Yes, many if not most of us are in a “how could it have happened?’ mode? Feeling gut-punched and stomped on. We know what’s coming, the things Trump will try to do and worse, that he’ll actually be able to do some of them. Feeling grief, even profound grief over confirmation half our country is so far round the bend is natural. However let me remind you half of us are NOT. We’re hurting, grieving even but already getting organized for the serious work ahead. Resistance is NOT futile. Americans have stood up and overcome leaders and times where the worst assumed power, or if not political power ran rampant with awful misdeeds (think the Klan) and beaten it back. The spirit, the fight in the aftermath of 2016 isn’t back yet but it IS getting ramped up!
USA Today has an article worth reading about the difference between now and then. Don’t let how it starts depress you to the point of not finishing it. Yes, it starts by talking about how viewership of MSNBC dropped the week after the election while Fox’s ratings soared. Hey, it’s the MSM and they’re scared of Trump so they have to do some obligatory rubbing of our noses in things. Even a mixed feeling quote from James Carville who’d predicted a very different outcome for the election:
“I’m sure I’ll come up with something to make me feel good again, but right now, today, it’s hard,” Democratic strategist James Carville said in a video posted the day after the election. “It’s depressing.”
Well, okay. That’s plenty to put in front of Trump to make him happy and feel like the ‘libs are owned’ but the linked article continues and in a much different vein. If you feel like we are proverbially slower getting up off the mat this time you’re right. But we ARE getting back up. And just like a boxer’s manager and team in the corner are preparing for the break between rounds to get him ready to go back out punching in the next round Democrats have organizers already at work. Ready to provide water, encouragement and most importantly a strategy on how to start landing punches when the bell rings.
The article states there is renewed interest in progressive activism. It also notes the same coalition of anti-Trump groups from 2016 and 2017 are still out there. The infrastructure they created still exists AND it’s being reactivated. In strategy calls participation is at 2017 levels. Volunteers by the thousands are rushing to sign up for everything from helping with lawsuits to fight the new Trump agenda to running for office in down-ballot races:
Ezra Levin, co-founder of the progressive non-profit organization Indivisible, told USA TODAY that 11,000 people showed up to an election result debriefing call Indivisible held the day after the election and more than 40,000 were on a call announcing a new version of the Indivisible Guide a week later, numbers he hasn’t seen since 2017.
“I would not mistake folks going through a very natural grieving process and the stages of grief to then extrapolate out and say, ‘Well, we’re always going to be grieving, we’re always going to be mourning the loss.’ If anything, frankly, I’ve been somewhat buoyed by the response,” Levin said.
He went on to say over a hundred thousand people RSVP’d for a call several organizations hosted six days after election day. I for one find that pretty significant. Even amidst the gut-wrenching grief there are large numbers of us who are trying to do more than just get through each day – people are also saying to themselves and others ‘I need to DO something. What can I do to help?’
Yes, some have given up. However a new crop of people have decided to get involved. As long time activist Kay Skelton in Guilford County, North Carolina (Greensboro) said some of the county’s Indivisible members have, if not given up said they need a break. Some have told her they’re burnt out and will take up some other activity. A hobby like knitting or whatever. However she goes on to report:
But a flood of new people have contacted her about getting involved.
“It’s giving me some peace,” she said. “We’ve got some new folks showing up now who weren’t doing this in 2017.”
What Skelton reports isn’t an isolated thing:
Heather Meaney-Allen, 61, of Williamsburg, Virginia said people are already calling her about joining her Indivisible chapter, which has held public rallies weekly for years.
“They’re calling me in tears. People are contacting me on our Facebook page that live at least an hour away from here, saying we need a resistance group. We need a progressive group to join, and you are the closest one, and they’re coming to us,” Meaney-Allen said. “People are desperate.”
I’m getting the feeling we’ll be seeing and hearing more of this kind of thing. I’d also like to return to Ezra Levin because he made an important point – that the resistance didn’t just magically appear (much less in force) the day after the 2016 election. It took a bit of time and got off to a bit of a sloppy start. He and his wife wrote their guide for citizen activism over that Thanksgiving weekend.
He jokes that while it was so rushed it was filled with typos the message got through. It went viral after the first of the year and in January 2017 prompted a flood of phone calls that pressured the GOP in Congress not to eliminate the Congressional Ethics Office. And, as you know was an impetus for the HUGE March on Washington the day after Trump’s inauguration. His puny crowed was dwarfed by women in their pink knitted hats, with I must add a fair share of men making Trump confront the reality that there was a LOT of resistance.
Similar huge crowds mobilized in cities (and even towns) around the country that day. Hell, around the world! But at this point in 2016 no one imagined we’d see such a thing. Somehow we’re going to have to get amped up and ramped up to do it again. And just like then engage in more than a one-day show of force. It will again take a fight, a fierce one on multiple fronts to mitigate the damage Trump will do.
The main thing I want to impart to you is that although it sure as hell doesn’t feel like it, the same feeling in 2016 is there today. Many feeling despondent and even hopeless while others were getting us organized to put up a fight. So stout hearts people. The framework is being reactivated and there WILL be means and/or methods to fight back. Take time to deal with the hurt. I sure as hell have and will no doubt find myself continuing to do so. But there WILL be ways we can collectively put Republicans on the defensive. Don’t think for one second that there aren’t plenty of pragmatic GOP leaders and elected officials who’ve forgotten how their hubris after Trump’s “win” in 2016 led to an electoral bloodbath up and down the ballot in 2018!
I’ve already contacted my two P.O.S. Senators (and not for the last time) to make that point. One is up for re-election in 2026 in fact. That to me seems like a good place to start, something we all can do without waiting for larger and more organized methods of mass resistance. So again, Stout Hearts. If you know someone or people who’ve given up then find new people to replace them, but stay in the fight!
It’s still not natural that tyrant and his helpers have been SILENT since the election. WHAT DID THEY DO? What are they afraid of. If they speak, they will leak their plans but also leak what they did. There’s a lot out there and it’s from very intelligent people who are stating something is amiss. We will find out too late. I don’t buy into conspiracy theories but I do believe they are all hiding more than just what he plans to do on day one. Just my opinion
This gave me a boost towards *doing* and not just *feeling*. It gave me a positive look forward to help me climb out of grieving, because I assure you, I AM grieving. This was a loss that sucked, yes, but we need to keep going forward. Midterms will be here before you know it, and we can start turning our country around then. We need to start NOW. Don’t give up!!!!!
49.87% and still dropping. Wow, some “mandate.”
Two major Google look-up requests: What is a tariff? How can I change my vote? Yeah, dumbasses ask these things AFTER an election.