{"id":13850,"date":"2025-04-11T21:33:17","date_gmt":"2025-04-12T01:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/?p=13850"},"modified":"2025-04-18T08:21:22","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T12:21:22","slug":"we-need-to-do-this-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2025\/04\/we-need-to-do-this-together\/","title":{"rendered":"We need to do this together"},"content":{"rendered":"

S<\/span>o far, Trump 2.0 is mostly a destructive project. In domestic policy, the administration\u2019s primary aim has been to roll back freedoms, protections, and programs that workers and other oppressed people have won through previous struggle\u2014through strikes, mass movements, and rebellions.<\/p>\n

Freedom of speech\u2014which goes back, in theory, to the Bill of Rights\u2014was extremely limited in reality<\/a> until mass agitation campaigns of the early twentieth century. Social Security and union rights are products of fierce struggles in the 1930s. Medicaid and civil rights protections against racial, gender, and disability discrimination all came out of struggles in the 1960s. The Sixties also produced the campus institutions that are now under attack: Black Student Unions<\/a> and other organizations of the oppressed, as well as Africana and ethnic studies centers, women\u2019s and gender studies programs. Trump\u2019s attack on \u201cDEI\u201d<\/a> is aimed at those, but also at hard-won protections like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and programs mandated in the same era to promote equality in public schooling. Significant gains also came from mass actions in the twenty-first century, such as same-sex marriage and protections for trans people.<\/p>\n

Our gains have seldom been quite what we fought for, and they’ve never been enough. What\u2019s more, Trump\u2019s attacks are driving home how fragile they are. A lot of his leverage has come from sowing fear\u2014fear of layoffs, fear of deportations, fear of repression, fear of who-knows-what comes next. Many people have felt confused and helpless, but at the same time, the breadth and brazenness of the attacks have also made thousands or even millions of people angry enough to look for ways to resist. It\u2019s no wonder that public opinion tilted against Trump<\/a> by mid-March or that Republicans started canceling town halls<\/a> for fear of protests. Since then, millions have mobilized for opposition rallies across the country, including millions on a single day\u2014April 5.<\/p>\n

The opposition is widespread, but scattered. To win back what\u2019s being taken from us, and to get ready to go for more, we need to learn to organize together in ways that most people have never experienced\u2014democratically, from the bottom up. We also need a strategic vision to match this method, one that informs us where we have leverage and identifies our obstacles and our allies.<\/p>\n