All sorts of ideas on how the resistance can pick up the pace
What can you do in between the big rallies?
The huge protests are wonderful. Amazing. Powerful expressions of the public will.
But what can ordinary people do in between?
I feel like many of the seven million people who rallied at the second No Kings Day are hungry to make a difference on a weekly or even daily basis.
Resistance organizers are eager to harness those people.
So what’s next?
Here’s what Brandon Wolf, national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign, told the Guardian:
What comes next is plugging people in wherever they can — in big ways and small — to resist this administration’s authoritarianism. We will mobilize people to school board meetings and legislative hearings, boycotts and buy-ins, local elections and campaigns for Congress. Now is the time to continue turning the nationwide No Kings energy into strategic people power.
Eric Blanc, who teaches labor studies at Rutgers University, wrote in the Jacobin:
After the massive No Kings protests, we need bigger, more disruptive nonviolent campaigns that can go viral and peel away Donald Trump’s pillars of support.
To meet this moment, more individuals and organizations are going to have to leave their comfort zones. We can’t just continue with business as usual.
I’m always on the lookout for things ordinary folks can do. One of my first Heads Up News posts was headlined: “What you can do to fight the Trump agenda.” (It’s still useful.)
Are you eager for specifics appropriate for this particular moment?
Here’s my latest compilation, which includes ideas for boycotts and picketing, high-school walkouts, documentation of brutality, getting unions to be more active, and of course organizing for the 2026 midterm elections
Organize for the 2026 midterms
That’s the first of 12 priorities from former labor secretary Robert Reich:
Millions of us just participated in one of the largest demonstrations in American history. The most important thing we do with that power is wrest back control of Congress from zombie Republicans who are rubber-stamping whatever Trump wants. Otherwise, we will continue to lose our democracy and rule of law to this tyrant.
That process can start now, as primary campaigns are heating up.
Ezra Levin, the co-founder of Indivisible, recently explained that it’s essential that Democratic nominees be what he calls “fight-back faction Democrats.”
“Find that open seat or find that challenger and adopt them,” he said. “Support them [and] fund them — otherwise the Democratic Party doesn’t change.”
He said that after November, “You’re going to see Indivisible, pivot very hard into primaries.”
Boycotts Aplenty
I wrote last week about the need to Boycott the White House vandals. That hasn’t exactly taken off. But several other boycotts are gearing up that are well worth your attention.
Indivisible has announced its “Don’t Stream Fascism: Cancel Spotify” campaign, asking the public to cancel Spotify subscriptions until it stops airing recruitment ads for ICE.
Indivisible is also encouraging peaceful, public protest “outside of Spotify offices, studios, or major events.”
There is renewed enthusiasm for a boycott of Home Depot, which organizers say “has become a place of fear — a target for ICE operations against immigrant communities and workers.”
Home Depot has “remained silent while raids continue to unfold on its lots,” they write. The company “cannot claim to serve our communities while allowing federal agents to terrorize people on their property.”
The demands are as follows:
Denounce ICE raids on their properties.
Declare their stores safe spaces.
Protect the people who make and shop in their stores everyday.
Or you can boycott your local Trump enablers! Gabriel Lezra, a senior policy strategist at Democracy Defenders Action, proposed 15 possible next steps in a Contrarian newsletter, including “Take a Stand in your Communities by Boycotting Regime Enablers and Profiteers”:
Organize a “Know Your Local Enablers” campaign to show your neighbors which local businesses, developers, or professional organizations are financially supporting the authoritarian machine. Focus boycotts and peaceful protests on their specific local outlets or projects — and ask cultural institutions like universities to divest from any holdings in these entities.
Document the Federal Government’s Brutality
Taking notes and videos when federal agents brutally attack your neighbors — and sharing them on social and traditional media — has become a powerful act of resistance. Some state government offices are getting involved now, too.
NPR Illinois reports:
After urging Illinoisans last month to record concerning actions by federal agents, Gov. JB Pritzker signed an executive order Thursday creating a commission to review documentation submitted by the public.
The brand-new Illinois Accountability Commission will create a public record of the conduct of “the Trump Administration’s military-style operations throughout the Chicagoland area. Additionally, the Commission will examine the impact of that conduct on individuals and communities and consider policy recommendations to prevent future harm in Illinois.”
Also last week, New York Attorney General Letitia James created a portal to submit videos or other documentation of federal immigration enforcement actions in her state.
Encourage Your Union to Be More Active
Alex Caputo-Pearl, a teacher’s union official, and Jackson Potter, a teacher, write in Labor Notes:
History shows us that when authoritarianism rears its head, whether it takes root depends on the labor movement’s response.
But the unions aren’t ready for action at this point, they write.
Most of our unions do not have recent muscle memory of striking or taking confrontational collective action. We must build up to strike readiness through greater organizing and collaboration by large locals and labor councils, and through escalating direct actions involving members and non-members alike.
To build those muscles, they recommend a range of tactics like consumer boycotts, sickouts, and slow-downs.
Do Something Weekly
One of my friends recommends some form of weekly vigil at symbolic locations. There’s history for this, including “Moral Mondays” event held outside — and sometimes inside — the North Carolina legislature; or Greta Thunberg’s “Fridays for Future,” also known as “School Strike for Climate”. In 1989, candlelight Monday demonstrations – under the slogan “We are the people” – helped bring down the Berlin Wall.
Blanc, the labor studies professor at Rutgers, has this specific suggestion:
In towns where Trump has surged ICE or sent in troops, high school students, with the backing of their teachers, could start walking out on Friday afternoons, taking to the streets to peacefully confront Trump’s goons, to inhibit their attempts to kidnap our undocumented neighbors, and to demand an immediate end to Trump’s armed occupation of our cities.
Be Like Chicago
Chicago has recently been the central front for brutal immigration enforcement — and has provided a model for how to resist.
As Chicago journalist Dan Sinker wrote recently in his blog:
What I need you to understand is that nobody is letting them go quietly. The Feds’ every movement is announced by a chorus of whistles, by a parade of cars honking in their wake, neighbors rushing outside to yell to film to witness these kidnappings that are unfolding in front of us. Neighbors running towards trouble.
What I need you to know is we are organized.
What I need you to know is that you need to get organized.
What I need you to know is they are coming.
What I need you to know is you can stop them.
Be More Public About Everything
This isn’t new, but I stumbled across it recently: A wonderful list from the Center for American Progress of ways for people to make their voices heard. It includes:
Share your opinions with at least three friends, family members, fellow parishioners, or others. Explore the option of jointly creating a weekly meetup to explore efforts such as sign-on petitions, social media coordination and hashtags, and local vigils.
Find powerful examples of people in your community who have been hurt by the administration’s policies and, where appropriate, elevate them to the media, lawmakers, and others.
Help create an enduring online document or website where people can build a record of public harms, including through videos, stories, and responsive actions taken.
Pool money with neighbors to amplify your message—for example, by renting a local billboard, buying an ad in a local newspaper, or skywriting.
Boycott local businesses that fail to stand up for the community or actively support businesses that do the right thing. Attend a local Chamber of Commerce meeting and encourage business leaders to defend the rule of law.
Display images or powerful symbols, using bumper stickers, banners, leaflets, and more to detail facts about how the administration’s policies are hurting community members.
General Strike? Maybe Not Yet
The idea of a general strike is still in its exploratory stages, at best.
As Cliff Albright, co-founder and executive director of Black Voters Matter, explained to the Guardian:
There’s growing support for [a general strike]. Groups like ours will be involved with educating people around, what is this? When has it been done in the past? How do you do it successfully? What are the objectives? I think there would need to be ongoing awareness raising and education and preparation for it.
November 5
Nov. 5 — next Wednesday — is the one-year anniversary of Trump’s election. Surprisingly, to me, not much is planned to commemorate that terrible day.
The one exception is the outlier group Refuse Fascism, which, as I noted two weeks ago, is calling to surround the White House starting on Nov. 5 and every day after, as part of the campaign to “grind the machinery of the fascist regime to a halt.”
This Week in the Courts
Democracy Docket reports that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals “voted to rehear President Donald Trump’s Portland National Guard case Tuesday — a step that vacates an earlier ruling that allowed Trump to federalize Oregon’s troops and deploy them against local protests.”
The Associated Press reports that “A federal judge in San Francisco on Tuesday indefinitely barred the Trump administration from firing federal employees during the government shutdown, saying that labor unions were likely to prevail on their claims that the cuts were arbitrary and politically motivated.”
Politico reports: “A federal judge took Attorney General Pam Bondi and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to task Monday for their incendiary, out-of-court statements about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran native who was illegally deported from the U.S. to his home country before being brought back to face immigrant-smuggling charges.” Here’s the ruling.
Block Club Chicago reports: “A federal judge on Tuesday admonished the agent leading the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Chicago, saying she wants to receive daily reports from him after federal authorities failed to follow her previous order to curtail the use of riot-control weapons on peaceful protesters, journalists and bystanders.”
The DC ACLU is suing on behalf of a man who was arrested by a National Guardsman and city police officers for playing the Imperial March from Star Wars as an act of protest.
Two Resistance Heroes
CBS News reports:
Two Illinois National Guard members told CBS News they would refuse to obey federal orders to deploy in Chicago as part of President Trump’s controversial immigration enforcement mission — a rare act of open defiance from within the military ranks.
“It’s disheartening to be forced to go against your community members and your neighbors,” said Staff Sgt. Demi Palecek, a Latina guardswoman and state legislative candidate from Illinois’s 13th District. “It feels illegal. This is not what we signed up to do.”
Both Palecek and Capt. Dylan Blaha, who is running for Congress in the same district, described growing unease among Guard members after the White House federalized 500 troops – including members of the Illinois and Texas National Guard – to secure federal immigration facilities and personnel in the Chicago area.
Good idea >> create an enduring online document or website where people can build a record of public harms, including through videos, stories, and responsive actions taken.
This needs a focal point, e.g., No Kings, to establish a base website that points to statewide websites, which point to metro-area websites, etc. Just creating a site personally fractures our opposition. A top-down structure provides a single participation point that rolls up nationwide.