Tag Archives: history

Millions in the Streets Nationally Make History

Future Hope, , , ,

I’ve been surprised the past week to hear some people, not many but some, telling me that they or people they know aren’t planning to attend a No Kings action this Saturday. These are people who have progressive or liberal or radical ideas, who oppose what is happening under the Trump regime and who are activists of some sort.

For some people it’s because they don’t think the message of No Kings is as radical as they would like it to be. For others it’s because the coalition of groups organizing these actions isn’t as multi-racial, led by people of color, as they would like it to be. And for some it’s because the tactics being used are seen as too tame, not at the level that the urgency of our situation calls for, as in direct action that risks arrest.

There’s truth to all of these concerns, but to stay away from the Saturday actions because of them is a mistake. Right now, as has been true since Trump and the Republicans were elected into White House and Congressional power 17 months ago, the power of the people, people mobilized and visible in very big numbers all over the country—this is a crucial component of the resistance against these Trumpfascists.

What if all of these types of mobilizations had not taken place last year, 2025? History will absolutely record that the multiple days of local actions all over the country, beginning in early February, 2025 with 50 actions in 50 state capitols organized by 50501, organized primarily by young people, and continuing through to 7 million coming out on October 18 organized by No Kings, played a, if not the, major role in turning US politics around in a progressive direction on a mass scale.

The Trump regime is underwater in the polls, down by 15% or more, partly because of their policies and incompetence, but also because of our movement’s visible resistance all last year. This resistance took many forms, a lot of it in on-the-ground opposition to ICE, and it included these nationally coordinated days of action.

Our job in 2026 is to keep building upon those political victories to keep up the pressure on the Democrats to get them to put up stronger fights for the many things that matter as far as major issues. In the process we can and are building our own independent political organizations and candidacies for electoral office that put the needs of working people and our disrupted climate and environment absolutely first, before anything else.

No Kings Day this Saturday will help that process continue and grow. Not to take part in it, to consciously decide not to do so, is a mistake.

All out for resistance Saturday! And let’s just keep going afterwards.

 Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of two books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, published in 2020 and 2021 and both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.

Not a Third Party, a Third Force, or, 21st Century Common Sense Part 5

Future Hope, , , ,

In Part One of this planned series of articles, I wrote about the historical timeliness of a ‘third force’ strategy. I said, “This isn’t something pulled out of the air, or someone’s lofty dreams. It is grounded in historical experience in the United States over the last 60 or so years.”

A progressive “third force,” one that is both activist and electoral, that does day-do-day community, workplace and school organizing, that brings together those who see themselves as independents, who are critical of both the dominant sector of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, those who have a critique of “the system,” combined with those who may have a similar critique but who have decided for practical reasons to carry on that fight in part within the Democratic Party—this is what is needed right now to defeat fascism and lay the basis for more positive change going forward over coming years and decades.

What “historical experience in the United States over the last 60 years” am I referring to?

In the early 1970’s, as the Vietnam War was coming to an end, a civil rights lawyer, Arthur Kinoy, wrote a 60-or-so page document, “Toward a Mass Party of the People,” which articulated his reasoning about why this was not just a good idea but a timely idea.

This was NOT the kind of direction seen as the right one by many of the Black Freedom, anti-war, women’s and other activists who had taken part in the movements of the 50s and 60s. Older Left groups criticized this idea and continued to work primarily within the Democratic Party. Younger people rejected the idea and, for a decent percentage of them, instead wrongly acted as if the USA was like Russia or China prior to their revolutions. These US revolutionaries created organizations which attempted to use similar approaches toward systemic change, ideologically and organizationally, as did revolutionaries from those two very different kinds of countries. By the early 80’s those approaches were revealing themselves to be political dead ends in the USA.

What WAS having an impact, however, were the Mayoral candidacies in 1983 of Mel King in Boston and Harold Washington in Chicago. Both were progressive, movement-oriented Black men with long histories in community organizing. King came in first in a multi-candidate primary but because he did not get a majority of the overall vote, lost in a runoff against the second place finisher, but Washington won in Chicago and became Mayor.

King called his campaign the Boston Rainbow Coalition, emphasizing its multi-racial character. In 1983 Jesse Jackson began to openly explore running for President to build a national “rainbow coalition.” His campaign consciously and openly brought together both progressive Democrats and those in the Mass Party group, Independent Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Progressive Coalition, and others who were NOT Democrats.

History has shown the relative success of this approach to politics. Jackson polled about 3.3 million votes in total in 1984 and about seven million votes in 1988. Unfortunately, he did not support the continued building of a nationwide Rainbow Coalition in 1989 despite it starting to take root and developing in many parts of the country.

Next up were groups like Campaign for a New Tomorrow, the Labor Party, the New Party (which became the Working Families Party), and the Green
Party. CNT and the Labor Party died out but Working Families and Greens continued and still exist, with the Greens following a strategy of running for President every four years. Their high point with that strategy came in 2000 when Ralph Nader ran for President as a Green, but he polled only 2.7% of the vote. The Green Party nationally has been floundering ever since, with no Presidential candidate getting more than 1.1% of the vote.

So has anything worked over these many years of various efforts? Yes!

The two Bernie Sanders campaigns for President in 2016 and 2020 and the successful campaigns in Democratic primaries of many other more local candidates, people like AOC and Ilhan Omar as two major examples, have worked. They have without question strengthened the overall progressive movement, not just when it comes to elections but as far as other forms of organizing and activism that are non-electoral.

When Bernie was considering his first run for the Presidency in 2015, he openly asked for input into whether he should run as an Independent—the only way that he had run for office up to that point in time—or within the Democratic Party. I, along with Bill Fletcher, wrote an article with our ideas on this. We said, in part:

“The political reality of the United States of America today is that the vast majority of strong progressives who run for political office, people with similar politics as Bernie’s, do so within Democratic primaries. We may wish it was different, but it is not. This has to be taken into account in determining the tactics of a strong progressive Presidential campaign. . .

“The last ‘third party’ candidate to actually be elected was Abraham Lincoln, winning with 36% of the vote because there were four major Presidential candidates in 1860. . .

“The bottom line for us, and we believe for Bernie, should be that he runs for President in a way which brings together, holds together and builds that broad progressive coalition. He should be very clear and forthright that this is the path to ultimate victory and social and economic transformation in this country and make his decisions accordingly.”

Bernie’s national “third force,” not “third party,” strategic/tactical approach was right then, and it still is today. At some point in the future, particularly if there is significant growth in the number of progressive candidates running on non-two-party lines for local offices and winning, that could change, but until that happens history and experience are telling us: it’s time for a conscious Third Force!

 Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of two books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, published in 2020 and 2021 and both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.

Trying to Dig Deeper, or 21st Century Common Sense, Part 4

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“A huge problem, up there at the top of the list, is that the history of efforts over the last many centuries to create truly just and democratic societies, run by organized people, not oligarchs, has at best yielded mixed results since the Russian Revolution of 1917.”

These words were part of the first column of this series of my Future Hope columns, planned to be at least 10 of them. I’m calling this series “21st Century Common Sense.”

So what is my “common sense” about why the world is in the state it’s in?

-One very big reason is the fact that revolutions trying to bring into being much more egalitarian and just societies, societies improving the lives and gaining power over decision-making for working-class and low-income people, took place in countries, Russia and China in particular, which had just a small amount of industry and not much of an urban working class. They were overwhelmingly peasant-based societies. This meant there were limitations, both economically and as far as the experience of organization on the part of regular people, that led to very real distortions and much worse, when it came to how society was reorganized after the overthrow of the ruling powers by revolutionary organizations.

-Another very real reason has been the problem of male dominance, leadership of organizations avowedly about positive social change to benefit working-class people dominated by backwards and oppressive cultural practices where men are assumed to be the “natural” leaders.

Because of the impact, staying power and growth of the late 1960’s women’s movement growing, in large part, out of the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s, there has been not just a growth in various sectors of US society in the percentage of women in leadership but also a growth in an understanding of more and more men that this is good and right.

-Another reason is a similar process when it comes to the issue of racism. The victories of the civil rights/Black Freedom movement back then had lasting impacts in so many ways. Not only did it change racist US laws in 1964, 1965 and beyond, it undoubtedly inspired many other movements—Indigenous, Mexicans/Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, other Latinos/as/e, Asian Americans, lgbtq+ people, progressive trade unionism, immigrant rights, disability rights, student rights, family farmers, environmental and climate protection, for peace with justice, liberation theology and more.

At first, the proliferation of these movements led to overall movement difficulties. Which issue–class, race, gender or something else–was the most important, or the most strategic when it came to changing human society? There was competition over material resources to support all the different organizations which grew out of this new political milieu, a continuing issue.

Over time, over the past decades, I see positive changes as far as these and other challenges. There is, overall, a definite understanding on the part of many millions of us, the many millions of activists and organizers who are at work in our own particular vineyards, whether it be by geography, by issue, by specific tactics, or something else—there is an understanding that we absolutely must and are finding ways to join our struggles, all of which ultimately have a common enemy: the billionaire/multi-multi-millionaire class which literally dominates not just US society but much of the world.

But these difficulties in uniting aren’t the only reasons why the Trumpfascists are now in the positions of power they are.

US society is in need of a lot of change, but it is a fact that, so far, those in positions of governmental power, whether it be in the White House, in Congress, in state legislatures or in cities/towns/townships/villages, are chosen through a process of elections. This dynamic is deeply rooted among the U.S. American people. Yes, big corporate money has much influence, particularly at higher levels, and yes, there are various ways the US electoral system can become much more democratic, like through ranked choice, proportional representation and public financing of elections, but the key point in the context of this column is that social change movements, sooner or later, must contend within the electoral system for power.

Individual progressives and progressive organizations in the past and still today have fallen prey to one of two very real mistakes in working to win the votes of the masses of people who, through their voting, do actually decide who wins. One mistake is for candidates for office to articulate our approach to issues, create a platform, which does not take into account where the people we are trying to influence are as far as their consciousness on issues or in the language they can relate to, and as a result we can come across as too narrow, too dogmatic, not flexible enough, too ultra-left, etc. The other mistake is the opposite: to be TOO flexible, not firm enough on basic principles, too willing to bend too far toward one or another of the corporate class’s positions on issues, understanding that they are not monolithic but in general are primarily looking out for their own power and wealth.

“Purist” politics and “opportunistic” politics: these are two huge mistakes made in the past which have narrowed progressive possibilities for electoral and other victories.

How can we make progress on these weaknesses? The first step is to identify them as very real problems and to then talk about them, interact about them, to at least minimize these errors happening, moving toward their becoming, over time, mistakes that we have pretty much transcended.

Paulo Freire, in his must-read book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, has some very relevant input on the “how” question:

“The correct method for a revolutionary leadership to employ in the task of liberation is, therefore, not ‘libertarian propaganda.’ . . The correct method lies in dialogue. The conviction of the oppressed that they must fight for their liberation is not a gift bestowed by the revolutionary leadership, but the result of their own conscientizacao [consciousness raising]. . . Dialogue cannot exist, however, in the absence of a profound love for the world and for people. Love is at the same time the foundation of dialogue and dialogue itself. Because love is an act of courage, not of fear, love is commitment to others. . . In dialogical theory, at no stage can revolutionary action forgo communion with the people, really human, empathetic, loving, communicative and humble, in order to be liberating.”  (1)

Wise words grounded in experience and commitment. Thank you, Paulo Freire.

  •  Paulo Freire, 1970, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, pps. 53-54, 77-78 and 171

  Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of two books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, published in 2020 and 2021 and both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.

Facing Up to Our Historical Tasks

Future Hope, , , ,

or, 21st Century Common Sense, Part 2

By Ted Glick

Rebellions against injustice and poverty go back centuries, millenia, throughout the world. People “on the bottom” of human societies, sooner or later, get themselves organized to put up a fight. Because of this historical reality, when it is combined with changes in consciousness and/or guilt among some middle- and even upper-class people, and despite our human weaknesses whatever our class, gender or color/culture, humanity has made some progress over these many decades and centuries. 

This column addresses some of what I see as happening since Karl Marx and Frederich Engels wrote and published the Communist Manifesto in the 1840’s, 180 years ago. This and other writings by them significantly impacted those in Europe, as well as elsewhere, who were trying to overthrow or change the oppressive and violent governments of that day.

One of their most famous sayings as far as what they were working for was human society governed by the principle, “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.” This was very similar to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth 1800 years before in Palestine, as written by and about the early Christians after he had been killed. This is what was said in the Bible Book of Acts, Chapter 2, verses 44 and 45: “All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.”

We in the US and the world have the great misfortune of being currently ruled by someone who would like to be the world’s Pharaoh. A big part of the reason for this is the control over US political life by the billionaires and multi-multi-millionaires (MMM’s). This has been true for both the dominant sector of the Democratic Party, as well as the Republican Party, though different in the societal results. This, plus other aspects of the US electoral system, like winner-take-all (not proportional) elections and corporate control of mass media, have extremely stacked the deck against those of us who want society to be motivated not by greed and power-seeking but by justice and higher love.

However, things are changing for the better.

Rev. Jesse Jackson’s US President campaigns in 1984 and 1988 were an essential part of that change, followed 30 years later by Bernie Sanders’ 2016 and 2020 campaigns. Sanders’ campaigns showed visibly that broad masses of the US American people were ready for something very different. This independent socialist received over 13 million votes nationally in the 2016 Democratic primaries.

Also responsible for our improving prospects are the myriad number of popular-based, visible, action campaigns and day-to-day organizing on a wide range of issues going back to historic impact of the South-based civil rights movement of the 1950’s: racial and economic justice, women’s rights, lgbtq+ rights, workplace and labor organizing, environmental protection and climate defense, actions for peace, new forms of progressive mass media, and more.

As a result of all of this, we are not without weapons as we fight the 21st century fascists. Inspiring, refuse-to-give-up, organized mass resistance against militaristic ICE over the last many months in Los Angeles, Portland, Chicago, Minneapolis and elsewhere has won important victories. It has shown us that when masses of people are organically connected with those of us with shared values and organizing skills, we can win.

What do we need to keep in mind as we continue onward?

From my activist and organizing experiences over the years I see these as continuing issues we must keep addressing:

A Third Force: In Part One of this planned series of articles, I wrote about the historical timeliness of a “third force” strategy. This isn’t something pulled out of the air, or someone’s lofty dreams. It is grounded in historical experience in the United States over the last 50 or so years. A “third force” that brings together those who see themselves as independents, who are critical of both the dominant sector of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, those who have a critique of “the system,” combined with those who may have a similar critique but who have decided for practical reasons to carry on that fight in part within the Democratic Party—this is what is needed right now to defeat fascism and lay the basis for more positive change going forward over coming years and decades.

Anti-racism among the masses: It is not enough to be anti-racist on a personal level or even, if you are a white person, to be in active solidarity with the struggles of people of color. Also essential, particularly in this critical election year, is conscious work among other white people who have been so infected with the ideas of white supremacy that they’ll support a white, corrupt, billionaire-loving fascist before they’ll support a Black, Brown or Indigenous, working-class fighter for justice for all. Breaking more white people away from, or beginning to question, MAGA ideology and practice is very strategic in 2026.

-Anti-sexism among the masses: The dominance of white, upper-class, backwards-thinking men over government or business is central to  Trumpfascist thinking and practice. They have set themselves against the so-needed, historical trend toward the liberation of women and societal change in so many ways. Progress in this area has been made on the part of human society over the last half-century that clearly threaten the rich, white, male ruling class. Upholding those changes and resisting Trumpist efforts to return society to 1950’s-style lifestyles is a potent issue in 2026.

-Class-consciousness: Throughout all of this on-going work must be an understanding that US society and human society worldwide has not made significant advances beyond the basic unfairness of an economic system that maintains differences in class for most people over many generations. It is true that, to some extent, life for more working-class people today is better than it was before FDR’s New Deal, the Chinese anti-colonial revolution, and other anti-colonial victories, but we still have a long way to go. Working-class people are a majority in US and most societies. A movement for positive change in which they are not significantly in leadership is a movement which will likely fail.

-Nonviolence as a tactic and a way of life, not necessarily our overall strategy: This could be the most controversial of all of these views of mine. I have never seen myself as a pacifist, have always believed that there have been and may be in the future situations which leave no choice but to use force, including armed force, to bring about much-needed change. However, the specific tactics I have used as part of the progressive movement in the USA since the 1960’s have always been nonviolent, and I have come to believe very strongly that a “nonviolent,” humane, loving way of living with other people, day after day, hour after hour, is the way we should all try to live. This isn’t just for personal reasons, my trying to be the best human being I can be. It is also because, very clearly, the use of overt violence can be used by those we are fighting against to try to discredit us with masses of people who do not know us on a personal level. I believe that this understanding must—and generally already does—pervade all of our collective work for social change.

Finally, a positive internal culture: This is not a new idea; far from it. For example, in 1996 a predominantly people of color, multi-racial group of people met in Jemez, NM and came up with a set of “Principles for Democratic Organizing.” Their staying power and adoption by many groups ever since reflect a growing understanding of the need for a more group-centered, loving and respectful way of organizing. There are six principles: Be Inclusive. Emphasis on Bottom-Up Organizing. Let People Speak for Themselves. Work Together in Solidarity and Mutuality. Build Just Relationships Among Ourselves. Commitment to Self-Transformation. The final three sentences are: “As we change societies, we must change from operating in the mode of individualism to community-centeredness. We must ‘walk our talk.’ We must be the values that we say we are struggling for and we must be justice, be peace, be community.”

There are many reasons to despair in today’s world, but there are more to maintain hope and resilience. Learning from the past, committed to helping to develop a new world for our children, grandchildren and the seven generations to come, let us make 2026 a turning point year in the USA toward that objective.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of two books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, published in 2020 and 2021 and both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.

21st Century Common Sense, Part One

Future Hope, , , ,

A quarter of the way through this century, there is no doubt that the USA and the world are in deep trouble. This is true for everyone, even the families of those most responsible for this state of affairs, the “Epstein class” and those supporting them. Given the fact that the burning of fossils fuels and nukes, the continued reliance on destructive war as a way of determining who runs individual countries, and the growing disparity between the billionaire/multi-multi-millionaire (MMM) class and those who must work for a living, often barely making it—these and related injustices are what must be transcended, must be overcome, asap. The future of the world literally depends upon whether we can transcend them over the coming years.

For us in the United States of America, the immediate issue is the Trumpfascist efforts to impose dictatorial rule to the benefit of the billionaire class and those MMM’s hoping to become billionaires. As of the time of this writing a key next step in the resistance to these efforts is the November, 2026 federal elections, which should result in the Democrats, aligned with progressive Independents like Bernie Sanders, winning control of at least the House of Representatives, as things now appear is very likely.

But even if they take the House and Senate, and even if the percentage of House and Senate members who are strong and consistent progressives grows significantly, this alone will not yield the kind of changes the world desperately needs. For one thing, would-be dictator Trump will still be President, able to use his White House power in destructive ways, like unnecessary and brutal wars, rising economic, racial, gender and other inequality and hateful discrimination, and major attacks on wind, solar and electric vehicles.

A huge problem, up there at the top of the list, is that the history of efforts over the last many centuries to create truly just and democratic societies, run by organized people, not oligarchs, has at best yielded mixed results since the Russian Revolution of 1917.

In a book I wrote and self-published in 2021, five years ago, here is what I put forward as the key aspect of a “winning strategy, the one that is the key link to the social transformation process so urgently needed: the building and deepening of a way of working together and developing organizations that is collaborative, respectful, democratic its core and which, as a result, is truly transformative, built to last.” 1) 21st Century Revolution: Through Higher Love, Racial Justice and Democratic Cooperation, p. 22

This has to be our starting point as we try to determine how we change the world. Also necessary is an understanding of the urgency of the climate crisis. More than any other issue, this is one which must always be seen as a top priority. The amount of damage already done and sure to be done in the future, particularly to low-income people, the vast majority of the world’s population, primarily people of color, cannot be underestimated. We are literally running out of time to transition away from fossil fuels and to be about much more community-building and collaborative approaches to solving problems as they escalate as ecosystems, food and water supplies become increasingly less dependable.

Indeed, this existential reality for the entire planet is a reason that change is not just necessary, not just possible, but very much on the agenda of humankind.

As stated by the late Father Paul Mayer, “What history is calling for is nothing less than the creation of a new human being. We must literally reinvent ourselves through the alchemy of the Spirit”—or however one describes that unseen, powerful force in the universe which, down through history, has inspired people to do things which seem impossible—“or perish. We are being divinely summoned to climb another rung on the evolutionary ladder, to another level of human consciousness.” (2)  Paul Mayer, “Wrestling with Angels”, back cover

To be frank, it is not enough to be against Donald Trump and MAGA, or against the control of both major parties in the USA, the Democrats and the Republicans, or even to be committed to hard work for the next eight and a half months here in the USA to defeat the billionaire-supporting, fascist President Donald Trump. Our problems are too deep to accept this essential next step as the ultimate goal. Short-term, essential goal yes, but looking at things historically, it can only be the first major step in a fundamental, revolutionary process that over time not just saves the planet and its people but, at long last, matches our desires as a species with the way that we organize ourselves, economically, politically, culturally and socially.

  Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of two books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, published in 2020 and 2021 and both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.

Are Republicans and Democrats the Same?

Future Hope, , , ,

Early in my progressive activist/organizer life, begun in 1968, I was a big believer in the need for a “third party.” A primary reason was the prosecution of the Vietnam War by Democratic President Lyndon Johnson. As I studied in college in 1967 about the history of that war, I learned that the USA had taken over from France the role of imperialist colonizer in the mid-50’s after the French were defeated by the Vietnamese independence forces.

US imperialism in Vietnam was not benign. Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese by 1968 had been killed as the US supported a series of brutally repressive South Vietnamese governments. By 1968 tens of thousands of US American soldiers had been killed. And the war was escalating.

Republican and Democratic politicians supported all of this. Begun under Eisenhower, this war was continued under Kennedy and then under Johnson. It is similar to the many, many months of bipartisan support for Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. There were progressive Democrats in Congress who were calling for a ceasefire very soon after Hamas’ October 7th attack in southern Israel, but their numbers were small at first. Over time and as the genocide continued, it was among Democrats only that larger numbers of them spoke out.

There are lots of other examples of usually bipartisan support for a US foreign policy all about world domination. That is why there are 750 or more US military bases in 80 countries and a trillion dollars a year military budget.

US foreign policy is not about “freedom.” It is about dominance to benefit the fossil fuel industry, the weapons of war industry and other US corporate investments throughout the world.

However, and it is a big “however,” some of the opposition to all of this has always come, in part, from within the Democratic Party, stimulated by independent, issue-oriented, peace and justice organizations. In March of 1968 Eugene McCarthy almost won the New Hampshire Democratic Presidential primary, after which Robert Kennedy, another critic of the war, entered the Presidential race. In response, on March 31, Lyndon Johnson announced he would not run for reelection.

Nothing like this has ever happened within the Republican Party, and we can all see how thoroughly Trump/MAGA has taken it over in its drive to destroy democracy, institute fascist rule and be even more world-dominant. There are a very small number of Republican House and Senate members who have refused to always kiss Trump’s ring, but they are, indeed, a very small number.

What’s the point?

The Democratic Party for at least the last 65 years, since the election of John F. Kennedy, has always contained both a progressive component and a pro-corporate, pro-imperialist component. Even with the reality that the corporatists are almost always dominant, this is a very distinct difference from the Republican Party.

Right now there is no question that the progressives are in the ascendency, not in control but ascendent. This is a trend that began with Bernie Sanders’ 2015-2016 Presidential campaign and has continued and deepened ever since. The recent House of Representatives, Democratic primary, election victory just this past week of working-class activist and organizer Analilia Mejia in northern New Jersey is the latest example of this so-important political trend.

For a small sector of the political Left, this important political development isn’t seen as of much significance. That’s true for some whose ideological perspective is grounded in anarchism, which has always, from what I know, been skeptical if not hostile to electoral activity. Others are not necessarily anarchists but are so pissed off by the systemic injustices of US corporate capitalism and the dominance of billionaire money over it that they see electoral politics as too tame of a tactic. I can definitely identify with these feelings even as I believe that, strategically and tactically, we have no choice but to be involved in electoral politics if we are serious about systematic change in the USA.

Others are what I’d call “true believers” in the idea that another party, a “third party” running candidates right now at all levels, including for President, is the way to go. I used to be in this category. From 2000 to 2017 I was a member of the Green Party. I was actively involved on a national level in the Presidential campaigns of Ralph Nader in 2000 and David Cobb in 2004. After that, however, I pulled back and mainly worked on a local level in northern New Jersey on environmental, peace and racial justice issues within an activist Green Party group. I got back involved in national electoral politics only when Bernie announced his historic campaign in 2015.

I left the Green Party when I saw a tweet from Jill Stein, their 2016 Presidential candidate, saying that the Sanders campaign was all about being “sheepdogs” for the duopoly, bringing progressives into the Democratic Party. That was the last straw for me.

For 40 years I was part of efforts to form a “mass party of the people,” as described by the first “third party” group I was part of, beginning in 1975. It was called the “Mass Party Organizing Committee,” led by progressive and civil rights attorney Arthur Kinoy. One thing I liked about it was that it understood the need to forge an alliance between independents outside the Democratic Party and progressives within it. Because we did, we were among the first predominantly white progressive group to come out publicly in 1983 in support of Rev. Jesse Jackson running for President in the 1984 Democratic primaries.

Jackson talked publicly about the need to build a “third force,” different than a “third party,” and his campaign reflected that. It included both Democrats, particularly African Americans, and independents.

The Bernie Sanders campaigns in 2016 and 2020, though not grounded in the African American community to the extent of the Jackson campaign, something that ultimately undercut his 2020 efforts, are another example of the strategic and political power of this “third force” approach. He received over 13 million votes in 2016 and 9 ½ million in 2020. In 2025 he and AOC and their Fighting Oligarchy rallies all over the country were a critical component of the fightback against Trumpfascism.

As this absolutely crucial 2026 election season unfolds, off to a good start so far, let’s learn from the lessons of progressive electoral campaigns over the last 50 years, both inside and outside the Democratic Party. Up with the growing and deepening progressive third force!

  Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.

Casualties in the Fight for Democracy

Future Hope, , , ,

“Ultimately, what I have learned is that government repression can have a disruptive impact on our work, but we can turn a negative into a positive. The extent to which we can creatively, intelligently and fearlessly demonstrate the truth of what we are about when responding to what they are doing to us is the extent to which we will strengthen and build our movement.”

-from my 2020 book, Burglar for Peace: Lessons Learned in the Catholic Left’s Resistance to the Vietnam War

The murders of Rene Good and Alex Pretti by, in Joe Rogan’s words, “Gestapo”-like agents of ICE and Customs Border Protection is having huge political impacts. It’s so bad politically for the Trumpfascists that even Steven Miller has just put out a statement trying to put distance between him and the Pretti killing.

The Democratic Party in Congress is overwhelmingly unified as of right now in its efforts to force some changes in the way these agencies operate. That would not be happening to the degree and with the breadth that it is if not for these two murders.

But it’s not just the murders that are generating this response. It is the massive actions in the streets of Minneapolis/St. Paul, as well as elsewhere in solidarity. It is the organized, nonviolent, community-based efforts to make it hard for ICE/CBP to carry out their reign of terror without exposure and visible opposition via videos, whistles, horns and standing up for justice in the streets where they are trying to operate.

From all that I have seen, it is mainly white people who are in the streets. This makes sense given ICE/CBP’s use of racial profiling, stopping mainly Black and Brown people, in their search for undocumented immigrants. It is reasonable that many would want to limit their exposure to Trump’s agents of repression.

“Standing up for racial justice”—this is the name of an important national organization which, for years, has been working with white people to strengthen their anti-racist consciousness and willingness to take action against racism. This group and other predominantly white groups on local, state and national levels have been doing the same thing for a long time. The massive, multi-racial movement in response to the murder of George Floyd six years ago is another manifestation of what has been developing for many years throughout the country among progressive and decent white people at the grassroots.

This is a very good, very hopeful development.

Can we expect more people taking nonviolent solidarity actions in the streets to be physically attacked, arrested or killed? Yes. It is unrealistic to think otherwise given the depth of racism, patriarchal and militaristic ideas and practices among Trump supporters. But well-organized and disciplined activism and organizing can reduce those casualties.

A week after Trump was elected I wrote a column, Dealing With Government Repression, offering my ideas about how we could best deal with what we knew would be coming. I wrote this toward the beginning of it:

“There are a number of things which are essential to successful resistance to government repression. When I say ‘successful’ I don’t mean that there won’t be casualties on our side, people behind bars, some for months or years, or people physically attacked and injured or worse, or job losses or greater economic hardship. We need to accept that under a Trump/MAGA regime this is all likely.”

I went on to conclude with these words:

“It’s a drag that we’re on the defensive on a national level and will be for at least a couple years to come, but that’s where we are. There are so many issues that we won’t be able to move forward on nationally, the deepening climate emergency being a huge one. But in this time of testing we owe it to the best within us and to those coming after us to stand as strong and gentle and loving as we can as we go about our essential work and activism. Generations past have pointed the way for us, and generations to come are counting on us.”

So far, throughout the country, in inspiring and hopeful ways, we are rising up to our historic tasks. Our ancestors would be proud.

  Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.

Two Flags Flying

Future Hope, , , ,

For the last month or so there have been two small flags flying prominently outside the front door my and my wife’s house. One is an American flag, the other the Palestinian flag.

In the 46 years that Jane and I have been married we’ve never done anything like this. We’ve had issue-oriented signs in our front yard, and we’ve had Bernie, renewable energy, peace and other bumper stickers on the back of our car, but we’ve never flown flags where we’ve lived.

We’re flying the Palestinian flag because for over two years, since the terrible October 7th Hamas attack on Israel and, afterwards, the hugely more terrible, genocidal attack on all of Gaza by the Netanyahu government, we have demonstrated almost every week in a nearby town calling for a ceasefire, an end to US military support of Israel and justice for the Palestinian people.

For those who know us, it isn’t a surprise that we’re doing this.

But flying the American flag? For a very long time we’ve not done so largely because, going back to the Vietnam War days, we have seen that it has been right-wingers and conservatives who primarily use that flag to advance often-racist and imperialist agendas. And it’s definitely the case that, historically, when the US has engaged in military campaigns against Indigenous nations or in overseas, imperialist military campaigns going back to 1898, the US flag has been there.

The US flag now flying outside our door was likely given to us by someone at the October 18 No Kings action which we helped to organize in our town, after we came back from our trip this summer to Montana to visit our grandson, son and daughter-in-law. We left home in mid-July and came back eight weeks later, in September.

We got to Montana by driving our all-electric, 2018 Chevrolet Bolt out and back, close to a 5,000 mile round trip. Here is how I described our reasons for doing so and what we learned from it in a past Future Hope column:

“One of the reasons we decided to travel this way was to experience very directly areas of the country we had never been to or not been to for a long time. We hoped all would go well mechanically, as well as our interactions with people along the way as we stopped to charge the car, camp or stay overnight in motels, eat in restaurants, get food and drink during rest stops and then, in southwest Montana, interact with others for the five weeks we were there.

“I returned with a lot more hope about this country than I had before this trip. In the 12 states we went through or spent time in, most of them “red” or “purple,” we saw and heard very few signs of much support for Trump and his authoritarian government. I would estimate that, in all those eight weeks and thousands of miles, we saw no more than a dozen Trump signs and even fewer Trump hats or t-shirts being worn. People overwhelmingly were polite to us, as we were to them. There was virtually no evidence from these very many brief encounters that the USA at the grassroots has become a nasty, brutish, mean place.

“I am sure that if we had gotten into ideological/political discussions with the people we interacted with, most of them of European descent, there would have been some disagreements and tensions, but my sense is that, even when that were true, there would have been some points of agreement to be found.”

It was a hopeful trip. And the election results over the past month in many parts of the country, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana, California and elsewhere, all of which showed a definite and significant shift away from the Trumpists, confirmed what we experienced.

Indiana was one of the states we went through, one of the most conservative of the northern US states. 80% of the members of the Indiana state senate are Republicans. But just a few days ago half of those Republicans, 20 out of 50 Senators in total, voted down a Trump-pushed plan to gerrymander US Congressional districts so that all nine of them would end up having Republican US House members after the November elections. Politically, this was huge, the latest sign that more and more Trump supporters are alienated by this would-be dictator and are willing to stand up to him publicly.

There are lots of reasons to believe that, if we all keep working and organizing day after day, increasingly united, 2026 will be a huge year, a clear and powerful repudiation of the Trumpists and their billionaire enablers.

 Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.

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Conditions are Ripe for a Resistance Counter- Offensive

Future Hope, , , ,

It’s been over ten long months that the forces of democracy have been on the defensive, doing our best to withstand the many and various assaults on us on issue after issue, but the tide is turning:

-Trump’s polling numbers keep going down, at 36% positive and 60% negative in the latest Gallup Poll;

-Four weeks after Democratic Party electoral victories all over the country on November 4, it’s possible as I write that, today, a Democrat running for Congress in a special election in Tennessee could win despite, in the 2024 election, the Republican candidate winning by a 22% margin of victory;

-Long-time MAGA leader Margaret Taylor Green is resigning from Congress and publicly criticizing Trump on health care, the Epstein issue and more, with the likelihood that other Republican House members will follow her lead;

-The Epstein sex trafficking crisis is not going away!

-Trump’s “Justice” Department’s indictments against James Comey and Letitia James have been thrown out by a US District Court judge;

-Congressional Republicans are on the defensive over what to do about the health care crisis, overall, with the specific problem of huge increases in premiums, doubling, tripling or more, for millions of people by the end of the year; this was one of the main reasons for Green’s resignation;

-And now comes the Caribbean motorboat revelations about Pete Hegseth giving the illegal order to “kill everybody” on those boats even if a boat has been destroyed and there are survivors. True to form, exposed as they have been, rats like Hegseth are deserting a sinking ship by trying to shift the blame to a career military admiral.

Remember that it was Joe McCarthy in the 1950’s attacking the US military that was the beginning of the end for his McCarthyite repressive campaign.

There are probably some on the political Left who would counsel that we allow all of this to keep unfolding and not “rock the sinking boat,” just let it take its course, but I don’t agree at all.

We should do just the opposite, consciously up our game, keep broadening out our resistance movement and make plans for 2026 to be the year that Trump and the MAGA’s are decisively defeated and the House and the Senate come under Democratic and progressive independent (Bernie, others) control. Like it or not, that has to be our north star for the next 11 months, as we keep up the resistance to ICE and Border Control raids and take action on all of the many other issues our peoples are dealing with.

That issue-oriented activity will strengthen the electoral campaigns of genuine progressives in the Democratic primaries running against corporatists or anti-Left centrists, as well as serious, tactically smart, progressive independent campaigns

It will be essential that we do what we did so effectively over this past year as far as taking it to the streets. We need national days of coordinated local actions, which began in 2025 on February 5 with the 50501 actions in just about every state capitol. Those actions kept building throughout the year up to the seven million of us coming out in 2,600 local actions in every state on the second No Kings day October 18.

January 19, 2026, one year after Trump took office and the federal Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, would be a very good day to initiate this continuing campaign of nationally coordinated street action.

2026 will be the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which offers us lots of possibilities.

We do need to be up front about the mixed reality of that historic revolution against British colonialism, the reality of European-American enslavement of Africans and violent theft of land lived on by indigenous nations for thousands of years. But it is a fact that the American Revolution helped to inspire anti-colonial and anti-monarchy revolutions in France, Haiti, South America and elsewhere. Indeed, when the Vietnamese revolutionaries in 1946 put forward their call for independence from French colonialism, they quoted the US Declaration of Independence.

We should have no illusions that the MAGA’s as a whole are going to see the light and stop with their repressive and regressive efforts, though there’s no question that some of them already are moving away from Trump and there are major internal rifts. This is another important fact about the crisis the Republicans and fascists are in.

As bad as 2025 has been, 2026 can be very different, if we all stay strong and keep consciously building the resistance movement in all its many different aspects. 2026 can  end up being a happy, a joyous, successful new year of popular, nonviolent uprising for justice, democracy, peace and defense of our threatened ecosystems.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.

Honor War and Anti-War Veterans

Future Hope, , , ,

Last year I attended a Veterans Day event in my town organized by the local town government. At the event I was asked by a local news reporter if I was a veteran. I responded, “I’m an anti-war veteran.”

This got me thinking: what about an anti-war veterans day, or an inclusion of them in Veterans Day events?

Who are some of the people who would be remembered? There are lots of us, but some of the most well-known would include:

-Jane Adams
-Ella Baker
-Rachel Corrie
-Dorothy Day
-Dave Dellinger
-Mohandus Gandhi
-Helen Keller
-Coretta Scott King
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
-Jeannette Rankin
-Ron Kovics
-Brian Willson
-Howard Zinn

Note that Kovics, Wilson and Zinn were both kinds of veterans. Kovics fought and lost his legs in the Vietnam War, Willson lost his as part of a peace action in the US, and Zinn fought in World War II.

There are several anti-war veterans organizations in the United States. The three which are most active are About Face: Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace and Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Today they and other groups have organized “No War on Our Cities” actions around the country.

There is power in a peace movement which links non-veterans and veterans. I first experienced this in the early 70’s after spending 11 months in prison for nonviolent acts of draft resistance as part of the Catholic Left. In early 1972, in connection with a trial in Harrisburg, Pa. of myself and other Catholic Left activists, the Harrisburg 8, I distinctly remember connecting with Vietnam vets in their combat fatigues taking part in demonstrations held in support of those of us on trial. They were small in number, but their open and visible participation had a very positive effect on me and many others.

It’s important for progressive organizers and activists to be open to connecting up and working with people who, on the surface, seem to be on the other side. Some of us don’t get this. For them, anyone in the military or the police is an enemy. But history, including recent history, shows that this isn’t true, that those carrying weapons on behalf of those in power, especially when it is unjust and abusive power, can be affected when spoken to or even nonviolently confronted about why what they are doing is wrong.

This is a critical point for us right now as we build upon the October 18th No Kings victory of 7 million people in the streets in every state, followed by the “tsunami” election defeats November 4th all over the country of the MAGA Trumpists.

As much as these huge victories have changed the country, its political dynamics and the resistance movement’s morale for the better, they almost certainly will lead to more illegal and repressive actions by a Trump regime hemorrhaging support. In the battle for the future of the USA, it will be important that those once Trump supporters, including police and military people, be encouraged to speak out and change sides and be supported by us when they do.

I am certain that the Vietnam War would not have ended when and the way it did if not for soldiers’ resistance within the US military to the war while in Vietnam, as well as the open resistance in the streets by veterans returning home. I think it’s similar today. As the Trumpists ratchet up their efforts to create 21st century fascism in the USA, defections by individuals who are being ordered to carry out those repressive activities will be an important component of our ultimate victory.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.


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