Feeling powerless doesn’t mean you are powerless.

Trump and the Project 2025 plan is to rapidly shock the system and invoke a state of paralysis so they can take permanent control of the country. Authoritarianism is a system of controlling a population — not by persuasion but by a little bit of raw power and a lot of fear.

Fear with a dose of raw power can make people fold. It can cause capitulation as companies, universities, organizations, and individuals try to make deals with a bully.

You likely have heard that comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s show has been pulled off the air “indefinitely.” The pretext is flimsy, at best. But it’s consistent with Project 2025’s overarching goals, which the Trump appointed FCC commissioner, Brendan Carr, helped write. This FCC commissioner put direct pressure on Disney/ABC to censor Jimmy Kimmel for his views. As the American Federation of Musicians said plainly, “This is state censorship.”

Some days the feelings of powerlessness in the face of so much wrong is overwhelming. I can feel small. I am small. I can get sucked down in a vortex of overwhelm and wonderment that we cannot stop all these bad things.

But feeling powerless doesn’t mean you are powerless.

The people pushback

Activists tell me that the Disney-ABC website has already gotten so many cancellations their website crashed last night. National organizers have put together a call for boycotting Disney (please join!). Unions are rallying against the censorship. A script with folks to call has been set-up to fight for free speech (it’s easy).

But the overall dynamic right now: a disorganized majority is losing to a tightly controlled, organized minority.

Just look at DC, where Republicans and far too many Democrats voted to further shrink DC’s right to self-rule, passing a bill where 14-years-olds in DC are tried as adults. There are a slew of additional targeted-to-DC bills proposed and Free DC is urging people to call your congresspeople (especially since Democrats haven’t been unified in opposition!).

Yet, the majority is showing signs of organizing itself.

Our capital is under a National Guard occupation where residents are woken to neighbors being pulled from their homes and jobs by masked men. But individuals are countering in a host of ways: trolling police with Star Wars music, DC police officer openly condemning this takeover, running emergency hotlines, swapping Know-Your-Rights materials, and so much more. A great article on this is here — unsurprisingly outside of legacy media which is better at printing stories of fear than of courage.

Or look to Chicago. Despite a crusade of fear and threats, Chicago scared off Donald Trump from sending National Guard. Yes, ICE vans are still prowling neighborhoods, homelessness remains criminalized, and political infighting runs deep. But the National Guard were never sent in.

Trump had made the pronouncement — “we’re going in” — complete with fear-mongering and racist overtones. The people said no — sure, with polls showing 68% opposed (but no authoritarian cares about a poll) and so the people also said no with protests in the street and pressure to align their politicians in formation. So the Governor said no, “There is no emergency that warrants the President of the United States federalizing the Illinois National Guard, deploying the National Guard from other states, or sending active duty military within our own borders.” The Mayor said no, penning an NY Times article saying, “the National Guard is the wrong solution to a real problem.”

A longer dive is needed to tell this story, but it’s a remarkable story of Chicagoans coalescing across historic divides and a fractured political scene uniting the Mayor, Governor, other political leaders, and community and labor groups.

Initially many thought it couldn’t be done. But the story of Chicago needs to be encouragement (to give courage) that we can face down the bully together.

Because Donald Trump backed down. He slunk away looking for a weaker target. (So Memphis is now the next target and local organizers are reporting that groups who have historically struggled to come together are meeting and planning there, too.)

Chicago showed our pushback can work.

From these stories let us take a bit of courage. Courage isn’t the absence of fear — in fact courage can only be shown when you have fear. So, yeah, I’ve got some fear. We all have. And let’s encourage each other to step into courage, too.

Quick tips

• If you are not part of a group, find some people to act with — whatever you do.
• It’s okay to keep some focus. You can’t take on everything. Show solidarity with others, but also keep your focus and advance your work.
• Share encouragement over fear.
• Show some love to others.
• Connect with songs that strengthen you, dances that encourage you, or ancestors that uplift your own sense of courage with others.
• Get off social media and be with people, pets, trees, and Nature.

More helpful tips on grounding from Finding Steady Ground.

Warmly,

– Choose Democracy

Like this article?

Had this email forwarded and want more like it?

Want to learn more about how you can fight the coup?