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EXCERPT:
JAYAPAL: "I mean, what we decided is that we really need to help Americans understand what happens when democracies fall, when dictators take over. We’ve been pretty complacent in America. We haven’t had to really deal with this in any real way. And now I think people need to understand what are the lessons from other countries. And working with experts who have studied democratic backsliding in countries around the world and the resistance movements that emerged to take on that democratic backsliding, we’ve developed a curriculum where we help people understand how do you go after the pillars of support, not necessarily the person at the top, but the pillars of support that allow that person to continue to have power, and how do you shift allies from being sort of passive opponents to being active supporters of taking down a dictatorship. And so, it’s been very practical, it’s been very hands-on. We’ve taken the principles of Dr. King’s six principles of nonviolent resistance. That is threaded throughout. And we’re going to have a second training that goes deeper into what happens if you are trying to do nonviolent protests, but others are coming and instituting violence on you. Think of church basements across Selma, Rachel, all the training that went into preparing people. And at the end of the day, we are plugging people in both to actions that are happening right now in their locale that they can get engaged in, but also preparing them for the moments that will come of coordinated resistance, whether it’s distributed action or mass action, that people need to be ready for.”
