“What do we do now?”
That’s the question posed by Logan Davis, of “The Muckraker” column in the Colorado Times Recorder, a few days ago. Logan gets that question a lot from readers and folks who are battered by Trump’s firehose blasts of chaos, WTFs, and savage cruelty.
Like me and you.
I think interest and enthusiasm have been waning over the national protests. There’s a certain redundancy in a series of protests that are remarkably alike — sign waving, speeches, horn-honking — and all on summer afternoons where it is getting hotter by the week.
The next big demonstration is September 1, Labor Day, where we can emphasize how Trump’s policies are screwing the middle and poor classes.
I do think Trump opponents need to settle on three, maybe five key issues between now and the 2026 mid-term elections, like:
- Medicare for all.
- Affordable housing for all.
- A national minimum wage of $20-25.
- End tariffs to tame inflation.
- Tax the rich so we can have nice things and Make America Great Again.
Of course, there are more issues than the above, which can be embellished to a fare-thee-well and interlinked with the existential threats of climate warming, ICE Gestapo terrorizing immigrants, threats to voting rights or even having a 2026 election, authoritarian extortion threats to Blue cities and states, academia, the media, the judicial system, and human decency.
The above kitchen table issues are easy to remember and need to be endlessly repeated at every opportunity, in plain language. White papers and learned lectures should never take center stage.
For activists, I understand Indivisible is developing social media sites that can give activists more and better tools for building community support and generate new ideas on how to galvanize neighbors.
You can’t do everything without burnout. Identify one or two things for your focus, and be kind to yourself.
This is gonna be a long slog.
