This year, Labor Day is no picnic
Protests are set for across the nation
Unions and activist groups are gearing up for another massive round of protests on Labor Day.
More than 1,000 rallies are scheduled around the country on September 1. (See map.)
Public Citizen notes that while Labor Day is typically “known for unions hosting barbecues and picnics,” this year it will be “a day of protest and recruitment.”
Protesters will “confront the attack on public schools, civil rights, and democracy.”
Another goal involves preparing for what may be the next big step in the resistance, by “training thousands of new leaders to create ‘strike ready’ cities and states.”
“The Trump regime is perpetrating the most anti-union, anti-worker agenda in modern American history,” Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, said in a statement. “This Labor Day, Americans are joining together to reject Trump’s authoritarian anti-worker agenda and demanding the society we want and need.”
Working Families Power is casting the protests as a rejection of the billionaire class:
Billionaires are trying to take over our entire government.
They want to turn it into their own personal slush fund—firing workers, gutting our healthcare, slashing our social security, raising the cost of living, and then using fear and force to try and silence our voices when we speak out.
But just like any bad boss, billionaires can be stopped when we come together.
Washington, D.C., will get a head start, with a Labor Day kickoff rally and march set for Thursday at 4 p.m. starting at Dupont Circle.
There are also two virtual calls in anticipation of the Labor Day events, one on Thursday at 7 p.m. ET; another on Saturday at 1 p.m. ET.
Get your sign ready and find a Labor Day event near you.
D.C. Fights Back a Bit
My concerns about the relatively lackluster public response to the federal takeover of Washington continue. But there are signs of life.
A boisterous “Defend the District” protest and Go-Go concert took place last Thursday on Washington’s U Street. “Hundreds took to the streets in opposition to the influx of federal agents and National Guard soldiers in the city,” reported WJLA.
“Every resistance step is a good step,” longtime D.C. resident Dean Hunter told WUSA9. “There’s absolutely no circumstance that would justify this policing invasion of Washington, D.C.” WUSA News anchor Lorenzo Hall called it a “powerful message from the people who call this city home.”
Dave Zirin wrote in The Nation:
In DC, the clanging go-go drums have long been the soundtrack of movements against gentrification and displacement, and on Thursday night, they were a call to resist the tyranny of occupation and Trump’s vulgar, violent effort to paint over the vibrancy of the city. The regime wants to duplicate the DC occupation in cities across the country. The people fighting for a free DC hope that what gets replicated is their refusal to remain silent.
Meanwhile, grand jurors and judges in Washington are pushing back as well, the Washington Post reports.
For instance, grand jurors “on three separate occasions this month refused to indict a D.C. woman who was accused of assaulting an FBI agent, an extraordinary rejection of the prosecution’s case.”
Another example: Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui “has castigated law enforcement officials for wearing masks while tackling and arresting a Venezuelan national who worked as a food-delivery driver, for disobeying an order he issued this week to release a woman from the D.C. jail, and for arresting and jailing a 37-year-old because ‘he was a Black man going into Trader Joe’s.’”
“This is not consistent with what I understand the United States of America to be,” the judge said in a hearing. “You should be treated with basic human dignity. We don’t have a secret police.”
And in what certainly qualifies as delicious news, the New York Times reports that a grand jury has refused to approve a felony indictment against Sean Dunn, the man who threw a submarine sandwich at a federal agent earlier this month. Dunn has become a hometown hero.
Local and State Leaders Fight Back
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker issued a call for resistance on Monday at a news conference addressing Trump’s threat to send the military to Chicago:
So let me speak to all Illinoisans and to all Chicagoans right now. Hopefully the president will reconsider this dangerous and misguided encroachment upon our state and our city's sovereignty. Hopefully rational voices, if there are any left inside the White House or the Pentagon, will prevail in the coming days. If not, we are going to face an unprecedented and difficult time ahead.
But I know you Chicago, and I know you are up to it. When you protest, do it peacefully. Be sure to continue Chicago's long tradition of nonviolent resistance. Remember that the members of the military and the National Guard who will be asked to walk these streets are, for the most part, here unwillingly. And remember that they can be court martialed and their lives ruined if they resist deployment. Look to the members of the faith community standing behind me today for guidance on how to mobilize.
Ben Raderstorf writes for Protect Democracy about other local and state leaders vowing not to give in to Trump’s demands.
For a great template for how to push back, pay attention to what Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is doing right now. Her letter to Pam Bondi responding to threats to prosecute local leaders if the City of Boston does not actively participate in mass deportations is worth reading in full…
Another good example: Read this letter from Gov. Bob Ferguson of Washington, also to Bondi.
Or take two Republican governors, Vermont’s Phil Scott and Utah’s Spencer Cox, who have both declined requests from the administration to send troops.
Raderstorf also offers five ways to help prevent an occupation of your city:
Start with a list of what the National Guard does in your community.
Use that list to write or call your governor. Ask them to “protect disaster readiness by refusing to divert troops for a political agenda.”
Call or write your mayor and city council members.
Write a letter to the editor of your local paper.
Join or organize a protest in front of your city hall, your state capitol, or your governor’s office.
The Cost of Resistance
Brave employees at the Federal Emergency Management Agency wrote to Congress on Monday warning that agency is reverting to a pre-Katrina era because of Trump administration cuts and policies.
The Katrina Declaration was issued days before the 20th anniversary of the hurricane that killed over 1,300 people and displaced more than a million. It declared:
Our shared commitment to our country, our oaths of office, and our mission of helping people before, during, and after disasters compel us to warn Congress and the American people of the cascading effects of decisions made by the current administration.
The Washington Post reported today that the Trump administration placed more than a dozen of the signers on administrative leave on Tuesday.
Defending Elections
Election expert Richard L. Hasen writes in a New York Times opinion column about what must be done to block Republican efforts to interfere with the fairness and integrity of upcoming elections:
People will need the courage to go vote even in American cities that may have federal agents swarming around them. “Voter protection” in recent decades has not meant protection from government-led violence and intimidation, but it may come down to that. Democrats, Republicans and other members of the public should monitor voting procedures, as allowed by state law, to make sure that state and county election officials stand up to federal pressure and do the right thing as they conduct elections and tabulate ballots. Local civic and business leaders need to back our election administrators, who may find themselves subjected to pressures to bend or break the rules. All of this organizing needs to happen now, not next November. To keep us from sliding further into autocracy, it is civil society we must make great again.
Could “Soft Secession” Be in Our Future?
Public policy analyst Chris Armitage writes in his newsletter about the intriguing concept of “soft secession”:
Not the violent rupture of 1861, but something else entirely. Blue states building parallel systems, withholding cooperation, and creating facts on the ground that render federal authority meaningless within their borders.
The infrastructure for this resistance already exists. Twenty-three Democratic attorneys general now gather on near-daily Zoom calls at 8 AM Pacific, which means the East Coast officials are already on their third coffee. They divide responsibilities and share templates for lawsuits they’ve been drafting since last spring….
Yale Law Professor Heather Gerken calls it “uncooperative federalism.” States don’t have to actively resist. They can simply refuse to help. And without state cooperation, much of the federal government’s agenda becomes unenforceable.
Thinking About a Post-Trump World
Andy Craig, a fellow at the Cato Institute, writes in The UnPopulist newsletter that after Trump, a major constitutional reckoning will need to take place. He writes:
Once the rule of law has fractured to this degree, there is no easy return to the status quo ante. The pieces will no longer fit together. Whatever eventually replaces this crisis-ridden government will result in a new constitutional settlement, not a simple revival of what came before. We will find ourselves engaged in a kind of constitution-making arguably not seen since Reconstruction in the aftermath of the Civil War.
How this new order will take shape is impossible to predict, but it will almost certainly involve a radical reimagining of the presidency and executive power. The presidency may emerge from this period either significantly curtailed or drastically empowered in ways unimaginable from today’s vantage point. (We should strive for the former.)
Journalist Andrea Pitzer wants to see some accountability:
Given the human rights abuses underway currently in the U.S., legal and political accountability projects should have a place in any future American efforts at Reconstruction. Such projects have a long history in America and could be framed as the setting for another attempt at more fully entrenching democracy in the United States….
Though it had its flaws, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa in the wake of apartheid offered a powerful example of how this might be done. Other countries have held mega-trials or brought their authoritarian leaders and collaborators to justice.
This Week in Lawsuits
A federal judge in Virginia threw out a lawsuit that the Trump administration had filed against the entire federal bench in Maryland. The decision lets stand a two-day pause on deportations in the state when migrants seek hearings to contest their removal.
A federal judge in Florida issued a preliminary injunction ordering the winding down of the immigration detention center in the middle of the Everglades dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”
A federal judge in Maryland blocked some provisions of an Affordable Care Act regulation that the Trump administration was set to implement this week, that advocates said could lead to 2 million Americans losing their health insurance.
End Notes
Republican Maine Sen. Susan Collins was resoundingly booed on Tuesday at a rare public appearance.
Here’s a compelling video of a woman in Trenton, N.J. confronting ICE agents in her neighborhood.
Bernie Sanders took his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour to rural Viroqua, Wisconsin on Saturday, gathering a crowd of over a thousand people, reported WXOW News.
Black Voters Matter is relaunching and expanding its We Fight Back campaign, “not just to defend Black voters at the ballot box, but to protect and uplift Black communities everywhere.”
In the months since ICE invaded Los Angeles, L.A. TACO has “evolved from a food blog into one of the city’s most vital sources of on-the-ground reporting,” per the Pressing Issues newsletter.