Resistance from Sea to Shining Sea
I've been traveling, which means being blessedly offline a lot more than usual, but I'm settled for a while, and there's so much to say. Before I say anything elaborate or essayistic, I just want to say THERE IS A LOT OF RESISTANCE GOING ON, AND IT IS GOING ON ALL OVER. ALL KINDS OF IT. HERE IS A SHORT INFORMAL TOUR OF SOME OF IT.
The big story today is that Trump is trying to take over Washington D.C. and the good people of that city are having none of it. The FreeDC project (FreeDC.org) founded in 2023 is doing gorgeous work to organize big noncooperation, and there's already a protest and lots more planned at https://freedcproject.org/events.
This crackdown/power grab is exceedingly authoritarian and also a creative way to try to distract people from the Epstein files and Trump's long and close ties to the child trafficker. Don't let that topic fade out even though all this other stuff needs to be addressed too. The deep irony is that the single biggest day of violent crime in the capital's history was January 6, 2021, and the instigator sits in the White House. Crime is way down in D.C. (but we all know they make up excuses and these lies are part of the corrosion).
In Chicago, activists disrupted a job fair.
An Ohio chapter of Indivisible organized an eight-mile-long human chain to advocate for immigrant rights.
In Arizona, a state senator told a powerful right-wing operative she wasn't intimidated and would keep exposing ICE locations.
She's not the only politician facing down the administration, by far.
There are many but for now I'll just shout out my rep. in the California State Senate, Scott Wiener, whose bill to ban law enforcement from hiding their faces is advancing and will be voted on soon. Courthouse News reported in July: Senate Bill 627 — called the No Secret Police Act — is a direct response to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials taking people into custody while masked and without identification. The bill, written by San Francisco Democratic state Senator Scott Wiener, would prohibit local, state or federal law enforcement officers from masking their face, with some exceptions. 'We’re here today because we have a dictator in the White House,' said Assemblymember Nick Schultz, a Burbank Democrat and committee chair, supporting the bill. “Secret police have no place in the state of California.' Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez, a Los Angeles Democrat, said. “No one enforcing the law should get to hide from the people they serve.'”
Also in California, Governor Newsom's lawsuit against the Trump administration just went to court today, to determine whether sending the California National Guard to L.A.– that is, using the military against civilians--violated the Posse Comitatus Act. And as KQED notes, "California Gov. Gavin Newsom threatened to sue the Trump administration on Friday over what he called “extortion,” after the federal government proposed that UCLA pay $1 billion to settle allegations of antisemitism at UCLA and restore more than half a billion dollars in frozen federal grant funding."
I suspect by Newsom they mean Rob Bonta, California's bold and effective attorney general. The L.A. Times quotes the gloriously litigious Bonta as saying, "For each dollar the state has spent in litigation with Trump, it has recouped $33,600 in funds that the federal government has tried to take away from the Golden State, according to Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta." The story continues, "So far, these lawsuits by California have ensured that about $168 billion that Trump would have cut off instead continued to flow to California. Bonta said that in the 19 cases that have made it in front of a judge so far, he’s succeeded in 17, including winning 13 court orders directly blocking Trump’s 'illegal actions.'"
There are some more politicians standing up in ways worth celebrating: the Texas Democratic lawmakers who fled the state to prevent the Texas legislature from achieving quorum on a sleazy plan to further gerrymander the state. What's not said often enough is that the Republican attempt to create more safe districts for Republicans to try to hold onto the house in the midterms tells us something important: they're scared they're going to lose big, because they know what they're doing is so unpopular. Those lawmakers have been welcomed by the governors of Illinois, California, and New York.
Oh and switching from elected officials to the people who elect them– in Nebraska, NPR reports, "Representative Mike Flood felt the full fury of his constituents over his support of President Trump's 'One Big Beautiful Bill at a town hall meeting in Lincoln, Nebraska this week." It ended in chants of Vote Him Out.
A beautiful alliance stopped progress on building Alligator Alcatraz, the Trump gulag in the Everglades. Gizmodo writes: "Progress on Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” ground to a halt on Thursday, August 7, when a federal judge ordered a two-week ban on construction. The ruling follows a hearing in a lawsuit by environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians. The plaintiffs—Earthjustice, the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Everglades, and the Miccosukee—allege that hasty construction of the facility in the Everglades unlawfully moved forward without public input or an environmental impact statement. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams temporarily barred installation of new industrial-style lighting, paving, filling, excavating, or any other site expansion at the facility while she considers the case, the Associated Press reports." That's a striking coalition--two national environmental groups, a local one, and a Native nation. And they won a temporary victory.
Those imprisoned in the gulag also engaged in resistance, with a hunger strike. In July, local activist groups including the Florida Immigration Coalition protested on the road to the site. There will be another protest there on August 23, organized by a local chapter of Indivisible (and yeah, Indivisible is amazing and its myriad local chapters are doing fantastic work, and if you want to donate to an anti-Trump group, consider sending it their way). https://www.mobilize.us/mobilize/event/826766/
The ACLU is also suing the Trump Administration over the violation of rights of those incarcerated in the impromptu prison and they're also a great place to send money to support the resistance if you're so moved. (Earlier this summer I made donations to both organizations from the proceeds of this newsletter.)
And I love the people are continuing to show up for national parks, including Great Smoky Mountains National Park here. (Not sure if they're in the North Carolina or Tennessee part of the park.)
Oh yeah! Stanford's student newspaper is suing Marco Rubio and Kristi Noem for their chilling effect on free speech and first-amendment rights. The plaintiffs include a John and Jane Doe who are non-citizen journalists who have lost their ability to speak freely now that people are being deported for dissent. I think that some major media outlet, not a student paper, should've signed, but good for them.
I'm not sure I'm as sanguine as Robert Hubbell, who writes in his most recent newsletter: "In ways large and small, the Trump administration is failing. The performative cruelty is playing well with about one-third of Americans, but is driving Independents, persuadable Republicans, and nearly every Democrat to oppose a sitting president with greater fervor than at any point in modern presidential history. The tide has turned, but the Mad King wades deeper into the swelling surf, commanding the waves to retreat. It is only a matter of time (and hard work on our part) before he will be swamped. Watching the spectacle is difficult because legacy media outlets are reporting breathlessly on each dramatic but futile gesture while ignoring the slow but inexorable rising tide."
But I sure agree that the great majority of Americans are not happy with how things are going from the price of eggs and coming catastrophe of tariffs to the violations of human rights and the attacks on the rule of law. It's not enough that people are furious in opposition to this regime. That's the foundation, but not the house. Feelings and beliefs have to become action. I just described many actions, but we need something more, more concerted, more powerful, more irresistible, more decisive.
All the small actions are great– they are exercising our muscles of democracy, holding the line on our rights, telling our politicians where the people stand, and telling others to stand with us. We need more and I believe more will come. I don't know what, I don't know how, and I don't know when. But I do know that when people know the opposition is broad and deep they feel encouraged in their own resistance, and that's what this little round-up is here to do. We are standing up, from coast to coast, in Nebraska and Florida and Illinois and Arizona and Ohio. Don't stop now.
p.s. Great essay about how the Danes refused, sometimes quietly, often effectively, to cooperate with the Nazis during the occupation of Denmark: https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/danish-resistance/
