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Progressive Revolt

Since the election of Donald Trump democrats have found their voice, stiffened their spines and launched an unprecedented progressive revolt. We saw the first signs of how large this movement was during the women’s march in Washington DC on the weekend of Trump’s inauguration. Close to a million people showed up and dwarfed the crowd size of Trump’s inauguration supporters (which drove Trump absolutely crazy). People all over the country decided that Trump and his divisive, misogynistic, racist, Islamophobic, anti-intellectual brand of fascism can not be allowed to destroy this country. So of course the next logical step is to figure out how to successfully oppose him.

Progressive Revolt

Trump did win the electoral vote and therefore won the presidency. But a huge majority of voters voted for Hillary Clinton instead of Trump. She got 3 million more votes than him (which also drives him crazy). This means we are the majority and there are ways to stop his legislative agenda from being enacted. The Tea Party who strongly opposed President Obama was able to grind the gears that produced new legislation and approves presidental appointees to a hault even when democrats held power in both houses. The Tea Party did this with a very small number of activist and with ideas that were very unpopular with a majority of Americans. If they were able to do all of that with small numbers and unpopular beliefs, imagine what progressives can do with huge numbers and mainstream ideas that makes sense.

Two weeks of Trump in office has already produced an unprecedented number of scandals and disasters.

  • Broke his promise to “drain the swamp” and instead filled his cabinet with billionaires, former Goldman Sachs executives, and lobbiest.
  • Lied about the size of his inauguration crowd & ordered the US Parks Dept to produce a photo that makes his crowd look larger than the protest, which of course they couldn’t do because no such photo exist.
  • Made a narcissistic speech in front of a memorial wall that recognized slain CIA operatives.
  • Made ignorant racist comments about civil rights hero John Lewis and belittled his contributions to America.
  • Needlessly combative phone conversations with US allies & spent a large part of the conversations telling them how big his inauguration crowd was and how “bigly” his campaign win over Hilary was.
  • Threatened to send troops into Mexico.
  • Ordered his press secretary to give an angry scolding lecture to the press because they would not report his lie about how many atteneded his inauguration.
  • Barred all government agencies from communicating with the press and the legislature.
  • Launched a disastrous military mission which lead to the deaths of one US soldier, an American 8 year old little girl, a crashed military helicopter and at least 14 other civilian deaths which were mostly women and children. Inspite of all this Trump and his press secretary called the mission a success.
  • Signed an executive order banning entry into the United States for 8 Muslim majority countries without consulting any agency outside of the White House which lead to chaos and confusion at airports and a large number of unconstitutional detainments.
  • Fired acting Attorney General for not defending Trump’s unconstitutional Muslim ban / travel ban.
  • Added political strategist (and white supremacist) Steve Bannon as a permanent member of the National Security Council while removing the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff as permanent members.Trump &white supremacist Steve Bannon
  • Decided to make American tax payers pay for an unnecessary wall on our southern border instead of keeping his campaign promise to make Mexico pay for it.
  • Used his speech at the national prayer breakfast to talk about how huge his ratings were on his former reality tv show The Apprentice compared to the new host Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ratings.
  • Had General Flynn give a press conference to let Iran know we are “putting them on notice”, but did not explain what that meant and did not change our military posture. The White House didn’t even warn our military service members in the region that the “on notice” speech was coming.
  • Yes Donald Trump is President, but we need to recognize that his power as president is directly related to the amount of voices who stay silent.  If the size of the opposition so far is an indicator of the size of the opposition movement ahead, Trump and his party’s hold on power is a lot weaker than any president we’ve seen in recent history.  So don’t sit at home and live in fear of what might come next. Get involved!  Check out the links below and post any information you may have about ways to get involved in the comment section.

    Indivisible Action Guide Video

    http://www.indivisibleguide.com

    www.whatdoidoabouttrump.com

Rev Barber Undoing Trumpism

Rev Barber Undoing Trumpism

Like many progressives the election of Donal Trump left me in a very depressed withdrawn and sometimes angry state. I have read and listened to many of our leaders try to give pep talks but all of them were woefully inadequate.  Then I read an article written by Reverend Dr William Barber and found my inspiration.  “Birth Pangs Of A Third Reconstruction” is a brilliant assessment of our current political reality post-election and a diagnosis of Trumpism’s cancer.  Rev Barber traces the roots of our current political situation to America’s first Reconstruction at the end of the 1800’s.

…every stride toward freedom in U.S. history has been met with this same backlash.  We faced it during Reconstruction, in the shadow of slavery and amid the wreckage of the Civil War. African Americans joined hands with whites in the North and in the South who were willing to see one another as allies.

Within four years after the end of the Civil War, white and black alliances controlled every state house in the South. Together, they elected new leaders. Almost all of the southern legislatures were controlled by either a predominantly black alliance or a strong interracial fusion coalition. They hammered out new constitutions from a deeply moral perspective.

These fusion coalitions 150 years ago also built the first public schools and in state constitutions gave all persons a constitutional right to public education — somethingRev Barber Undoing Trumpism

that to this day has not been done in the federal constitution. In the state constitution of North Carolina they stated that “beneficent provision for the poor, the unfortunate, and the orphan is one of the first duties of a civilized and a Christian state.” They included labor rights and the right to “enjoyment of the fruit of your own labor” in 1868, long before the Knights of Labor came south with their first southern campaign.

They knew then — black and white together — from a moral fusion perspective, that labor without living wages is just a different form of slavery. They expanded access to the ballot and wrote a new fairness into criminal justice.

His plan to overcome the current backlash in response to changing demographics and 8 years of a black president, is so simple and left me thinking why I hadn’t heard more of this during our presidential campaign.

First, we must recognize the need for indigenously led, state-based, state-government focused, deeply moral, deeply constitutional, anti-racist, anti-poverty, pro-justice, pro-labor, and transformative movement building. There’s no shortcut around this. We must build a movement from the bottom up. We must build relationships at the state level because that’s where most of the extremism of the current-day deconstructionists are happening.

They see the possibility of a Third Reconstruction, which is why they’re working so hard this time to strangle it in its cradle — and we must know that. We have to recognize that helicopter leadership by so-called national leaders will not sustain a moral movement. What you need are local movements.

Obviously Trump and his supporters have no legitimate moral argument for any of the policies they are pushing just like the pro-slavery faction of the 1800’s, and the anti-civil rights faction in the 1960’s.Undoing Trumpism The lesson to take from that; if you appeal to the civility and inherent sense of fairness in an honest and sincere way, people will begin to open themselves and really listen to what you have to say. That’s how you build a diverse coalition of both democrats and republicans. But one thing progressives must do is make sure the leaders who take on this message have the credibility to say it with conviction. Local organizers, pastors, local social justice leaders, and advocacy group leaders are perfectly poised to take this on.

This new movement isn’t about “taking back America”. That kind of language implies that one party is more American than the other. It also implies that one group is more deserving of America’s promise than the other. That kind of thinking will never advance our ideas.  We’re all Americans. This movement is about restoring America. Restoring it back to the moral leader of the world. Restoring it back to the ideals that made us great. Reverend Barber has not only given us the blueprint, he has proven it can work. Now it’s time to upgrade the “Moral Monday” movement that ousted republican governor Pat McCrory in North Carolina, and replicate it in all 50 states.

Great article, great message, great man, great plan and most importantly, great inspiration. To read Rev Barber’s full article go to https://thinkprogress.org/rev-barber-moral-change-1ad2776df7c#.vn17l4ym7

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