I’ve been searching for a metaphor to grasp the meaning of Elon Musk’s departure from DOGE. The closest I can come to is when a friend in an abusive relationship makes a significant break from their partner, like moving out, but hasn’t completely ended the relationship. As a friend, you know all is not well. The threat of violence remains. The relationship is still toxic and dangerous. Still, you applaud the move. You don’t feed your friend’s aching feeling of disempowerment and loss — you feed the courage, the agency, and the strength to keep going. So it’s in that… Read full email…

It may be impossible to mentally survive the onslaught of these times if you track every piece of news. The actions under the Trump/Musk regime are a barrage: rolling back civil rights, watching government run by idiots, every institution weaponized, and dystopian spectacle passed off as governance. The sheer velocity can numb the senses, tempting us to shut down, to turn off the feed, to retreat. But you also cannot be good to the world — or yourself — if you keep your head down and pay attention to nothing. Withdrawal is understandable, even necessary at times—but permanent disengagement only cedes ground… Read full email…

Many of us are angsting these days about the mounting repression coming from the White House. In my community, many are worried about rumors of possible executive orders targeting climate and other nonprofit groups. The concern is well-founded. As Bloomberg reports, these executive orders — expected on Tuesday, Earth Day — would try to strip some groups of their tax exempt status, similar to the threats the president has made to Harvard. I’m now thinking about the many teachers, students, nonprofit staff, lawyers, university staff and faculty and beyond who are worried, concerned and uncertain about what is coming. The… Read full email…

Daniel also wanted to write a different topic on his mind. If this message isn’t for you or your group, feel free to move on, we’ll send other emails. But if your group is starting to fray, there might be some helpful insights here for you. This last week a strange thing happened. Almost a dozen organizers shared with me the same story. It went something like this: “We are all exhausted and doing good work — but this week it seems like people just snapped. Things were tough and honestly we weren’t making a ton of progress — but… Read full email…

As we provide training support for noncooperation (more on what we’ve been up to below), one resource we’ve been using is this video of dominos knocking over. A tiny 5mm domino is pushed which knocks down twelve other dominos culminating in the loud bang from a 1meter tall 100-pound domino falling over. It’s a metaphor to help inspire us to courage. Because courage can be contagious — and one person doing a small thing can make bigger things unfold. We’ll give one example. Following a series of humiliating capitulations among lawyers, today an elite law firm just took a strong… Read full email…

This administration is gunning for so many groups of people in so many different ways that it’s hard to keep track. Every response we make to each threat and violation stands up for the right that no one is expendable. Yet yesterday marked a sharp escalation of Trump’s weaponization of government that calls for a strong and united response. Mahmoud Khalil is a fierce critic of US Middle East foreign policy and a student at Colombia University. According to reports, ICE arrived at Colombia without a warrant. They attempted to arrest Khalil saying his student visa had been revoked. When… Read full email…

Over a year ago when I started worrying about a possible Trump victory, a few of us began interviewing activists in authoritarian regimes. We talked strategy and politics, tactics and reading the landscape. (Some of those interviews are over at Waging Nonviolence.) Something every single person fighting authoritarians told us: Protect your psychology. Let your heart stay soft. Their aim is to wear you down. Everyone talked about the overwhelming, all-consuming nature of living under an authoritarian regime — how an authoritarian attempts to occupy all spaces and times. In response, some of us feel we have to to react… Read full email…