David Meyer is one of the most clear–headed social movement scholars on the scene today, and it’s important to consider this perspective.

The Resistance didn’t get nearly all the activists demanded, but try to imagine how politics would have played out without it. Trump was unable to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), for example, and it’s hard to think he would have been stopped without widespread opposition to his much larger agenda. Democrats recaptured a majority of the House in 2018, and won the Senate and the presidency in 2020.