Seattle Rep. Pramila Jayapal holds ‘resistance labs’ to stop Trump from becoming a dicatator
Apr 1, 2025, 10:05 AM | Updated: 3:45 pm
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Seattle) lounges inside an air conditioned room to make sure she protects herself from climate change. (Photo by Mat Hayward/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
(Photo by Mat Hayward/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Seattle) says she’s holding “Resistance Labs” to help oppose President Donald Trump, saying it’s a way to help prevent the president from becoming a dictator via “nonviolent resistance.”
“We decided is that we really need to help Americans understand what happens when democracies fall, when dictators take over,” Jayapal explained on MSNBC. “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?”
According to her website, Jayapal says the goals “are to help people turn anger, fear and frustration into action, and to help ensure we are strike-ready and street-ready.”
What is being taught at these Resistance Labs?
Jayapal said roughly 1,500 participants joined her Resistance Lab this past weekend, representing some 31 states. She says the curriculum was developed in collaboration with the Nonviolent Action Lab at Harvard’s Kennedy School, and other activist organizations.
“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?” she said.
Jayapal says this is about our civil rights
The congresswoman compared her resistance lab trainings to the “church basements across Selma,” evoking the civil rights movement of the 1960s when activists in Selma, Alabama held held strategy sessions and nonviolent resistance trainings.
Jayapal says she’s offered the curriculum to members of Congress and encourages activists to hold their own sessions to go over the material. She expects the next Resistance Lab to occur in roughly two weeks and encourages people to sign up at her website.
