Marches are useful for the anti-Trump movement because numbers are one of its advantages. But marches have their shortcomings. “Marches and parades are, in effect, symbolic gestures,” said Retired Colonel Robert Helvey, a scholar and teacher of strategic nonviolence. They can recruit and inspire. But they are infrequent, special events. And they are too sweeping to achieve the series of specific locally won victories the movement needs. And for the anti-Trump demonstrations, they have been mostly in the wrong places. (More about this later.)

Plan

I mentioned this point in the November Fixes column because it’s so important. Anyone good at planning — and protest needs to be planned, as carefully as a war — knows to start with the goal and work backward. What specific change is being sought? What steps are needed to get there? No military leader would stage a spontaneous assault. Nor should any nonviolent leader. The bus boycotts and sit-ins in the American South, the Egyptian protests in Tahrir Square — those were the visible tips of an iceberg, hiding months or years of training and planning.

Pull out the pillars

All leaders rely on the loyalty of important groups in society. The job of a protest movement is to pull out the leader’s essential pillars of support — turn his most influential supporters into opponents.

Who are President Trump’s pillars? He needs members of Congress to pass his legislation. One good goal for the opposition is to make them think: “Trump is a very unpopular guy, and this policy has a lot of opposition. I, too, will be unpopular if I go along with him. Maybe I’ll even face a primary challenge.”

Who has the power to do that? Representatives care about pressure from their constituents.

Focus

The Women’s March movement is now suggesting one action to take each week. The first one is “pour your heart out on any issue that you care about” on a postcard, post a photo of it on social media and send it via snail mail to your member of Congress.