Category: Diversity

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Are you as appalled as I am about the blatant suppression of dissenting voices in mainstream media lately? They’re even going after the court jesters—first Colbert, now Kimmel, and there will be others.

But we can express our displeasure. Here’s the letter I wrote to Disney, parent company of ABC (if you want to write your own letter, the address is responsibility@twdc.com).

Subject: Your removal of Kimmel was completely unjustified

Body:
I read the transcript of what Jimmy Kimmel said. I didn’t see any glorying in violence or in Kirk’s murder. What I read was the notation that “MAGA people” were “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.” (Source: USA Today: https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/entertainment/tv/2025/09/17/jimmy-kimmel-show-photos/86209850007/)

The only part of that statement that is even an opinion is the word “desperately.” The rest is a statement of facts. See, for instance, Donald Trump calling it “radical left political violence” (https://time.com/7316299/charlie-kirk-shot-death-donald-trump-speech-transcript-political-violence/). In that same speech, Trump noted several instances of political violence against right-wingers—but he didn’t criticize the murder of MN lawmaker Melissa Hortman or numerous other attacks on liberals and progressives in that speech—see https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/09/11/donald-trump-charlie-kirk-melissa-hortman/86089962007/: “Hortman was not mentioned in Trump’s Sept. 10 address touching on several recent instances of political violence, including his own survived assassination attempt and the shooting Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana in 2017. He did not mention other attacks on Democrats including an arson attack at Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s house, a kidnapping plot against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and an assault on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband in their home.”)

See also this article that cites SEVEN right-wing pundits blaming Democrats or the radical left for Kirk’s death: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/09/11/donald-trump-charlie-kirk-melissa-hortman/86089962007/

In short, Kimmel was forced out not for hate speech, but for reporting on a double standard that exists and is easily verifiable. Shame on you!

My wife and I were getting tired of Netflix and were planning to try Hulu. Guess what: you will not get a subscription from us. Nor will you be getting any admission fees at Disney properties. We will make other choices and do business with companies that do not try to suppress dissenters just to curry favor with a would-be dictator.

I have written four books on business ethics as a success principle. Your lack of ethics in this matter will not endear you to the millions of Americans who care about the business practices of companies they deal with.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Diversity, General Commentary, Gratitude, Mindset, People Helping People, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , ,

Guest post by Robert Middleton (reprinted, with permission, from his August 19, 2025 newsletter):

Does the world feel upside down right now?

With news filled with images of the National Guard in D.C. and families separated by immigration crackdowns, you may wonder:

What difference could I possibly make?

The air is heavy with uncertainty.

Fear, anger, and confusion ripple through conversations, social feeds, and daily headlines.

In such times, the smallest acts of courage, kindness, and responsibility matter more than ever.

When history seems to be surging around us, it’s easy to dismiss the impact of day-to-day choices.

Keeping our heads down and worrying that things will get worse can make us feel powerless.

But what if you did something different? What if you chose to make a difference every day?

Instead of complaining, worrying, blaming, or lashing out, try this:

• Check in on a friend going through a rough patch. Let them know that you care and that you’re there for them.
• Support a local business owned by new Americans, as an act of solidarity, not charity.
• Contribute to a political advocacy group that’s supporting a cause you feel strongly about.
• Write a short note of gratitude to a teacher or healthcare worker who is coping with stress.

None of these actions will stop the world from spinning faster than we can keep up.

But each is a reframing—a choice to build up, not tear down, hope and connection.

During times marked by images of a nation’s capital occupied by military forces, or ordinary people rounded up and searched, public trust breaks down.

A collective sense of helplessness—and sometimes rage—sets in.

But when the macro feels out of reach, the micro is where we reclaim our agency.

• Kindness to a neighbor reminds both of you that not all relationships are defined by politics or fear.
• Speaking up—even quietly—for someone treated unjustly counters the narrative that cruelty is normal, or that no one cares.
• Choosing curiosity over numbness or judgment plants seeds of resilience and community.

These actions rarely make headlines.

Yet, like steady water wearing down stone, they have the power to shift neighborhoods, workplaces, and even families quietly back toward sanity and care.

You don’t need a five-step plan to save democracy, or an answer to every injustice.

What you do have—every day—is the opportunity to gently resist cynicism, isolation, and fear.

Sometimes, the strongest stand isn’t a shouted slogan or a march, but a persistent, small act of care that refuses to let the cruelty of the moment make us less human.

In these turbulent times, being someone who still tries—not perfectly, not heroically, but persistently, in your own way—is no small thing.

History may remember the leaders and the laws, but the future will be shaped by the quiet, daily choices that keep dignity and compassion alive.

And that difference, however humble, is always worth making.

If you can relate to this struggle to make a difference in turbulent times, I invite you to check out the M.A.D. Team website with a simple approach to making a difference. Take what you can and give a shot at putting the ideas into action.

Then, twice a month, join us on Zoom to share ideas for making a difference. The first date is Friday, September 5, at 12 noon Pacific (1MT/2CT/3ET). You can make your reservation now if you like!

Cheers, Robert

If you like this newsletter, please feel free to forward it to a friend.
They can subscribe here: https://ordinaryvisionaries.com/mad

Quote of the Day:

“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic.”
– Peter Drucker

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Arts & Entertainment, Democracy, Diversity, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Gratitude, language, Mindset, Peace and War, People Helping People, Politics, poverty, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Reviews, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Most of these are singable songs that can be used at rallies, though I snuck in a few harder to learn ones that tell really inspiring stories, marked with *, as well as some in other languages. Vaguely sorted but many of these songs could be in multiple categories. Authors’ names included where I have them. These are living songs. You will find versions with different lyrics, verses in different order as they evolve—adapted for new causes or new definitions or new sensibilities. You’ll also find some older works that don’t reflect the nth degree of what’s currently considered politically correct. They were important songs in their time, and part of what I’m trying to do is provide a sense of movement history. You’ll also find some musings about what a particular song means to me, sometimes with a memory thrown in. Enjoy!

 

The Strength of Ordinary People who “Activize” and Resist

Tyrants Always Fall (Nerissa Nields). When I got depressed during the first DT term, I often turned to this song for comfort. Western Mass folks will recognize the Northampton scenery, as The Nields are local and filmed their video downtown.

Something Inside So Strong (Labi Siffre). The Black Gay British man who wrote it was shocked by a video of South African police shooting into a crowd of anti-apartheid demonstrators—and also drew on his own background growing up gay and marginalized. It’s been widely adapted in the movements both to end apartheid and to gain LGBTQ rights. The couplet “The more you refuse to hear my voice/ The louder I will sing” is the earworm that’s been in my head a lot lately—and what inspired me to compile this resource.

*Denmark, 1943 (Fred Small) documents the incredible night when the people of Denmark rose up to smuggle almost the country’s entire Jewish population to safety in Sweden, just before the Nazis planned to swoop in to arrest and deport them. It has a singable chorus but I wouldn’t try to teach it to crowd that’s never heard it.

Never Turning Back (Pat Humphries). A great zipper song, easy to teach and lead.

Power to the People: We Rise (Laurie Woodward Garcia). Released in June, 2025, this song draws lyrics, energy, and photos from many struggles, including many from 2020 to the present.

If I Had a Hammer (Pete Seeger and Lee Hays). The original lyrics had “All of my brothers.” Decades ago, activist Libby Frank asked Pete at one of his concerts, “Why only brothers?” So Pete discussed it with Lee and they came back with “my brothers and my sisters.” In this version, Emma’s Revolution changed it to the more gender-inclusive “all of the resisters.” We still need to come up with something that has love not just for the resisters but for everyone, without reintroducing the gender binary. Got an idea?

Song of the Soul (Cris Williamson). An anthem of the women’s and lesbian movements, but I put it here because it’s also applicable generally.

Swimming to the Other Side (Pat Humphries). Like Song of the Soul, a song of spiritual renewal.

How Could Anyone Ever Tell You (Libby Roderick). I always thought of this as an LGBTQ community song. Turns out it’s been used in dozens of social movements. You’ll find a long list at the link, as well as several different recordings.

Rebecca Jones (Bob Blue). An ordinary mom steps into her greatness and gives a speech that inspires peace workers. I don’t know if this is based on one real person and one real incident, but I’ve met dozens and there have been tens of thousands of ordinary people who created massive social change, from 11-year-old Malala Yousafzai and 15-year-old Greta Thunberg (ages at the times they became activists) to Doris “Granny D” Haddock and Frances Crowe, both still activists on their hundredth birthdays. Despite dying at age 57, Bob was a prolific songwriter who left behind dozens of great songs. He’s probably best known for the feminist song “The Ballad of Erica Levine,” sung here by Kim Wallach. I’ve heard that one at several feminist weddings.

We’re Still Here (Holly Near). An upbeat, almost vaudevillian celebration of the resistance’s resilience and power.

What’s Going On (Marvin Gaye). That link is to an “official” video, released in 2019 (35 years after Gaye’s death) that includes images and sounds of protests and repression. If you would rather have it straight up, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-kA3UtBj4M

 

LGBTQ

Singing For Our Lives (Holly Near). I love this video because not only do we have Holly’s beautiful rendition as it had evolved by 2004, but hugely inspiring footage of the massive march for women’s reproductive rights where she performed it. And some new lyrics put up at the end of the video. Holly literally wrote this song while carpooling to San Francisco to protest the murder of San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Harvey Milk—one of the first openly gay politicians in the US—and Mayor George Moscone by a right-wing homophobe. The driver, Holly herself, and a few others discuss the song’s origins and power in this short video.

*Scott and Jamie (Fred Small). Another true-story ballad from I Will Stand Fast (the same album as Denmark, 1943). How, in the 1980s, a gay male couple provided a loving, nonjudgmental home for two abused brothers only to have them ripped away by a homophobic government. Glad we have made big progress on this issue, at least.

*My Name is Joanna (Flight or Visibility). Misgendered once too often, my nonbinary younger child, a professional musician and music educator who also runs a school for social justice, wrote this after an encounter with a particularly clueless server in a cafe. Language warning: One f-bomb in the last line.

*When I Was a Boy (Dar Williams). A gender-bending song from the early 1980s that amazingly enough, I discovered because my local commercial FM rock station played it regularly! I very much identify with this song, especially the ending.

Thank You Anita (Charlie King). Released back in 1979, King counters Florida orange juice spokesperson Anita Bryant’s very public homophobia by saying she united people who hadn’t worked together before but now were joining forces to oppose her bigotry.

 

Peace

Oh What a Grand and Glorious Feeling (I think this is traditional, but it could have been written by Earl Robinson, who I learned it from at a house concert around 1978. Since then, I’ve taught it at many sing-alongs and rallies. I didn’t find a recording, just the lyrics, but the tune is the same as Oh How Lovely Is the Evening.)

Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream (Ed McCurdy). My folk-music-loving 4th grade teacher taught us this song and many other great ones!

*The Hammer Has to Fall (Charlie King). This song actually changed the way I felt about property-destruction civil disobedience that resulted in long prison terms. I used to resent the Ploughshare 8 for removing themselves from activism for decades. This song humanized them for me and touched my soul deeply.

Imagine (John Lennon). I could have put this in the general resilience category, or made a new section on visioning. But I’m putting it here because of the second verse that contains both “Nothing to kill or die for” and “Living life in peace.”

 

Safe Energy/No Nukes

Acres of Clams (Charlie King). Theme song of the Clamshell Alliance’s 1977 Seabrook occupation (one of my proudest moments in 55 years of activism).

We Almost Lost Detroit (Gil Scott-Heron). You may have never heard of the 1966 accident at the Enrico Fermi nuclear plant in Michigan, or the one at Browns Ferry in Alabama in 1975—or dozens of other near-calamities. Gill Scott-Heron helps us remember Fermi. By the way, I am convinced that the reason we DID hear about Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima while most of us have not heard of more than 100 other serious nuclear accidents was because of the safe energy movement, which inspired the movie, The China Syndrome, that came out right before the TMI accident. Lyrics.

 

US Civil Rights Movement

Oh, Freedom (traditional). I love Odetta’s version but could only find it as part of her Freedom Trilogy, so I went with Harry Belafonte’s.

I Ain’t Scared of Your Jail ‘Cause I Want My Freedom. From Pete Seeger’s 1963 Carnegie Hall concert, one of my favorite albums ever. More of this is telling the story than singing the very short song. But only Pete’s own recording turned up in a search.

We Shall Overcome (many authors over multiple generations). The anthem of the Civil Rights movement, carried over to many struggles since—in part, because it’s a “zipper song” where it’s easy to add new verses. Great article on the history of the song from Encyclopedia Britanica.

Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around (adaptation of a traditional Black gospel song). This performance by civil rights activists the Freedom Singers doesn’t have a date, but according to this university curriculum citation, it can’t be older than 1962 or newer than 1980. My guess is sometime between 1962-65. I think I first heard it at a community rally in Atlanta when I lived there briefly in 1976, during a college internship at a socialist community newspaper.

 

Immigration and Immigration Justice

Yes I Am (American) (Malini D. Sur, MD). This 2010 song joins Brown, Black, Yellow, and Red people through the common experience of coming from someplace else—even if it was 10,000 years ago across the Bering Strait.

Mexican Chef (Xenia Rubinos) celebrates the jobs immigrants, especially Latines, do for people in the US and how our society would grind to a halt without them. I could do without the fake-sexy dance moves, though.

Where You Go (I Will Go) (Shoshana Jedwab). Based on the Old Testament Book of Ruth, one of the earliest voluntary migration stories we have. The Old Testament contains many migration stories across many centuries: Adam and Eve leaving the Garden, Abraham leaving Iraq and later experiencing several temporary migrations, Hagar and Ishmael forced into the desert, climate refugees Jacob and his adult children seeing refuge in Egypt, where he reunites with Joseph, the son he’d been told had been killed, Moses and later Joshua leading the Israelites out of slavery…I’d say these migration stories contain a lot of the power in those texts.

Deportee (Woody Guthrie, words; Martin Hoffman. music). The ugliness of US immigration policy is nothing new; this song was written following the death of a plane full of migrants in 1948. Judy Collins’ voice is achingly beautiful.

Using the same melody and parallelling the lyrics, Yosl Kurland ties together the tragedy of the Ashkenazi (Northern European) Jews aboard the St. Louis—which was refused entry by several countries including the US, and most of whose passengers were killed in the Holocaust after being sent back to the country they’d sailed from—and the modern tragedies of refuges from the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Latin America still being turned away or imprisoned or abandoned, in a powerful 2017 update called Refugee.

Leaving Mother Russia (Robbie Solomon). A song written for Natan Sharansky in the 1970s, when he was imprisoned for Jewish rights activism by the USSR.

*Revelación (Genie Santiago). Bilingual English/Spanish rap with lots of images of protests and of people trying to cross the border. Like so many immigration songs, this could also go easily into the Class section.

*Immigrants (We Get The Job Done) (Lin-Manuel Miranda). A remix with pieces from various songs in his musical, Hamilton. Lyrics here.

Running (Refugee Song) (Keyon Harrold, Andrea Pizziconi, and Jasson Harrold) describes the hard life in refugee camps—and why they had to flee in the first place.

American Land (Bruce Springsteen). With a rollicking Irish melody, Springsteen contrasts the dreams of wealth and ease shared by so many immigrants in the 19th and early 20th centuries with the harsh realities they found here. This version, appropriately, was filmed live in Dublin. Also of note are the words Springsteen speaks at a 2025 concert in Manchester, UK before singing Land of Hopes and Dreams (another song from the same album).

Kilkelly, Ireland (Peter Jones). A 19th-century Irish farmer dictates letters to his son living in the US across several decades. This hauntingly beautiful song reminds us that until quite recently, people who emigrated left behind loved ones and had only very slow postal mail to keep in touch. And despite the magic of video calls and emails, what’s still true today is that for many, there is no going back.

 

Class, Labor, and Economic Justice

This Land is Your Land (Woody Guthrie). In 1975, I found myself co-leading a march of several thousand people through the streets of Washington, DC, playing this song on harmonica along with a violinist, a kazoo player, and I think a guitarist. Not only didn’t we rehearse, I had no idea I was going to be drafted into this impromptu marching band. The two string players were also singing. That day was memorable both because it remains the only time I’ve ever performed music for an audience (other than teaching “Oh What a Grand and Glorious Feeling”)—because it was the first time I heard the long-suppressed politically progressive “secret” verses. I used to own an LP where you could actually hear the needle scratch as it was pulled away to cut those verses out of the master. Guthrie wrote hundreds of lyrics but to the best of my knowledge, never wrote a tune.

This particularly moving performance is led by Pete Seeger, less than four months before he turned 90, with some help from his grandson Tao Rodríguez Seeger, Bruce Springsteen, and a mostly Black chorus—recorded at the Lincoln memorial during Obama’s inauguration concert.

Talkin’ About A Revolution (Tracy Chapman). Chart-topping class-based anthem about those who are “…standing in the welfare lines/
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation”

Is This the World We Created? (Freddie Mercury and Brian May of Queen). A British comparison of desperate hunger in the Global South with “a wealthy man…sitting on his throne.”

Step By Step (Words from a 19th-century union rulebook; music by Pete Seeger). We are strongest when we work together.

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? (Yip Harburg and Jay Gorney). Written in 1932 during the Great Depression and a hit for both Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallee, it starkly illuminates the way corporate greed casts aside those who built that wealth. This much more recent version, soulful if a bit overblown, is by George Michael. Good backgrounder on the Kennedy Center website. In case the MAGAs have taken it down, this is the most recent version (April 12, 2025) on Archive.org. BTW, Harburg is a major Broadway songwriter probably best known for songs like “Somewhere, over the Rainbow” and “It’s Only a Paper Moon.”

I’m Changing My Name to Chrysler (Tom Paxton). A scathing response to the bailout of US automakers during the Carter years (not to be confused with the similar bailout under Bush II). Arlo Guthrie recorded the song when it was new, then recorded it with Tom’s updated lyrics for this 2008 Farm Aid benefit.

We Gotta Get Out of This Place (Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil). Hard-rocking ‘60’s hit about love amidst terrible working conditions.

 

Liberation Struggles Around the World

*Would You Harbor Me? (Ysaye Barnwell, USA, of Sweet Honey in the Rock). A beautiful song asking the title question about a wide range of people who are part of oppressed groups.

Woyaya (Sol Amarfio, Ghana, of Osibisa). You may know versions by Art Garfunkel or the Fifth Dimension. This is the composer’s band, Osibisa, from 1971.

Si se calla el cantor (Horacio Guarany, Argentina). “What will become of life if the Singer/Does not raise his voice in the stands/For those who suffer, for those for whom there is/No reason that condemns him to walk without a blanket.” Full lyrics and translation here.

Mbube (Solomon Linda, South Africa). Americanized as Wimoweh/The Lion Sleeps Tonight, this was a huge hit for the Weavers in 1951 and again 11 years later for the Tokens. This version by Ladysmith Black Mambazo is closer to the original but with lots of unique LBM touches. And this is very much what a local Black chorus sounded like when we heard them play this song on the streets of Cape Town. There is an upsetting chronicle about the way Mr. Linda was defrauded of proper compensation on Wikipedia.

Falasteen Biladi (Hamood Alkuder). A Palestinian cries out for justice in Gaza. Arabic with English subtitles.

Zahrat al-Mada’en (Assi Rahbani, Mansour Rahbani). The Palestinian narrator mourns the isolation from Jerusalem (whose name literally translates as “city of peace”), beloved by both Palestinians and Jews. Performed here by Fairuz. Translated lyrics here. For a Jewish perspective, listen to Ben Snof singing “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem” from Psalm 137 (many translations into English here). Interestingly, the same Biblical psalm also contains “By the Waters of Babylon,” another song of exiles longing for their homeland.

 

Resources

This list of 50 songs is a drop in a roaring river of great social change music. Find more in the songbooks Rise Up Signing and its second volume, Rise Again, compiled by Peter Blood and Annie Patterson, in We Rise: A Movement Songbook available for no-cost download, at the websites of Peoples Music Network and Sing Out magazine, at this Spotify playlist, and on the websites of many of the authors and performers.

 

Thank-yous to the many people (alphabetically) who suggested songs:

Janet Beatrice

Stephanie L.H. Calahan

Donna Cooney

Lisa Diaz

Raf Horowitz Friedman

Luis-Orlando Isaza Villegas

Riqi Kosovske

Yosl Kurland

Lauchlan Mackinnon

Oscar Martinez

Marcia Miller

Amanda Risi

Andrea Rudnik

Phil Stone

Sandy Sulsky

Melody Tilton

Dianne Turausky

Debbie Ward

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Energy & Sustainability, Ethics in Government, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, media-general, Mindset, Peace and War, People Helping People, Politics, poverty, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

“When they go low, we go high.”
—Michelle Obama

This week, two prominent Democrats gave opposite but equally crazy advice?

Thom Hartmann says we should open up the bag of Republican dirty tricks and start using them. And in what he calls a “daring” maneuver, Carville tells us in a New York times op-ed to “roll over and play dead.”

The above Carville link is for subscribers. I don’t have a sharing link.

Carville’s “plan” was properly shredded by Gil Duran of FrameLab, who says what I would have said:  Carville is ignoring the moral issue that real people are getting hurt. Democrats have to frame themselves as the opposition, loudly and clearly; silence is complicity. And principled resistance is what creates change (more on that in the What to Do section, below)

But let ME take on Hartmann, who usually talks sense. The moral arguments are obvious, but let’s talk about the impact in practice. And then we’ll talk about what to do instead.

  1. This makes us no better than them. If we use the same slimy methods, voters will just say “Tweedledum and Tweedledumber” and stay home—as millions of Biden voters did this past November. Just as we don’t accept violent terrorism to redress wrongs, so we should not accept disenfranchising others And if you think the so-called “stop the steal” movement that tried to steal back the 2020 election was bad, imagine if they actually had cause!
  2. Republican-lite has never worked for the Dems. Republican-lite gave us the impasse under Biden when Manchin and Sinema blocked progress over and over. A generation ago, Republican-lite brought us Newt Gingrich and his “Contract with America” (which progressives dubbed “Contract ON America,” in the hitman sense).
  3. For decades, Republicans have been “the party of  no”—and that includes “no, you can’t vote.” Denying others voting rights, even those we disagree with, would make Democrats also the party of “no, you can’t vote.” Democrats were that party in the segregated South during my childhood, and we all know by now what a huge mistake that was. Ironically, the Republicans are still criticizing the Dems for these old sins, even though, as Greg Palast notes, they themselves have taken voter suppression to new levels. But Harris had the chance to call out Republican voter suppression well in advance of the election, and according to Palast, her failure to push on this was why she lost.

In the 2024 election, failing to speak directly and meaningfully to the working class—coming across as yet another Republican-lite—led to the perception that Harris was an elitist who was beholden to corporate funders and was not in tune with white working-class people, despite policy platforms (that got little coverage) that were much more favorable to workers. Being too timid not only to beat a continuous drum calling out her opponent’s slide toward open fascism AND his cognitive decline but to mobilize an army of respected surrogates and send them into swing states to bring that message home over and over and over was a huge mistake. The country should have been flooded with messages about the harm that her opponent would do, his history of crime, and his repeated failures of competence.

Mind y0u, I think Harris also did a lot of things right, despite the truncated campaign. The focus on joy was brilliant. The promise to undo the damage of Dobbs (the Supreme Court decision that overturned Rowe v. Wade) was given full weight. The promise to be a president for all in the US, not just the Blue states, inspired many.

What to Do to Change This for Next Tuime

  1. We win more when we play bigger. I think the things that hurt the Harris campaign the most other than voter suppression of Democrats in Red states was her unwillingness to play big on certain issues. Being way too weak on Gaza almost certainly cost her Michigan—and was the reason multiple New Hampshire voters told me (when I knocked on their doors this fall) they weren’t voting for either presidential candidate. It would have been so easy for her to give a slot to Ruwa Romman, Palestinian-American legislator from Georgia, whose unity speech had been vetted by the Harris team. Flip-flopping her former correct opposition to fracking and barely mentioning climate change cost her many environmentalist votes. And she seldom addressed the elephant in the room of Republicans denying Democrats and poor people and people of color and people who didn’t want to catch a contagious disease the right to vote.
  2. We also win when we’re much more visible. There’s been a ton of grassroots organizing going on since the election—but with a few exceptions such as the Democratic legislators’ protest in front of the Treasury, it’s not showing up in the media, people don’t encounter it on their way to work, and non-activists don’t know it’s happening—because it’s been on Zoom rooms and inside houses of worship and college classrooms, and not out on the streets. This is a both-and. Do the organizing, do the lobbying, do the important but quiet stuff—but also get out there by the thousands and be seen! In my teen years, I went to a peace demonstration almost every weekend, many times boarding a charter bus from NYC to Washington to participate. Tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands, over and over again helped to bring that horrible war in Vietnam to a close. A few years earlier, the 1963 March on Washington and other massive demonstrations, plus people in the streets openly defying segregation, helped move a proud civil rights agenda forward into law, and gave LBJ the spine to back up those laws with enforcement. Even small actions can make a difference. Just 2000 people at Seabrook, New Hampshire in 1977 changed the course of US energy away from nuclear and toward renewables, when 1411 of us got arrested and held for up to two weeks. The sustained months of action at Standing Rock, opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline, started with just 200 people.
  3. The Dems have to combine Bernie’s anger and speaking truth to power, Kamela’s and Tim’s focus on joy, and AOC’s youthful energy and super-personable outreach that works equally well face-to-face or on video. (Note: the above link takes you to the links to all of my Facebook posts that mention her or share her work. It is open to the public; you should be able to view the videos and read the quotes even if you’re not on Facebook. If you want to pick one, go for the interview by Bernie, posted December 3, 2024.)
  4. As Bernie has done for years, they must focus on the class issue—not to the exclusion of its current constituencies, but intersectionally, inclusively. They have to recognize that the struggle for rights is the struggle for rights—whether those rights are denied for race, religion, gender, sexuality, economic position, class , age, ability, or any other category. This message has to be presented in ways that make all of these constituencies feel seen, heard, and valued: when one group gains, it “lifts all boats” and “makes the pie higher” for everyone; when one makes progress, it doesn’t take away from the others.
  5. Dems have to go to the Red states and Red audiences. Dems have to emulate Pete Buttigieg and get interviewed by MAGA media outlets like Fox—and do so as articulately and persuasively as he does. They have to reclaim populism and get in front of voters who wrongly saw the billionaire convicted-felon and serial-liar Republican candidate as populist.
  6. Democratic politicians have to be more outspoken. They need to cite real human tragedies resulting from these cruel policies and open hatreds by real people who’ve been hurt, name them, and tell their stories on the floor of the Senate and the House and at their Town Hall meetings back in their home districts. And they need to give copies in advance to the media and engage their base to pressure those media to show up and cover these statements.
  7. All of us need to widen our resistance tactics. In the pre-Internet, pre-COVID era, nonviolence scholar Gene Sharp listed 198 nonviolent social change tactics. Many more have been added since, including this list of 100 mostly digital nonviolent tactics. 21 more showed up when I searched for “nonviolent resistance techniques during covid.” And remember: governments typically fall when just 3.5 percent of the population stops complying and withdraws consent, according to research by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan.

So join a group, get out there and make some of what the late civil rights icon and long-time Congressman John Lewis called “good trouble.”Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Consumer Issues, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Ethics in Government, Mindset, People Helping People, Politics, poverty, Social and Economic Justice, Transparency vs. Secrecy, Uncategorized Tagged with , , ,

If you’ve been bewailing the presidential election and wondering how the country you love could have voted to elect this monster, this may help you feel better: Maybe we didn’t! A respected commentator makes a strong case that millions of votes in heavily Democratic areas of red and purple states were not counted.

Greg Palast came to my attention in the aftermath of the 2000 election–yeah, the one that gave George W. Bush the victory, and eight years as the worst president the US had had until 2017.

Palast, an investigative journalist with a strong background in forensic economics, made a compelling case that the outcome, hanging on a margin of just 537 votes in Florida following a partial recount that was stopped by the Republican-dominated Supreme Court, may have had a lot more to do with the tens of thousands of likely Democratic voters (especially absentee voters) who were purged from the roles, often because of false reasons like their name matching or nearly matching that of some convicted felon. I remember the figure of 96,000, which was bad enough.

While I can’t find that stat right now, I found another article by Palast, from 2004, noting that 178,000 voters from heavily Black areas cast ballots that were disqualified for equally spurious reasons. It’s the one with the headline and picture about Roger Stone.

Well, what do you know! Palast is now making an equally compelling case that  “4,776,706 voters were wrongly purged from voter rolls according to US Election Assistance Commission data.”

He says a single Republican operative challenged the eligibility of 32,000 mostly Black voters  in her county, others challenged thousands of voters elsewhere in Georgia, and similar efforts in Wisconsin and around the country deprived those nearly 5 million people of their chance to vote. The Republicans claimed these people had moved, because they didn’t return a postcard that looked like junk mail–and in some parts of Georgia, only 1% returned the cards.

If Palast is accurate–and I believe he is–Harris would have won at least those two states, the popular vote, the Electoral College, and the presidency.  She might have even taken Texas, where a new requirement to add ID numbers raised the rejection rate on absentee ballots from just 1% to 12%. (This is the same link as the 4,776,706 voters link above.)

In order to read that post in Thom Hartmann’s Substack newsletter, I had to become a subscriber. There is a no-charge level. But if you’d rather not subscribe, Palast makes many of the same points in this video, which is freely accessible. (It’s  the same link as the “single Republican” link above.)

While this analysis makes me feel a bit better about US voters, it doesn’t talk about how to reclaim democracy. In the video, he notes that he told the Democrats what steps they needed to do to protect voters at risk of being barred from voting or having their ballots discarded, but they didn’t see a need for pre-emptive action. Perhaps if they see this new data, they could make a claim to some body like the International Court of Justice that the election was a cheat. And meanwhile, this information gives us yet more reasons to resist the coup through every nonviolent tactic we can.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Diversity, Ethics in Government, language, Media Ethics, media-general, Mindset, Politics, propaganda, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , ,

The chances are it’s a coup. And that seems to be what’s happening in Washington, D.C. this week.

Usually, a coup happens when people in a different part of government (e.g., the military) or outside the existing government attempt to overthrow the head of that government. But there is precedent for internal coups, as we saw quite recently: On December 3, 2024, less than two months ago, South Korea’s president attempted a coup, declaring martial law. His coup failed and he was impeached and indicted.

We can take comfort from that failure as we notice what’s going on here in the United States, where I live. Robert Hubbell’s Today’s Edition newsletter this morning lists many threats to democracy that surfaced in the past couple of days, with citations to the original news stories (mostly mainstream media), and calls this barrage “the obvious coordinated nature of the unprecedented attacks on the DOJ, FBI, Office of Personnel Management, Treasury Department, and dozens of other agencies…a hostile takeover of the US government by those who are loyal to Trump rather than to the US Constitution.” Here’s a quick summary of his grim list:

  1. A team loyal to Elon Musk has hijacked the mainframe computers and employee databases at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), connecting unvetted non-federal computers to the system. They’ve locked the old managers out of the system, have sent unauthorized and likely illegal offers for senior employees to resign with pay or be fired, and even moved beds in—perhaps so they won’t be subject to security checks?
  2. Another Musk team has attempted (unsuccessfully as of Hubbell’s deadline) to gain control of the entire US Treasury payments system , which processes all federal expenditures–forcing out a senior manager who questioned Musk’s need for access.
  3. The Acting US Attorney for Washington, D.C. fired about 30 lawyers who had prosecuted January 6th rioters who tried to keep Biden from taking office four years ago, assaulted law enforcement, and threatened to kill Members of Congress and even Trump’s first-time Vice President.
  4. As well known by now, nearly all of those rioters were pardoned and released on Trump’s first two days in office, and several have gone on to make open threats of retribution and violence (that last fact is not mentioned in Hubbell’s article, but the link will give you of numerous sources).
  5. Division managers of the Department of Justice responsible for cybersecurity, national security, and criminal investigations have all been told to resign or be fired Monday.
  6. All FBI agents involved in prosecution of January 6th rioters can expect to be fired; many already have been.
  7.  So are the senior FBI agents in charge of field offices in Miami, Philadelphia, Washington, New Orleans, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles.
  8. Numerous federal websites covering such topics as equality were taken down. Hubbell predicts that they’re being “scrubbed for references to diversity, gender, or human attributes that are not white, male, and Christian.”
  9. Mainstream media reporters from outlets including the New York Times, National Public Radio, and NBC are being kicked out of the Pentagon to make room for NYPost, Breitbart, One America News Network, and other right-wing fringe media.

And this doesn’t even count the appalling list of wildly unqualified nominees to senior appointments (like running the US Military and the FBI) who were chosen because they’re loyal to trump and look good on TV: an insult to everyone who has ever worn a US military uniform or served in government and an attack on those who rely on federal programs to do their job or even to afford basic needs.

If you are in the US, please contact your Members of Congress (one House Rep, two Senators) and tell them this is unacceptable and you are counting on them to return government to the people and not the plutocrats. That there must be accountability. That hacking into US government computers is a felony. And that you are watching. Remember not to give up your power prematurely. Don’t capitulate the way ABC and Facebook have. Don’t allow an internal coup as Twitter did. Don’t slash your important equity programs because some idiot tells you they’re un-American. And don’t abandon. the immigrants, non-straight people, people of color, non-Christians, etc. who make this country great.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Ethics in Government, Innovation, language, Mindset, People Helping People, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , ,

Welcome to 2025, a year that’s only two weeks old and already fraught. This is a
challenging time. Business leaders who believe business can make the world better for
the planet and its residents will face intense scrutiny and pressure to fold our tents. But
if we stand firm, if we continue to act on our sense of ethics, our decency, and our
knowledge that environmental and social responsibility is a business success strategy,
we will eventually prevail!

My heart goes out to readers and their loved ones who have been directly impacted by
the dozens of recent massive climate events such as the floods in the US Southeast,
Libya, and Uganda, earthquakes in China and Vanuatu, fires in California, cyclones in
Mozambique and Sri Lanka, volcanic eruption in the Philippines…and by human-caused
disasters, including the brutal wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the massive migrations from
areas that are no longer safe, and more.

Speaking of human-caused disasters—here in the US, starting on January 20, we face
an openly authoritarian, openly bigoted, and openly corrupt administration that brags
about how it will undo our progress on environmental and social issues and attacks
personal freedom. This new government plans to act not as a force for the greater good,
but to enrich kleptocrats and make life miserable for “enemies” within.

And many senior executives are pushing hard to enable that undercutting within their
own organizations. Companies are shredding DEI programs, universities are struggling
to come up with something equitable to replace welcoming admissions policies deemed
illegal by a partisan Supreme Court, and both social and mainstream media are
adopting policies that kowtow to authoritarians, from eliminating fact-checks and
enabling hate speech to suppressing criticism of the new regime. And alas, similar
governments already exist in Hungary, North Korea, Russia, and elsewhere.

But there’s plenty of good news, too:

  • Several countries, including Brazil, Chile, and
    Columbia, have tossed out right-wing dictators.
  • Others including Germany and France turned back far-right candidates and slates.
  • In the US, many left-of-center candidates and ballot initiatives won even in states that went for Trump.
  • Under-the-radar organizing by progressive grassroots organizations is massive.
    And these groups are finally working together. I went to one national Zoom meeting that
    had 140,000 registrants, 100,000 attenders, and the active participation of at least five
    national grassroots groups. Individually and collectively, they’re crafting and launching
    to best create nonviolent strategies to resist Trump policies and nominees.
  • These organizing efforts marked its first victory in November with the almost immediate collapse of Matt Gaetz’s nomination for Attorney General, which culminated in the release of the US House ethics report on his long list of transgressions.

And that’s just the beginning. Visit this page from Nonviolence News for a torrent of more good news, most of which I hadn’t even known about until their newsletter crossed my desk. I don’t see
everything on their list as good news, but the vast majority certainly is.

So instead of drowning in doom and gloom, get active, get involved, get excited. Remember, as Nerissa Nields put it in her song, “Tyrants Always Fall” (written during the earlier Trump administration), “There are more of us than there are of them.” And become an even more effective agent of change!Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Activism, censorship, Democracy, Diversity, Ethics in Government, Mindset, People Helping People, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Heather Cox Richardson reported today that Elon Musk publicly called Alexander Vindman a traitor and accused him of being on Ukraine’s payroll. If Vindman’s name sounds familiar, is because of his earlier heroism, disclosing Donald Trump’s attempt to blackmail Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Vindman struck right back:

“Elon, here you go again making false and completely unfounded accusations without providing any specifics,” Vindman posted back. “That’s the kind of response one would expect from a conspiracy theorist. What oligarch? What treason?

“Let me help you out with the facts: I don’t take/have never taken money from any money from oligarchs Ukrainian or…otherwise.

“I do run a nonprofit foundation. The HereRightMattersFoundation.org to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia’s unprovoked attack on Feb 24, 2022. I served in the military for nearly 22 years and my loyalty is to supporting the U.S. Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. That’s why I reported presidential corruption when I witnessed an effort to steal an election. That report was in classified channels and when called by Congress to testify about presidential corruption I did so, as required by law.

“You, Elon, appear to believe you can act with impunity and are attempting to silence your critics. I’m not intimidated.”

Let’s make it perfectly clear: Vindman is taking enormous personal risks. Trump is an admirer of Vladimir Putin, and an awful lot of Putin’s enemies “wake up dead.”

I’m not accusing Trump of killing his adversaries. But he has made it abundantly clear that he will use the entire power and might of the US government to go after his perceived enemies. And he has shown repeatedly that he has no loyalty to anyone other than himself, that everything is transactional with him, and that he doesn’t place a value on things like truth, functional government, or policies that benefit ordinary working- and middle-class people. So at the very least, Vindman faces risks of imprisonment, financial losses, tax audits, and more.

But Vindman understands something Trump’s and Musk’s apologists either don’t realize or don’t care about. When you give in to threats, you enable bullies and thugs to push for even more power and status. When you grovel at their feet, you empower them. And when you stand up to them, especially if you are putting yourself at risk, they shrink. They withdraw. They lose status.

Vindman is denying Musk, and by extension Trump, the power to make him voluntarily capitulate.

And meanwhile, when we see someone bullying someone, especially if the victim is showing fear, we are not powerless. We can intervene. If we know of people caught in immigration roundups or arrested as dissidents, we can bring visibility, tell the media, organize support. There are many resources and trainings to help with this. The important thing is to show the bullies that we do not approve and will not cooperate, that we will nonviolently defend the defenseless and withdraw support from the power structure.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Branding, Business Ethics, censorship, Corporate Social Responsibility, Democracy, Diversity, Ethics-International, language, Marketing Trends/News, Peace and War, People Helping People, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

When Unilever acquired B&J’s, the agreement guaranteed the ice cream company the right to an independent Board empowered to continue B&J’s decades of social and environmental activism as they see fit. But apparently, Unilever, one of the largest consumer packaged goods (CPG) conglomerates in the world, disagrees with the Board’s repeated attempts to support the people of Palestine, a situation much more dire now after more than a year of constant Israeli attacks that have killed more than 43,000 Palestinians and injured and/or made homeless hundreds of thousands more, including thousands who’ve had their replacement homes or shelters destroyed and had to flee multiple times.

Most of the time, Unilever is one of the better corporate citizens. It’s done a lot of good in the business world for environmental and human rights efforts. Many of its business units, beginning with Ben & Jerry’s in 2012, are certified B Corporations (a business structure that allows environmental and social good to be factored in alongside profitability)–and the parent company has been undertaking a Herculean effort (ongoing since 2015) to get the entire corporation B-corp certified.

But now, Unilever is censoring the B&J’s Board and threatening to dissolve the Board and sue individual Board members. And, once again, B&J’s is suing the parent company over censorship around Gaza.

Israel’s position is unusual because it is treated differently than other governments, in two different ways. Some people grant Israel special status because of its history, and some use that history to condemn it and even question its existence. Here are some of the reasons why Israel-Palestine conflict is treated differently than elsewhere:

 

The Pro-Israel Reasons Why Israel is Treated Differently

  • European and US guilt in the aftermath of World War II, when it became obvious that millions of Jews, Roma, lesbians and gays, people with disabilities, and political opponents of the Nazi dictatorship could have been saved by other nations and were instead murdered in Germany and the lands it occupied.
  • Extremely effective pro-Israel lobbying that has demonized Arabs, Muslims, and Palestinians (overlapping groups, but not interchangeable) both within the Jewish community and in the wider culture. I recommend the film “Israelism” as the quickest way to gain understanding of how this has worked. This has been so effectively percolated into the culture that any attack on the Israeli government—even in its current super-brutal iteration—is labeled antisemitism.
  • The industrialized world’s continued reliance on fossil fuels from the Arab lands—and the widely-held view within the US government that Israel is our foreign-policy surrogate and enforcement agent in the Middle East (one of the most important strategic regions in the world: a crossroads of trade since ancient times and a place where political, energy, and military control conveys enormous influence over Europe, Africa, and western Asia).

 

The Reasons Why Others Condemn Israel

  • In the larger population, this role as US surrogate gets translated into accepting at face value the common belief that Israel is a bulwark of Western democracy in a region lacking in democracies. And that, in turn, causes conflict with those who criticize Israel’s appalling record of violence and subjugation in the Gaza war. The democracy meme is partially true. If you are a white Jewish citizen of Israel, you have rights under a democracy—but those rights are limited for your Israeli Arab neighbors and do not exist for your Palestinian neighbors in East Jerusalem and just outside Israel’s borders.
  • Pretty much every Israeli and Palestinian has experienced direct harm: the loss of loved ones, the destruction of and/or eviction from property, denial of human rights. For 76 years, Israel has oppressed Palestinians, dating back to independence in 1948—and Arab nations have repeatedly waged wars and nongovernmental attacks against Israel. More recently, Israel has initiated several wars. On my second trip to Israel and Palestine ten years ago, I listened to a man who had been only 11 years old when the Israelis told his family not to take a lot of their possessions because they would be back in a few weeks (scroll down in the linked article to the section on Bar-Am). He’s one of many whose story I’ve heard over the years that describe the oppression, loss, and bitterness —as the many Israeli Jews who’ve recounted their own losses through terrorism have also experienced. The gruesome toll affects people on both sides.
  • The denial of rights to ethnic and religious minorities within Israel and to majorities in the Palestinian Territories, the violence done to these populations, and the forced resettlement have all combined to make Israel a pariah in the eyes of many.

Unfortunately, what should be anger directed at the government of Israel is often misdirected into attacks on Jews. And it doesn’t help that so many people who should know better equate any criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

Mind you—antisemitism is real and it is not OK. But there’s a big difference between “Israel, stop bombing civilians, stop denying food access, stop destroying hospitals, stop killing journalists,” etc. and saying that the heinous Hamas attack of October 7, 2023 was justified or that the Jews as a people should be destroyed. Those latter constructs are antisemitic. The former are legitimate criticisms of a government gone amok.

Rabbi Jill Jacobs, the head of the rabbinic human rights organization T’ruah, has a helpful article on how to tell the difference.

But legitimate criticism of violent and discriminatory Israeli policies and actions, even those before October 7, cannot justify what Hamas did. There is NO justification for kidnapping, killing and raping innocents because they happen to be Jewish and living in Israel—just as there is NO justification for killing and torturing innocents because they happen to be Palestinian, Arab, and/or Muslim. And there is also no justification for treating Israel far more harshly in the diplomatic arena than other countries brutalizing occupied populations. If it’s wrong when Israel does it, it’s also wrong when other countries do it. Not to make that clear is another form of antisemitism.

 

And How Does This Relate to Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s

What Unilever is doing to Ben & Jerry’s is just a less intense version of the censorship and repression on college campuses last spring when Palestinians and their allies demanded justice and peace. What it says is “we espouse values of multiculturalism but we don’t actually believe it. In fact, we believe in demolishing entire populations based on ethnicity, religion, or other factors that we say shouldn’t matter. And we will bring repression down upon the shoulders of those who defend the groups we want to marginalize.”

To make real change, we have to make space for dissenting voices, especially from marginalized populations. That gets stripped away when criticism of Israel’s malignant actions are blocked. If you agree, click to tell Unilever to stop stomping on dissent at Ben & Jerry’s. You’re welcome to copy and modify my message:

As a proud Jew and an activist for 55 years who’s worked on peace, Middle East, the right to dissent, environmental, business as a social change agent, and immigration justice among other issues, I take strong issue with Unilever’s unilateral abrogation of Ben & Jerry’s right to protest genocidal policies in Gaza. With the Board’s independence written into the acquisition agreement, the umbrella entity of Unilever is not obligated to agree with their position and nor does that position have to be thought of as representing the whole corporation—but you are obligated to let them express it. Palestinian rights are compatible with Jewish rights, and the world needs to stop accepting the argument that criticism of Israel’s government is antimsemitism.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Consumer Issues, Democracy, Diversity, Mindset, Networking, People Helping People, Politics, propaganda, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , ,
As the dust begins to settle and people are able to make room for action steps on the bench where our grief sits, and as I have been reading and listening and participating in several what-do-we-do now calls, I’m beginning to regain some faith in this country.

Wednesday morning, it felt like Donald Trump’s victory was all about rejection of the idea of a strong woman of color as president. I knew all along that this could motivate at least a quarter of the electorate, which is in fact pretty damn horrific. But on Wednesday morning, it felt like I had wildly underestimated that.
But I actually don’t think that’s true. The buzz is really about economic voters. Somehow, a whole lot of people bought into the idea that Trump could manage the economy better than Harris.
This is not based in fact, but as we all know, facts don’t always lead to conclusions and actions based on them.
Trump is really good at propaganda in the worst sense of the word. He blames his enemies for things he has done, makes promises he has no intention of keeping, and somehow gets people to believe he has all the answers.
Inflation hit the Democrats really hard in this election. That we had less of it in the post-COVID recovery than pretty much any other industrialized country didn’t matter to the people who felt like they were paying twice as much in the grocery store or at the gas pump.
The gas pump part is really odd to me. For the last 6 weeks or so, I have been buying gas at less than $3 a gallon here in Massachusetts. That was certainly not true in the Trump years. But inflation is real! Housing, especially, has gone way up. And with supply chain and labor shortages as we emerged from the pandemic, prices on a lot of other things went up. We had lower inflation and more job creation under Biden than any other industrialized country, but it was still grim for those who had to figure out how to keep their families fed and sheltered.
The Democrats didn’t do a sufficient job of pointing out that they have taken major steps to let people’s buying power keep up with inflation, not least by creating an economy that provided more jobs than any president I can ever remember. And Trump was able to capitalize on this.
Harris had some really good economic proposals that would create even more jobs while cleaning the environment and reducing our carbon footprint. Expect a lot of those jobs to go away as prompt dismantles the programs that put them into place. Expect prices to soar as he puts his anti-consumer tariff policies into place. Predictions from economists all over the spectrum put that hit at about $4,000 of extra costs to the typical family each year, and higher prices as businesses struggle to replace the workers–essential to our economy–who Trump deports. Unless you are a billionaire, expect higher taxes to pay for the massive amount of incarceration and deportation. Those things are not cheap! Expect further giveaways to those who already have far more than their share while the middle class and the poor suffer tax increases and service cutbacks. He may think he is president for life, but if there is the chance to vote again, and if he is still in office by then (which I doubt), he will be a one-termer again.
This still doesn’t explain the disturbing phenomenon of a 13 million drop in the number of people who voted for a Democrat for president this time despite the lunacy that obviously awaits us under Trump. But it does at least make me think that people were voting on their economic self-interest as they perceived it, rather than a desire to roll back the clock on human rights inequality. And make no mistake, human rights and equality will be on the chopping block.
But here’s something that gives me a lot of hope. Wednesday and Thursday, I attended four different calls about how we move forward and how we work to block the worst parts of Trump’s agenda. These calls were exciting and hugely attended. The one I went to yesterday had 140,000 registrants. If I’m not mistaken, that makes it the largest conference I’ve ever attended and one of the largest events I’ve been to in my 67 years, other than a few really huge public demonstrations with 800,000 to a million people. I’m attending another one this afternoon, much more niched. I imagine there will be a few thousand on that call.
Remember that we have lived through bad times before. We lived through Joe McCarthy, Nixon, Reagan, Bush II, and Trump I. We lived through slavery and wars. And now, with the benefit of all the organizing of 2017, 2020, and 2024, we are prepared for action. The actions will be non-violent and effective. The Democratic Party structure is involved. Harris’s concession speech was a brilliant call to stay involved, to get back into the trenches. To recognize that we have power and that our power is not based only on who wins an election.
And how will you get involved?

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