ShutDownDC
- See also: Biden Putsch
ShutDownDC, a progeny of the Sunrise Movement, says on its website:
| If You’re in DC: Come to Black Lives Matter Plaza.
On Election Day, when you’re done voting, doing election protection, or getting out the vote, come join us at Black Lives Matter Plaza. We’re inviting everybody who agrees with these organizing principles to work together to make this uprising happen. We’re going to make sure Trump leaves. From election night on, as the situation changes and evolves we all work together to make that happen. If You’re Not in DC: Organize in your community! Find out where the votes will be counted where you live. Make a plan with others to get there and stay until all the votes are counted. And come up with a plan to create serious disruption if Trump really tries to steal the election! Be ready to block a highway (or all the highways in your town), shut down a port, occupy your state capitol, do whatever it takes! We hope to be able to offer trainings and support to groups outside DC that share our principles.[1] |
During a leaked Zoom call highlighting the role of “Shut Down DC,” a spokesman states:
"We have been in discussion for a couple of months about how to respond to different contested election scenarios. The first step is we think we need to start the post-election phase in the streets, so we invite everyone to come to BLM (Black Lives Matter) Plaza any time after 4:00 on election night. On the 5th, we’re going to shut down the White House. On the 6th, we’re going to shut down larger parts of DC and then the following week, all the mainstream groups are going to come to DC and try to have a march on the 7th."
The network enlisted the several key players including Lisa Fithian, a long-time Democrat terror organizer and trainer including stints with Occupy Wall Street, the Obama Ferguson Riots and various unions. In the leaked Zoom chat describing tools and tactics to shut down DC, Fithian states:
"Whoever’s got the guns can win – let’s take over the buildings! We are going to be in a crisis but we want it to be one that we are creating. We want to make sure that we are on the offense and not the defense. We want them to be responding to us and not us responding to them."
ShutDownDC came together during the summer of 2019 to organize to respond to the Youth Climate Strikers Call to Action. It is an organizing space where individuals and organizations can come together to organize direct action for climate justice. On September 23, 2019, 22 affinity groups organized blockades of 17 intersections around the District of Columbia, effectively shutting down traffic in the nation's capital. Over the next several months, DC-based organizers came together in the #ShutDownDC space to organize a continuing series of actions and Marxist training events.[2] The website openly calls for overthrow of the existing order:
We recognize that many of the challenges that we are facing did not start when Trump was elected president and they will not end when he is forced from office.We are not seeking a ‘return to normalcy,’ because we know that returning to ‘normal’ means returning to a system that was built on oppression. Rather, we see this as the time to rise up against the current crisis and move forward to dismantle the interlocking systems of oppression that have plagued this land for centuries. [...]
But we also recognize that forcing Trump from office is the only way to protect ourselves and the people we love from Trump’s wrath, so we will act with the urgency that the situation requires. [...] we plan to use the tools and tactical approaches that we have the capacity and expertise to implement, including disruptive direct action, mass mobilization, coordinated non-compliance, mutual aid, and other forms of civil resistance.[3]
