How Activists Must Resist Trump -

The mentally ill in San Fran have not gone away. Nor have they received institutionalized or daily therapy. Instead, every day they show that reality is not part of their lives. Literally, Trump is living rent free in their minds and they are paralyzed by the mere thought of the President.

“University of Pennsylvania Professor Desmond Patton teaches a “Journey to Joy” class encouraging his students to develop a Joy Plan. “Joy,” Professor Patton writes, “is one of the few things you do have control over. It’s yours to shape, to nurture, to call on when you need it…Joy can -and should- be a vehicle for transformational justice.” He offers a mini-lesson from the class each week on LinkedIn. An example of a joy plan is here.

Local and State Activism

Many will respond to Trump by addressing local and state problems not controlled by the federal government. For example, Donald Trump is not preventing San Francisco from closing open air drug markets. He did not cause New York’s governor to unnecessarily delay congestion pricing. Trump’s not the force pushing the unnecessary widening of Interstate 5 through Portland’s Rose Quarter. And he’s not to blame for cities using exclusionary zoning to stop new apartment construction.

You get the point.

Most activists work locally rather than nationally. I promoted national activism in a book I wrote in 1999 for the University of California Press —Reclaiming America: Nike, Clean Air and the New National Activism. But it has always been necessary to work locally and statewide. This cannot be abandoned because Trump is in the White House.

What must emerge is what Democrats failed to create in 2009 and 2021: ongoing organizations educating and mobilizing voters to support progressive national policies on health care, housing, education, transportation, immigration and other social and economic justice goals.”

If you see one of these people, stay clear. These folks can get violent.

How Activists Must Resist Trump

by Randy Shaw, Beyon Chron, 1/21/25 https://beyondchron.org/how-activists-should-respond-to-trump/

Election Groups Must Shift to Resistance

As Donald Trump again occupies the White House, recent history offers models for successful resistance. But it requires major donors who opposed Trump’s election to finance these models. The Harris campaign showed that door to door outreach cannot just occur in the months before an election. Instead, ongoing national grassroots activism, particularly among young voters, is a must.

It’s the best strategy for defeating Trump’s policies and winning future elections.

Psychological Impact and Responses

Many are suffering mental distress since Trump’s election. The United States elected a president whose sexual assaults and felony convictions would have left him unelectable if running for mayor or city council. Trump defeated a Black-South Asian woman former prosecutor and U.S. Senator who ran a campaign that most deemed brilliant until she lost.

People adjust to tragedies in their own way.

University of Pennsylvania Professor Desmond Patton teaches a “Journey to Joy” class encouraging his students to develop a Joy Plan. “Joy,” Professor Patton writes, “is one of the few things you do have control over. It’s yours to shape, to nurture, to call on when you need it…Joy can -and should- be a vehicle for transformational justice.” He offers a mini-lesson from the class each week on LinkedIn. An example of a joy plan is here.

Local and State Activism

You get the point.

Mobilizing Between Elections

Democrats know how to educate and mobilize voters. Barack Obama and the Democratic Party built a massive Obama for America movement connecting previously unaffiliated activists for his 2008 campaign.

After Obama’s 2008 victory I wrote, “After the Victory, Engaging Obama Volunteers.” I saw his massive grassroots campaign as becoming the mobilizing base for his presidency. But Obama disempowered this massive organization just when it was needed most. When the Tea Party emerged to resist Obama’s plans for real health care reform, comprehensive immigration reform, and other big 2009 priorities, the powerful grassroots campaign organization that elected Obama was gone.

Obama wrecked Democrats most effective grassroots activist organization reportedly because his campaign manager did not want Organizing for America volunteers to pressure elected Democrats. Obama tried to rectify his mistake by creating Organizing for Action in January 2013 but Democrats had already lost the House.

What does resistance in between elections look like?

In the late 1980’s my late friend Fred Ross Jr. led the group Neighbor to Neighbor in running a cost-effective national campaign to stop U.S. military aid to El Salvador. Using door to door outreach learned from his years with the United Farmworkers (a legacy I describe in my book, Beyond the Fields), Ross’s dropped organizers into key congressional districts and built powerful local anti-intervention coalitions. In 1988, the group had more than 100 organizers working in eleven states and eighteen congressional districts. It won congressional votes against the George H.W. Bush administration that few thought possible (American Agitators, a film about Ross Jr. and his father Fred Ross, Sr., will be out this year).

Given the GOP’s tiny House margin, picking off the handful of votes necessary to stop bad legislation can clearly be done. Picking off four Republican senators will be more difficult but not impossible on some issues, But both strategies require dropping skilled organizers into key congressional districts and the targeted national activism described above.

This involves more than social media posts. Or national marches.

Rather, it requires groups that raised millions for Democratic presidential campaigns to now fund fulltime organizers to win congressional votes. And to create vehicles for unaffiliated activists to join the national resistance. The door to door outreach pioneered by Cesar Chavez’s farmworker movement in the 1960’s and 70’s and then used by the Obama campaign in 2008 must be rebuilt.

Obama’s Organizing for America model would maximize resistance to Trump while building a national base for future presidential campaigns. Many national organizations had plans to mobilize to pass President Harris’ goals; now they must invest in defeating Trump’s extreme agenda.

Normalizing Trump

The same national media that spent 2024 normalizing Trump has now concluded that the “vibe” has shifted away from resistance. These reporters don’t know what “resistance” actually means.

Two million did not take to the streets to protest Trump’s 2025 inauguration as occurred in 2017. My January 19, 2017 story, “Why Protesting Trump Matters,” preceded the biggest day of protest in U.S. history.

But national marches are the wrong strategy for 2025. They require massive coordination and do not stop bad legislation. Direct action can deter and even stop deportations of non-violent undocumented immigrants, but those marches and protests address Trump actions not subject to Congress. Defeating GOP legislation requires national organizations to wage targeted organizing in key districts and states, not mounting national protests

Election-oriented groups acted fast to add staff and recruit volunteers when Harris suddenly replaced Biden as the nominee. They should replicate this process now.

Resistance to Trump becomes easier when he actually tries to implement his extreme plans. Post-election interviews found Trump voters believing their health care would be safe and their undocumented family members would not be deported. When they see otherwise, these alienated Trump voters need to be offered viable alternative policies; that requires grassroots organizing.

Many remain depressed about what Trump’s victory says about the United States. But as Simon Rosenberg of Hopium Chronicles put it, “We cannot let his daily madness become our own.” Working to defeat Trump’s extreme agenda is a great way to feel better about the nation’s future.