by The infamous white supremacist Jared Taylor being invited to speak at Colorado Mesa University (CMU) came as a shock to everyone within CMU’s political scene and outside of it. We probably should have seen something like it coming; in the months leading up to Taylor’s visit, right wing campus groups like Turning Point USA (TPUSA) and Students for Life had been ramping up their presence and activity on campus. Nearly every day, they set up tables at the University Center, our school’s equivalent of a student union building. They would have small whiteboards with provocative and leading questions written on them: “should all immigrants be deported,” or “should abortion be considered murder?”
These questions were clearly designed to elicit outrage. They would lure students into a debate about the question and then harass them with bad faith arguments and discriminatory language. One student, who was herself an immigrant, was told by TPUSA members that she should be deported from this country. As weeks passed, their “debates” became more insidious. They went from being run of the mill conservative talking points to outright fascist apologia: all of this was under the guise of “freedom of speech,” of course.
In late February the right wing student groups made a decisive move. Instead of their usual insulting tabling, they were now propagandizing for an event on campus featuring the infamous white supremacist Jared Taylor. When asked if they agreed with his racist ideas, such as “when blacks are left to their own devices, western civilization disappears,” they said that the specific content of Taylor’s rhetoric was irrelevant. What mattered, at least in public, was promoting “free speech for everyone”.
Interestingly, the tabling was not conducted under the familiar guises of TPUSA or Students for Life, but rather by the so-called “Western Culture Club.” Though nominally separate from TPUSA and Students for Life, it was run by the same students and included a significant overlap in rank and file membership. It quickly became apparent that Students for Life and TPUSA were being used as front organizations to normalize more radical right wing rhetoric in preparation for the Western Culture Club’s big play.
I remember the day very clearly. Being a bit of a rabble rouser, and having had debates with members of TPUSA before, I decided to approach the table and see what nonsense they were peddling this time. My eyes scanned the flyer, but the name Jared Taylor didn’t immediately ring a bell. I asked them about it, and as they began describing his views, I remembered that he was the white nationalist founder of American Renaissance, a fascist organization that promotes “white identity” and ethno-nationalism.
My morbid curiosity satisfied, I took a picture of the flyer and sent it out to everyone I knew, including my colleague who was then the Opinions Editor of CMU’s student newspaper, The Criterion. The general thrust of the message was this: “TPUSA has invited Jared Taylor, white nationalist, to speak at CMU on March 27th. Spread the word, get ready to fight back.” Within the hour, my social media feed, and the feeds of many of my friends, were full of discourse about Jared Taylor; most of it was outrage, anger, and confusion, though a small minority of people defended his “right to speech”.
After I sent the message, I began reaching out to members of Mesa County DSA who were also students. Within two hours we had formed an ad-hoc organizing chat. The group included Mesa County DSA chapter leaders – myself included – and a handful of rank-and-file student members. Together, we quickly put together anti-fascist and anti-racist posters and plastered them all over campus, figuring that the first step was to make people aware of what was happening and begin priming them for mobilization. The day after that, we called for a public meeting of students and student organizations at a nearby park; this was later jokingly referred to by many of its participants as “The CMU Soviet”, or just “the Soviet”, for short.
The “Soviet” consisted of representatives from various student and community organizations, including Mesa County DSA, a local left-wing publication called The Revolutionist, the Gender and Sexuality Alliance, the Political Science Club, the social work program, laid off Park Rangers who had formed an organization called “Resistance Rangers”, and many others. After a brief discussion, we decided we had to stage dual protests on campus during Taylor’s visit – that is to say, two protests at the same time: one led by radicals and the other by moderates. This was due to the fact that the moderate student groups had begun organizing an event that had already been co-opted by the school administration. The organizers of this event were dismayed – they had not intended for their protest to support the administration which let Taylor come to our school. Once under the control of the administration, it couldn’t be called off by the student organizers. If we wanted to have a genuine protest, it would be necessary to hold one that was totally independent of the administration.
Mesa County DSA offered to lead the more radical protest, which would not only be anti-Taylor, but would also call out the school administration and president for doing nothing to stop it from happening. I was chosen alongside another DSA chapter leader to coordinate and organize both the protest and the campaign leading up to it.
Simultaneously, members of the political science club established a front organization called “Campus Unity” to facilitate the tepid administration-led event. Though we were forced into this dual protest situation, we tried to make the best of it. The idea was to present a strong and radical front against Taylor and the administration, while also attracting as many moderate and “non-political” students as possible. Though, as mentioned, the moderate event ended up being co-opted by the university administration, it still served its purpose in conjunction with Mesa County DSA’s protest.
This strategy was incredibly successful. We succeeded in nearly every one of our aims: Taylor was discredited, the school administration was embarrassed, and our agitation helped lead to the dissolution of the white supremacist Western Culture Club shortly after the event. Crucially, we also firmly entrenched Mesa County DSA as a strong and reliable socialist organization, one willing to stand up and oppose injustice.
Though our campaign against Jared Taylor only lasted a few weeks, we recruited more people than at any other time – about a dozen people in less than a month – and we ended up ruining Taylor’s big moment, which he was undoubtedly hoping to use to recruit sympathetic students and community members. We made a name for ourselves in Mesa County both on and off campus, and our successful campaign led to the founding of Colorado Mesa University YDSA.
This campaign had multiple components which engendered its success. The first was our formulation of a concrete goal: we sought to prevent Taylor from coming to CMU by mounting a pressure campaign against the university administration. Should we have failed to prevent his arrival, we would ruin his event by ensuring that as few people attended as possible. While we were ultimately unable to stop Taylor’s speech, we nevertheless managed to stage a protest right outside the building he was speaking in; this allowed us to actively pursue our backup goal and agitate against his presence in an open, visible way.
Secondly, we established ties with more moderate but influential student groups on campus who hated Taylor as much as we did. Our coordination with these groups ensured that most of the limited and free tickets for the event were acquired by students who had no intention of actually going to see Taylor speak. At the end of the day, Taylor ended up speaking to a room that was more than half empty, where he was heckled, asked hostile questions, and overall made to look like a fool.
The third component that made this campaign so successful was our political clarity: our ability to understand the imminent threat posed by Taylor’s presence. Taylor wasn’t coming to Mesa County alone: he was tailed by various far right groups such as the Proud Boys. We confirmed this by listening to police scanners on the day of the demonstration. Local right wing groups were also poised to spring into action to terrorize protestors and cause havoc. This immediate threat of danger pushed people to get involved where they otherwise might not have.
On a tactical level, another factor in our success was the efficient delegation of tasks. There were literally dozens of things we had to do in preparation, everything from acquiring basic materials like radios and reflective vests, to conducting outreach, and even ensuring our protest marshals were prepared. We quickly identified strengths, skills, and resources possessed by our members and assigned them tasks accordingly. One member who had extensive experience dealing with law enforcement was assigned to be our police liaison. Another member who was charismatic and good at speaking was assigned to be a media liaison. A few members who wanted to help out, but who didn’t feel comfortable directly participating in the demonstration, were given radios and assigned as rooftop lookouts to keep an eye on potential threats and counter-protestors.
Finally, Mesa County DSA’s basis in democratic and active membership gave us a unique advantage. Out of all the groups that participated in this campaign, we were by far the most organized. We had buy-in and support from our membership, which allowed us to assign tasks to members in an efficient and positive way. We designated protest marshal teams, maintained contact with other groups through liaisons, equipped our marshals with vests and bullhorns, and even brought people from other organizations into community defense. We were so well organized that the Proud Boys didn’t even show up to counter us; they stayed a few blocks away from the event the entire time.
Summing up the factors that led to our success, we can say the following: we had a serious issue that we were organizing around; we had designated safety teams with a clear chain of command; we had a plan set out ahead of time for the demonstration itself; we ensured constant communication between all protest marshals on site; we organized a ceaseless agitational campaign in the weeks and days leading up to Taylor’s arrival; and most important of all, we had disciplined comrades who played a vital role in ensuring that everyone and everything was in the right place at the right time, minimizing variables that could throw a wrench in our efforts.
None of this would have been possible if it wasn’t for the organizational structures that we constructed ahead of time and which we had modified and improved over the course of half a year’s experience with street actions, protests, and ICE watch. If we had been forced to create these structures while carrying out our campaign, we would have been far less successful and efficient.
This doesn’t have to be an isolated victory. All of the conditions for our campaign’s success are technically speaking easy to meet, from having clear goals in our campaign to working with other forces, and the ideas that aided us can be used in a wide variety of contexts, whether you’re in Grand Junction, Colorado or Miami, Florida. Other small chapters can organize similar campaigns, whether they be defensive efforts such as Mesa County’s anti-white supremacy mobilization or more traditional campaigns, such as organizing to protect abortion rights or to support a strike. These efforts give members something to actively work towards that is both concrete and within their personal and political interest. Most importantly, however, they are efforts that have a great likelihood of succeeding.
These are lessons which can be applied to organizing in a wide variety of contexts. What is one of the pressing issues in your town or chapter? How can you help consolidate and concentrate the resources and efforts of your chapter into a single campaign that engages with the needs of the masses, while also providing a viable path forward for them? And how can you most effectively apply the ideas of organizational discipline and strategic and tactical thinking discussed here?
