My engagement was partly due to where I lived -- in Massachusetts, where LGBT brainwashing in the schools and "same-sex marriage" happened first, and pro-life sidewalk counselors are treated as criminals. We really had something to resist there: tyrannical government at the state and local level. The heavy hand was felt not only on education and social issues, but on material issues such as the state defying electorally mandated taxation limits.

But what exactly are the Leftists now claiming to resist, other than Trump’s legitimacy? Surely, they don't want to resist their own entrenched bureaucrats (the “deep state”) who still control so much of our daily lives, and who are breaking the law daily to undermine the new administration.

In fact, the Left is resisting democracy and free elections.

Apparently, the Left has latched on to the word “resistance” because it holds a forceful emotional pull. It’s their verbal raised fist, a tool to mobilize their automaton followers.

And so, we have Hillary trying on her new style: "...So, you know, I'm now back to being an activist citizen, and -- uh -- part of the resistance." Her new dark-money PAC (with its two-page website) calls out: “Resist, insist, persist, enlist.”

Democrat Party Chairman Tom Perez swore: “Damn right we’re going to be the resistance to Donald Trump. We have the most important lever of power, the power of we, the most important word in a democracy.” (But if the country is still a democracy, resistance seems to be the wrong course. How about providing a reasonable alternative vision and party platform voters would support?)

David Brock (Media Matters) says the Left’s higher morality demands they resist, punish, and halt their opposition. The Left will “drive the narrative”:

Trump has the legal authority, but we have the moral authority -- and the moral responsibility -- to oppose him... We are going to resist the normalization of Donald Trump... Toxic alt-right social media-fueled harassment campaigns that silence dissent and poison our national discourse will be punished and halted.

Leftists holding this level of power are clearly not the “resisters”; they are the controllers.

Hillary, Perez, and Brock are either ignorant of history -- or are willfully ignoring it and politically appropriating the term “resistance.” The New York Post editorialized:

The whole conceit of “the resistance,” with its nod to the men and women who risked their lives during the Nazi Occupation of France, is pathetic: Trump did not actually lead an armed conquest, he won the election fair and square, and he’s governing with full respect for the courts, Congress and all the many checks on any president’s power.

Thomas Lifson at American Thinker commented:

Progressives have embraced the term “Resistance” to signify their strategy to bring down the elected POTUS. Now that Hillary Clinton has included herself under its umbrella, that may be the kiss of death for it as a cool label. But the real resistance in the United States, the one that has been ongoing for decades, is the resistance to the social and cultural engineering efforts from the Left. Their power in those spheres is far more sweeping than the powers of President Trump over the federal government, where the bureaucrats themselves often are hostile to his goals.

With that same understanding of the social and cultural threats, I coined the name "MassResistance" for my blog in early 2005. (The blog ran through 2011.) As a proud member of the Parents' Rights Coalition, I was happy to donate that name to our organization, known as MassResistance since 2006.

MassResistance began in the ’90s as Parents’ Rights Coalition. It was the main voice in the state opposing radical sex-ed and LGBT indoctrination in the schools, and had some success (especially in passing an opt-out law). Then the 2003 bombshell grabbed the attention of the group: The Massachusetts high court unconstitutionally declared that “same-sex marriage” was a “right.” And in 2004, Governor Romney also betrayed the Massachusetts constitution and illegally foisted “gay marriage” and “Parent A/Parent B” nonsense on the state. We watched as Republican and conservative leaders around the country failed to respond to our call to stand up for the constitution and rule of law in Massachusetts.

That lawlessness set a precedent for would-be judicial tyrants around the country. Judicial activism was in, and “government of laws, not of men” was out. By the time the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2013 and 2015 on “same-sex marriage,” constitutional conservatives had been emasculated and the Leftist Justices knew they would get away with their absurd rulings -- inaccurately now said to be “settled law” by Trump and Gorsuch.

Resistance means facing up to tyranny, usually at some personal risk.

While conservative activists in Massachusetts haven’t had to worry about bullets flying, there have been notable injustices, for example:

Whistleblowers who reported on state educators instructing teens in perverted LGBT sexual practices faced a protracted and costly court battle, though they eventually prevailed. (This is the infamous “Fistgate” case from long-ago 2000.)

Conservative public events are routinely disrupted, with the police often taking the side of the disrupters.

A heroic father was jailed and eventually told by the federal courts that he had no rights to oversee what the schools teach his young children on sexual matters or LGBT issues.

A Massachusetts pastor and author is facing a charge of international “crimes against humanity” for speaking against homosexuality, while the federal judge in Massachusetts has refused for years to dismiss the absurd case.

Massachusetts parents are now forced to submit to transgender tyranny in the schools.

The state recognizes “transgender rights” beyond the schools; “gender identity” discrimination in employment is verboten, and public bathrooms and locker rooms can legally be used by a person of the opposite sex.

Numerous pro-life activists have had their freedom of speech curtailed and have been jailed and roughed up by policemen for handing out pamphlets on public sidewalks.

Doctors have lost the freedom to speak the truth about LGBT health issues and are penalized professionally if they dare to defy “political correctness.”

Those are real threats to our freedom requiring forceful opposition: Resistance.

Amy Contrada has worked with MassResistance since 2004. Her book, Mitt Romney’s Deception, came out in 2011. MassResistance recently published The Health Hazards of Homosexuality.