberment of American society. This means working within sectors, but also across sectors — health care with higher education, justice reform with direct services to underserved populations and the arts with everybody. We are starting to see more coalition work (particularly in my home metro area of New York) and collective action, rather than pure competition for grants and philanthropic dollars. This is a time to ramp up more of this, and be ready to stand in partnership with the best of government — and in stoic opposition to the worst.

When millions of people are counting on our work - when the social fabric of the country is at mortal risk - it’s not possible for civil society to hide away from the storm. So many of us who study the darkest chapters of history often wonder “what would I have done?” Well, now we all get the chance to find out.

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