Tag Archives: news

Outreach: Not Just a Tactic But a Mindset

Future Hope, , , ,

Six weeks into the Trump presidency it is important to recognize that the rapidly growing MAGA resistance movement is turning out big numbers of people in the streets, beginning to engage in strategic nonviolent direct action, having an impact on Democratic members of Congress, and so far winning most of the court cases brought against the Trumpfascists. There are good reasons for us to feel stronger and steadier than we were on January 20th, unsure and afraid of what was going to be attempted by Trump/MAGA.

There’s no question that as Spring arrives this burgeoning resistance movement will continue to build and grow, and that is grounds for hope. But there is another area of work for this movement that cannot be forgotten and that must increasingly be integrated into all of our other tactics: OUTREACH.

Here is how I wrote about this a month ago: “It is not enough for us to do all of the above with only those who are already critical of Trump (half or a little more of the country, likely to grow as the MAGA policies do their damage). We need to do outreach to and with these many tens of millions, for sure, but we also need to look for opportunities or make specific organizing plans to interact with Trump voters, including in rural areas, and voters who didn’t vote because they’re turned off to both parties.”

I know from personal experience doing canvassing to defeat Trump last fall in eastern Pennsylvania that many of these folks have strong feelings, for example, about the dominance of the US economy by billionaires and the growing class divide. Another example is the opposition among many conservative landowners to oil, gas and CO2 pipeline companies being allowed by governments to use eminent domain to take their land. And there are other examples.

Here’s one very small example of what we need to do: Last week I was in the town of Pearisburg in southwest Virginia to support young people who had taken direct action to try to stop the MVP pipeline over the past year and a half. 12 of them were facing court trials that day over charges that could have led to years in jail; fortunately, none of that happened. At one point, outside a packed courtroom of supporters, a man in a truck stopped by a group of us who couldn’t get into the courtroom and were hanging out in a parking lot behind the courthouse. As he got out of his truck he was wearing a “Trump 2024” hat. A couple of us told him loudly that he should leave, but others of us, me included, went up to him and started listening and then responding to what he was saying. The main thing he talked to us about at first was the EPA and how some of the things they were doing were actually negatively impacting the soil, which in a rural area is clearly an important issue.

As it turned out one of us was a soil expert, and she agreed with some of his criticisms. He may not have been expecting that. He ended up continuing to talk with us about this and other things for what seemed like almost an hour.

We need more of these kinds of interactions. Local resistance groups, for example, could begin to integrate door to door canvassing or street leafletting into their organizing plans. A petition on a relevant issue, like planned cuts in Medicaid or something related to local or state government, should be the issue on which to have these in-person discussions in neighborhoods known as ones where Trump did well on November 5th. This is work that white people who have an anti-racist consciousness, in particular, need to be doing, being willing to address that issue if and as it comes up in conversation.

If we’re going to make inroads into those working-class and middle-class communities that put Trump in office, door to door work can’t just happen when people are running for office.

Outreach must become not just a tactic but a mindset. We should welcome opportunities like the one some of us had in that Pearisburg, Virginia parking lot and look for how we can do more. This is immediate, strategic, absolutely essential work.

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.

Outreach: Not Just a Tactic But a Mindset

Future Hope, , ,

Six weeks into the Trump presidency it is important to recognize that the rapidly growing MAGA resistance movement is turning out big numbers of people in the streets, beginning to engage in strategic nonviolent direct action, having an impact on Democratic members of Congress, and so far winning most of the court cases brought against the Trumpfascists. There are good reasons for us to feel stronger and steadier than we were on January 20th, unsure and afraid of what was going to be attempted by Trump/MAGA.

There’s no question that as Spring arrives this burgeoning resistance movement will continue to build and grow, and that is grounds for hope. But there is another area of work for this movement that cannot be forgotten and that must increasingly be integrated into all of our other tactics: OUTREACH.

Here is how I wrote about this a month ago: “It is not enough for us to do all of the above with only those who are already critical of Trump (half or a little more of the country, likely to grow as the MAGA policies do their damage). We need to do outreach to and with these many tens of millions, for sure, but we also need to look for opportunities or make specific organizing plans to interact with Trump voters, including in rural areas, and voters who didn’t vote because they’re turned off to both parties.”

I know from personal experience doing canvassing to defeat Trump last fall in eastern Pennsylvania that many of these folks have strong feelings, for example, about the dominance of the US economy by billionaires and the growing class divide. Another example is the opposition among many conservative landowners to oil, gas and CO2 pipeline companies being allowed by governments to use eminent domain to take their land. And there are other examples.

Here’s one very small example of what we need to do: Last week I was in the town of Pearisburg in southwest Virginia to support young people who had taken direct action to try to stop the MVP pipeline over the past year and a half. 12 of them were facing court trials that day over charges that could have led to years in jail; fortunately, none of that happened. At one point, outside a packed courtroom of supporters, a man in a truck stopped by a group of us who couldn’t get into the courtroom and were hanging out in a parking lot behind the courthouse. As he got out of his truck he was wearing a “Trump 2024” hat. A couple of us told him loudly that he should leave, but others of us, me included, went up to him and started listening and then responding to what he was saying. The main thing he talked to us about at first was the EPA and how some of the things they were doing were actually negatively impacting the soil, which in a rural area is clearly an important issue.

As it turned out one of us was a soil expert, and she agreed with some of his criticisms. He may not have been expecting that. He ended up continuing to talk with us about this and other things for what seemed like almost an hour.

We need more of these kinds of interactions. Local resistance groups, for example, could begin to integrate door to door canvassing or street leafletting into their organizing plans. A petition on a relevant issue, like planned cuts in Medicaid or something related to local or state government, should be the issue on which to have these in-person discussions in neighborhoods known as ones where Trump did well on November 5th. This is work that white people who have an anti-racist consciousness, in particular, need to be doing, being willing to address that issue if and as it comes up in conversation.

If we’re going to make inroads into those working-class and middle-class communities that put Trump in office, door to door work can’t just happen when people are running for office.

Outreach must become not just a tactic but a mindset. We should welcome opportunities like the one some of us had in that Pearisburg, Virginia parking lot and look for how we can do more. This is immediate, strategic, absolutely essential work.

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.

Pipeline Resistance Gets the Goods

Future Hope, , , ,

I’ve believed for many years that in the race against time to prevent ecosystem and societal meltdown because of climate heating and climate disruption, a key front in that struggle is the prevention of the buildout of new oil and methane gas pipelines and associated infrastructure, like compressor stations, export terminals and gas-fired power plants.

This isn’t just the opinion of me and the many tens of thousands of activists around the country who have been waging these fights for over a decade. Both the International Energy Agency, in 2022, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in 2023, have said that in order to have a chance of preserving and improving the conditions of life on earth in all its forms for future generations, this is what governments should be doing.

Unfortunately the US government, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, has refused to do this. Both have allowed for fossil fuel infrastructure expansion, although there has been and is a pretty strong sector of the Democrats who get it on this requirement for the world’s survival and have taken part in the nationwide no new fossil fuels movement, inside and outside the Biden Administration and in Congress.

Trump/MAGA control of Congress and the White House means that there will be a major effort to ramp up the building of new oil and gas infrastructure. There have been reports that they want to build hundreds of new pipelines, compressor stations and export terminals. It’s like they’re just fine with the very real possibility of ecocide.

Fortunately, the no new fossil fuels movement is in no way demoralized, speaking generally. And a very good example of this fact is what happened in the town of Pearisburg, Virginia, deep in the heart of coal country in southwest Virginia, a few days ago.

On Tuesday February 25th 12 pipeline fighters, almost all of them young people, were sentenced in a Giles County courtroom for nonviolent direct actions they had taken over the last year and a half trying to stop the completion of the fracked-gas transporting Mountain Valley Pipeline. All locked themselves to construction equipment, inserted their bodies into pipelines or locked down to block roads leading to construction sites. Some were facing felony charges, though most were charged with misdemeanors.

Without any on the ground knowledge, people not from this part of the country, coal country, would likely expect the sentences handed down to be harsh, but that wasn’t the case. No one was sentenced to jail time; instead, after negotiating down all the felonies to misdemeanors, each of the 12 was sentenced to 50 hours of community service per misdemeanor. For some with three misdemeanors this meant a sentence of 150 hours.
And though the issue of fines was put off to future court dates, it is impossible to see this result as anything but a big victory for the climate justice movement.

A major reason for this positive result was the presence of over 100 supporters, mainly but not solely young people, filling to overflowing the 89-seat courtroom. One court officer said that there had never been anything like this before. An additional reason was the refusal of those charged to plead guilty to any felonies or overly repressive deals over the many months leading up to this day of reckoning in court.

The primary organization which did these actions and has led this direct action resistance is Appalachians Against Pipelines. AAP is famous for a 932-day tree sit in Montgomery County, Va. between 2018 and 2021 on the planned pipeline right of way.

I’ve been involved with the no new fossil fuel infrastructure movement since about 2012. One of the noteworthy things I’ve observed about it is that this issue crosses political lines. There are a lot of conservative white landowners, people facing eminent domain proceedings to take their land for the benefit of corporate profit-making and climate destroying oil and gas companies, who have joined with radicals, progressives and people of color to fight together against these arrogant, destructive entities. In the process, people have had their lives changed. By joining together in righteous campaigns for justice, everyone has seen that we have common enemies and that we can only win against these corporatists by forging unity in action.

If, or as, Trump and the MAGA’s role out their plan to accelerate climate disruption by expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure, the powerful alliance needed to fight these projects, one by one, on the ground, can contribute a lot to generating the powerful movement of movements to ultimately stop these 21st century fascists and put our country on a very different, life-affirming, justice-creating, urgently needed path.

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

Gaza and Ukraine: Trump’s Waterloo?

Future Hope, , , ,

Why did Trump defeat Harris on November 5th? There are lots of reasons but there’s no question a primary one was the Gaza/Israel war. Or, to be more precise, it was the Biden Administration’s refusal to stop providing Israel the weapons used to devastate Gaza.

There’s little doubt in my mind that this position more than any other issue led to millions of eligible voters who were anti-Trump not voting at all. A Council on Foreign Relations story in December reported that “Kamala Harris won 75,999,166 votes or 48.3 percent of the votes cast. That was 6,285,500 fewer popular votes than Biden won in 2020.” If the Democratic turnout had been the same as for Biden, it is likely that Harris would have won.

It’s now two weeks since Trump called for the removal of all Palestinians from Gaza. It’s two days after he attacked Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “dictator” with “4 percent” support among Ukrainians and blamed him for Putin’s military invasion three years ago. And yesterday, one month after Trump took office, three reputable polls—Quinnipiac, Gallup and Reuters—have Trump’s approval ratings at an average of 44.5% and his disapproval ratings at 50%. This should be setting off alarm bells among Republicans. This has to be one of the steepest and most rapid drops in support over the first month of a Presidency ever in US history.

Clearly, what Trump did to Zelenskyy and Ukraine two days ago in the interests of Putin had nothing to do with these three poll results, but what that means is that Trump is almost certain to keep going down in the polls in coming weeks. Between all of the other anti-democratic, heinous and damaging Trump/Musk actions on so many other fronts, which will continue, and the widespread outrage over Trump’s cozying up to Netanyahu/Israeli fascists and Putin/Russia and lies about Zelenskyy/Ukraine, I think it is it likely that Trump/MAGA’s ultimate downfall will be ascribed in part, probably a large part, to his outrageous positions on Gaza/Palestine and Ukraine.

Trump’s overt attacks two days ago on Ukraine’s elected president Zelenskky have stirred up a hornet’s nest of open criticism of Trump by Republican Senators and people like Mike Pence and Nikki Haley. Piled on top of the growing, national grassroots movement of progressive opposition and some Democratic Party criticism and actions, these are very significant political developments. And again: all just in Trump’s first month.

It is so important that the visible demonstrative actions in the streets keep happening and building. Without people coming out within the first two weeks of Trump taking office our situation would be much more dire than it is. It has been inspiring to take part in and experience this upsurge in the depths of winter, not a usual time for tens of thousands of people all over the country taking action, and again and again, on any issue. This is, indeed, a winter of our discontent on a massive scale, but we’re not being “summer soldiers.” We’re braving the elements, overcoming our deep dismay and expressing our anger in effective ways, and because that is happening Trump is hemorrhaging political support.

The spring is ordinarily the time when progressive activism manifests itself in outdoors actions. Let’s keep on building, organizing and outreaching to make this spring the time when the tens of thousands becomes hundreds of thousands and Trump’s poll numbers keep plummeting. This is the prerequisite to more and more victories over the MAGA’s as their destructive extremism leads growing numbers of Republican voters and elected officials to raise their voices and turn away from madman Trump.

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.

Strategy and Tactics for the Burgeoning Resistance

Future Hope, , , ,

The wide mix of acts of resistance over the past week have made it clear that there is and will be widespread resistance to the Trump/MAGA regressive, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic and pro-billionaire plans, There have been actions in the streets in DC and all over the country. Congressional Democrats are speaking up, filibustering and organizing town meetings. Numerous creative social media postings have helped to keep up people’s morale. Rachel Maddow on MSNBC five nights a week is playing an important role as have other TV/podcast/written reports and commentaries. And there have been a number of federal court filings, a few of which have already led to positive, initial judicial decisions.

Here are my thoughts on an overall strategy and the tactics we should be prioritizing as we keep building the mass US resistance movement which has burst into public view during the first week of February.

Strategy: On a national level we are on the defensive; that has to be our starting point. We can win some victories over the next two years, even some big ones, at local and state levels, but it’s unrealistic to expect we can make major advances at the federal level given Trump/MAGA/billionaire dominance of the executive and congressional branches of government and a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. Our overall strategy must be one of making as many advances as we can on local and state levels while preventing as much damage as possible to the primary MAGA targets: US democracy, human and civil rights, including internationally, organized labor and programs that benefit low- and moderate-income working people, and the natural environment on which all life depends.

Tactics: I see five areas where we as a movement of movements need to be focused during these difficult years: street heat–local/state/federal government—courts—media and publicity—outreach.

Street heat: This is essential. Visibility is needed to strengthen morale and attract others to our resistance movement. Well-organized and/or big demonstrations can also have an impact on elected officials, judges and masses of people, including some who voted for Trump. Some people will be challenged, appreciative or moved to consider the issue(s) being addressed because of street heat and demonstrative actions.

Local/state/federal government: I’m very close to people who are big on calling or emailing elected officials at all levels of government to urge them to do the right thing. Honestly, this isn’t the form of action that I’m really into. However, the Associated Press reported a few days ago that there have been so many calls to Congress that phone systems in individual offices are overwhelmed. WE NEED TO KEEP THIS UP. Just as mass demos/street heat have an impact, there are numerous examples over the years of massive calls to Congress preventing or advancing legislation and motivating Senators and House members to be more outspoken about the immediate issue. This pressure is undoubtedly primarily responsible for Senate and House Democrats stepping it up both in word and action (filibuster, organizing town meetings) this past week.

I’ve put on my calendar for the month of February making at least three calls each day to my Senators and House rep, practicing what I’m preaching.

Courts: Without a judicial system which is charged with upholding the US Constitution (which includes the Bill of Rights and amendments prohibiting slavery, etc.), our chances for winning victories on the way to ultimately isolating and overcoming the MAGA’s would be much less. And that’s still true with the 6-3 dominance of conservatives, not all of them MAGA conservatives, however, on the Supreme Court.

Court cases usually take time, often a lot of it. When you are out of power and on the defensive legislatively and dealing with executive orders, this is helpful. Federal district court and court of appeals rulings are often good ones on many issues. These decisions can have political impacts, strengthen support for the positions our progressive movements are taking. And when the legal and extra-legal repression comes down from the Trumpists and MAGA, as it inevitably will, the courts are critical.

Media and publicity: Elon Musk may have his X, Fox News is what it is, and there are many other ways that the ultra-rightists can connect with each other and try to confuse masses of people about what is true and false, but there’s no question that we have our own ways to communicate and spread the truth. And there are non-electronic ways to communicate, like by mass in-person leafletting, draping banners over major highways or wheat-pasting posters, or doing multi-day or multi-week walks along the side of well-traveled roads and through towns and cities. Groups can organize community teach-ins and public meetings in churches, civic centers, universities, etc. Where there is a will to get out the word, there are definitely ways.

Outreach:  Finally, it is not enough for us to do all of the above with only those who are already critical of Trump (half or a little more of the country, likely to grow as the MAGA policies do their damage). We need to do outreach to and with these many tens of millions, for sure, but we also need to look for opportunities or make specific organizing plans to interact with Trump voters, including in rural areas, and voters who didn’t vote because they’re turned off to both parties. I know from personal experience doing canvassing to defeat Trump last fall in eastern Pennsylvania that many of these folks have strong feelings, for example, about the dominance of the US economy by billionaires and the growing class divide. Another example is the opposition among many conservative landowners to oil, gas and CO2 pipeline companies being allowed by governments to use eminent domain to take their land. And there are other examples.

White male progressives have a particular responsibility to look for ways to have these discussions and interactions. Serious anti-racist/sexist/heterosexist practice must include a willingness/commitment to do this work. In my Burglar for Peace book I wrote about it this way: “It is critical that whites organizing whites take up the economic, health care, education or other issues impacting predominantly white communities, to show that they are concerned about all forms of inequality and want a just society for everyone. A good organizer knows that you need to start with people where they are, make connections on the basis of issues, experiences or other things held in common. As those connections are made, as people get to know and respect the organizer, they are more willing to listen and think about constructive criticism from her/him or ideas other than those they are ordinarily exposed to.” (p. 192)

Our situation is in no way hopeless. Trump is being called out publicly, like in a Wall Street Journal editorial last week, as “dumb,” which he is. His Canada and Mexico tariff proposals were pulled back one day after he made them, not exactly a way of leading that inspires confidence among followers. His insane proposal standing next to Netanyahu to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians was met with open disbelief by numerous Republican Senators. He will continue to say and do things like this for as long as he is President, and it will probably get worse as his advanced age combined with his other mental problems weaken his “governing” facilities going forward.

The independent and progressive movement of movements can give the leadership needed to win this battle. Si, se puede!

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.

The Limits of Tyrants

Future Hope, , , ,

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
-Frederick Douglass, August 3, 1857, in Canandaigua, NY

65 years ago today, on February 1, 1960, the first student sit-in at lunch counters throughout the segregated South began in downtown Greensboro at a Woolworth’s store. Young people literally put their bodies on the line, and were beaten and jailed for doing so, to demand an end to racist laws and daily practices prohibiting Black people from using public and private facilities solely because of the color of their skin.

This action sparked similar actions throughout the South, the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the emergence of a national mass movement against segregation and racism. Four years later, in 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed in Congress, followed the next year by the Voting Rights Act.

I’m pretty certain that there were very few people before that sit-in who thought that within five years the South’s racist, essentially fascist, way of life going back almost a century could be successfully overcome, legally, although, of course, it took many years and constant struggle for those laws to finally bring about a civil rights revolution. Despite some weakening of those laws over the last decade or so, they are still, legally and culturally, largely in effect.

After two weeks of the Trump Presidency it is clear that he and the MAGA movement have every intention of using their power to roll back not just decades of the gains of the civil rights movement but of all movements defending and advancing human rights, labor rights, women’s rights, lgbtq+ rights, democracy and social, economic and environmental justice. This is a tyrannical regime.

Resistance to it has already taken place, beginning with the hundreds of thousands of people who demonstrated in over 300 localities on January 18th. It has continued through the work in communities all over the country helping immigrants at risk of deportation learning their rights and getting organized to defend them. It happened this week when 23 states successfully challenged Trump’s effort to prevent the disbursement of literally trillions of dollars allocated by Congress and signed into law by Biden. The American Federation of Government Employees has called for a massive demonstration in DC on February 11th against the Trumpists’ efforts to get rid of professional civil service workers. And there are many other ways that, on issue after issue, our US resistance movement has refused to bend to the would-be dictator.

What about demonstrations and nonviolent direct action? There have been some voices raised to the effect that, under a Trumpist regime, these are not as important, or are risky, compared to under a Democratic regime.

There’s some validity to the critique. Successful organizing involves much more than demonstrative, visible action: one-on-one conversations with community members or co-workers; calls, emails, texts or meetings with those with some power to correct wrongs or advance positive change; legal action; meetings to come to agreement internally within a group or with coalition partners about strategy and tactics; writing and videoing and taking pictures and circulating them as widely as possible; testifying before government bodies to oppose or support a particular policy or decisions; conscious development of healthy internal organizational cultures which support all those involved; and more.

But absent visible and public actions, as large and/or as creatively risk-taking as possible, victories will be much harder to come by. Here’s how I wrote about this in my 21st Century Revolution book:

“No revolution of any kind has happened without the manifestation of people’s anger at oppression or abuse via public marches, demonstrations, strikes (including hunger strikes) and civil disobedience to express their strong feelings and to spread the word to others about their resistance. Oppressed people need to see that there are others who feel the same way and are willing to take action to change things. Elected officials, even those who are supportive, need to appreciate the strength of people’s feelings via seeing it in action. And clearly, the target(s) of the public demonstrations need to see both sizeable numbers of people involved and the urgency and intensity of their feelings.”

In Frederick Douglass’ Canandaigua speech in 1857 he also said something that is not as widely quoted as the “limits of tyrants” quote at the beginning of this article but is just as important:

“People may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppression and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and, if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others.”

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.

270+ “No to Trump” Actions on January 18

Future Hope, , , ,

With 10 days left to mobilize, it is clear that the People’s March, initiated by the Women’s March, is going to be a big deal throughout the country. At the People’s March website can be found 270 localities, as of right now, that are signed up to demonstrate on that day.

The biggest march will be in Washington, DC, and it is important that this one be big because that is where Trump will be inaugurated two days later. But the broad geographic sweep of this mobilization, combined with the many tens of thousands already signed up who will become hundreds of thousands, or more, on the 18th is also very important.

A strong national progressive resistance movement needs strong local organized networks, interconnected with one another and engaging periodically, as on January 18th, in coordinated actions which show both ourselves, progressives, and the country as a whole that WE HAVE NOT BEEN DEFEATED AND WE WILL RESIST.

What are the focuses of these actions? Here’s what can be found on the People’s March website:

“We all march for different reasons, but we march for the same cause, to defend our rights and our future.

“If you believe that decisions about your body should remain yours; that books belong in libraries, not on bonfires; that healthcare is a right, not a privilege for the wealthy; if you believe in the power of free speech and protest to sustain democracy; or if you want an economy that works for the people who power it—then this march is for you.”

Who are some of the groups putting this mobilization together? Here’s a partial list: Coalition of Labor Union Women, Democratic Socialists of America, Grassroots Global Justice, Movement for Black Lives, National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood Federation, Popular Democracy, Radical Elders, Right to the City, Rising Majority, Sierra Club and Stand Up for Racial Justice.

This mobilization has reminded me of the March to End Fossil Fuels on September 17th,  2023. The major action on that day was in New York City, where upwards of 70,000 people participated. This was after the main organizers of the march, concerned about overestimating and just a few days before it happened, were saying they expected at least 20-25,000. But the months of bringing hundreds of groups together and the day-to-day organizing on the part of thousands of organizers ended up with many more than that in NYC, and there were also, like January 18th, hundreds of localities where coordinated actions took place. Many hundreds of thousands took part altogether.

My personal involvement in this historic mobilization has been via work on a major action in Newark, NJ on the 18th: the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. March of Resistance. From a first meeting to discuss the idea of such a march in late November attended by reps of 23 New Jersey groups, there are now 260 organizations which have endorsed. Because of the leadership for this action coming out of the Black community, the fact of Trump’s inauguration happening on the same day as the federal holiday for Dr. King has been highlighted.

There is no better person to contrast what Trump and MAGA are all about and what this country and world really need than Dr. King.

As we’ve done our organizing we have remembered and raised up King’s focus in the last year of his life on what he called “the sickness of racism, poverty and militarism” in the United States. He understood clearly how deep-seated these destructive and interrelated ideologies and practices are within the USA, and they still are today.

In the spirit of Dr. King and the many other heroes and heroines of the struggle for justice in this country, let’s make January 18th the truly historic and empowering day that it clearly can be. 10 days left to mobilize.

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.

Trump’s Second Big Defeat

Future Hope, , ,

Almost exactly a month ago President-Elect Trump suffered his first major political defeat when Ultra-MAGA Congressman Matt Gaetz withdrew his name after Trump nominated him to be US Attorney-General. Republican Senator Mitch McConnell’s opposition to that nomination was a primary reason Gaetz had to do this. In a column I wrote then, I said:

“Would-be dictators actually become dictators in part because they are able to project strength and virility, making it much easier to impose their will on anybody they determine is standing in their way. But as Republican Senator Mitch McConnell surprisingly revealed, Trump’s victory clearly has its limits. When it is Republican Senators, not Democrats, not progressives, not leftists, who are the ones standing up to him, that has positive political impacts.”

Just two days ago we saw the same thing, with two differences: it was 38 Republican House members who rejected Trump’s ultimatum for them to vote for a piece of legislation he considered important; and Trump looked weak as obscenely rich billionaire Elon Musk first made that demand, after which Trump followed.

Could it be that Trump’s age and infirmities are catching up with him? Has he been thrown off his game? Or is it, maybe, that Trump’s primary reason for running for office was not necessarily to be a dictatorial President (though he’d clearly like it to be) but because only by winning would he be certain that he avoid trials and prison time for his criminal activities?

Is it possible that as problematic as it is that this vile human being is the most powerful person in the USA, his second four year term in the White House is going to be primarily another time of political chaos?

One reason this is likely is the fact that Trump will take office as the President with the lowest poll numbers of any newly-elected President going back decades. Five national polls since December 5 measuring how people feel about Trump in this transitional period before taking office have him at an average 51% rating. The numbers for Biden four years ago were in the high 50s. This guy in no way has a popular mandate.

Other reasons include: the very visible divisions within the Republican Party in the House; the nearly even number of Democratic House members as Republicans; and Senate Republicans seven votes short of the 60 they need for anything that isn’t budget related or confirmations of executive and judicial appointments.

Will all of this scale back the amount of damage Trump and the MAGA’s can do?

Damage there will be, without question. On many fronts—climate, immigrant rights, health care, social security, education, housing, labor rights, voting and civil rights, abortion and womens’ rights, transgender rights, and more—the progressive and liberal forces who almost got Kamala Harris elected will have our hands very full. That reality could be mitigated somewhat with big victories for Democrats (and progressive independents?) in the House and Senate in November of 2026, but until at least then we need to do all we can to defend the many gains we have made in the USA since the CIO uprising of workers in the 1930s.

Lots of tactics are needed to mount those defenses, but there’s one that, right now, needs to take priority: as massive as possible a showing in the streets of opposition to the Trump/MAGA agenda. This is why the Women’s March January 18th in Washington, DC, as well as the many other local demonstrations happening on that date, are so important. Personally, I’m very involved in organizing a Black-led “Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. March of Resistance” in Newark, NJ. Many thousands are expected, with almost 200 organizational endorsers as of this writing.

It is critical that the mass media and social media narrative about Trump’s inauguration on January 20th not be one which makes it seem like our progressive movements of movements has been cowed, silenced, seriously set back. We haven’t been, I know it from my observations and interactions since November 5, and we need to make that visible from the git-go of this next four-year period of oppression and righteous resistance.

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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Bernie’s Call to Reflect/Speak Out/Build

Future Hope, , , ,

“I have long believed that we need an alternative to the Democrat and Republican parties, and since 1974 I have acted on that belief via involvement in various organizations with that objective. All during that time I have believed, on a tactical level, that to get to the kind of alternative we need, one that had the mass support necessary to be able to actually contest for power, it was necessary that it include both people who saw themselves as independent of the Dems/Reps as well as a significant number of progressive Democrats and maybe some Republicans. I’ve also learned from experience about the very practical problem of a winner-take-all system when it comes to explicit third party building. The weakness of the US Green Party is exhibit number one for why this is such a huge problem.”
-21st Century Revolution: Through Higher Love, Racial Justice and Democratic Cooperation, p. 104

It was 50 years ago that I first joined an organization trying to build a progressive alternative to the Democratic and Republican parties. The group’s name for a while was the very unwieldly “National Interim Committee for a Mass Party of the People,” eventually and mercifully changed to “Mass Party Organizing Committee.” The organization grew out of a long paper, “Toward a Party of the People,” written by civil rights/labor/progressive attorney Arthur Kinoy.

I was reminded of my long years in the wilderness trying, unsuccessfully, with many others to build such a political force when Bernie Sanders last week put out an intriguing “Tough Times” email. In it Independent Sanders made it clear that though he supported Kamala Harris and though he works with Democrats in the Senate to try to advance positive legislation, he continues to believe that an alternative to both parties is necessary, that what happened in 2024 only reinforced that belief and his commitment to play a leadership role toward that alternative.

As he put it, we need to “learn the lessons of the [Democratic Party] defeat and create a party that stands with the working class and is prepared to take on the enormously powerful special interests that dominate our economy, our media and our political life.”

I was struck by Bernie’s call for the Left to ask a series of “political questions that, together, we need to address.” He listed nine of them in his Tough Times piece, including: how we build a multi-racial, multi-generational working class movement; building a 50 state movement; Citizens United and billionaires buying elections; more working class candidates for office; supporting Independent candidates; better support to union organizing; strengthen our use of social media; and building sustainable, issue-based organizing structures.

Intriguingly, he asked, “How do we put together listening sessions around the country that intentionally seek input from people who did not vote for Democrats in the last election?” Listening is almost always a very good thing to be doing, especially if it’s clear that there’s a need for some major personal or political change.

Where would the independent progressive movement be without Bernie Sanders? His 2016 Presidential campaign was absolutely huge—15 million votes for a forthright socialist who targeted what he called the “ruling class,” the 1%, the power elite, the billionaire class. Those of us who voted for him and the country as a whole were witnesses to the breadth of support for this kind of politics.

Reading what Sanders wrote it would be very easy to think that he was calling for the creation right now of a new political party other than the Dems and the Reps, but he has clarified since in an interview in The Nation with John Nichols that he is not doing so. He believes that strong, class-conscious progressives can run either in Democratic primaries or as Independents.

This is an absolutely key point for those individuals and organizations who right now, after Kamala Harris’ unfortunate defeat, believe that what the Left should do is to abandon the Democrats and create right now a(nother) third party.

The Green Party experience over 28 years of running candidates for office is instructive here. This year, after all those years of existence, their candidate for President got ½ of a percent of the national popular vote. This is not an aberration; it’s a feature of every GP Presidential campaign since 2000 when the Ralph Nader/Winona Laduke slate received 2.7% of the popular vote.

What we need to be consciously constructing right now is a “third force,” a progressive alliance that is clearly different than both the Democrats and the Republicans as far as what it stands for both domestically and as far as foreign policy: “for racial and gender justice and equality; for the right to organize and unionize on the job; against militarism and for justice-based peace; for detoxification and protection of our natural environment and a rapid shift from dirty and dangerous fossil fuels and nukes to clean, renewable energy sources; for immigrant rights, reproductive rights and an end to mass incarceration; for a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, a $15 minimum wage, tuition-free public higher education and student debt cancellation; and more.” (21st Century Revolution, p. 96)

Who is going to give leadership to the building of such an alliance? One person, one absolutely key person, is Bernie Sanders, but it cannot be him alone. As he said in his Tough Times piece, “these are some of the political questions that, together, we need to address. And it is absolutely critical that you [all of us] make your voice heard during this process.”

As we fight the many necessary battles against Trump and MAGA’s regressive, destructive plans, we also need to consciously build upon the many connections that already exist toward a much better organized, independent and progressive, political third force. NOW IS THE TIME.

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.

Trump’s First Big Defeat

Future Hope, , , ,

“I took down your golden boy in a week.”   
     -Mitch McConnell, on Matt Gaetz failed nomination

After learning yesterday about Matt Gaetz withdrawing from consideration to be US Attorney General, I spoke with a close friend and sister activist about the replacement nominee, Pam Bondi. She said, accurately, that the problem with Bondi is that she doesn’t seem to have Gaetz’s personal baggage but could be more dangerous because she has the legal experience and skills that he doesn’t.

I responded that, yes, that is true, but it’s also true that this big political defeat for Trump, happening because of a rebellion by less hardline Republican Senators, is a very positive development anyway. Why?

Would-be dictators actually become dictators in part because they are able to project strength and virility, making it much easier to impose their will on anybody they determine is standing in their way. But as Republican Senator Mitch McConnell surprisingly revealed, Trump’s victory clearly has its limits. When it is Republican Senators, not Democrats, not progressives, not leftists, who are the ones standing up to him, that has positive political impacts.

Many progressives and liberals and more centrist Republicans have been rocked by Trump’s victory. All of us in one way or the other have been emotionally thrown by it. But the thing is this: successful resistance, even just the fact of resistance, encourages others to do so. When victories are won because of that resistance a stronger and wider movement will be one of the results.

I have to say that I’ve wondered myself if Trump and the MAGA’s were going to be able to lie and intimidate enough to significantly alter US political dynamics and undercut the important democratic aspects of this problematic, unjust system. Were a significant percentage of the millions of progressives in the USA going to decide to keep their heads down, not show up for public demonstrations, reduce their activism out of fear, I’ve wondered. And I still have that concern. But this big defeat of Trump’s “golden boy in a week;” McConnell revealing that Trump is not going to be able to get all the Senate, and House, Republicans to just go along to get along, look the other way on anything Trump/MAGA wants, should help to lessen that problem.

As I wrote in my column the day after the election, “I remember a very similar [anxious and depressed] feeling after the November, 1972 runaway Presidential victory of Trump-similar Richard Nixon over George McGovern. 21 months later Nixon was gone from DC, resigning in disgrace before he was impeached. What was Nixon’s vote total compared to Trump’s? Nixon had a 23% margin of victory in the popular vote and won every state except Massachusetts and DC. As far as Trump, when all the votes are counted It looks like he’ll either be ahead by a couple percent or pretty much tied [as of now it’s about a 1 ½ point lead]. And Harris won a lot more states than Massachusetts and DC.”

Resistance breeds resistance. It is that resistance movement that is our hope for the future; let’s step it up across the board on issue after issue.

 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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