We’d best find our trench to jump into and fire back.
FINDING YOUR FIGHT-BACK TRENCH By Bobbi Murray
Mere weeks since the inauguration of the 2nd Trump Administration, many of us remain gobsmacked and gasping and scrambling for a response.
Taking a minute here to remind that it’s a fact that he-who-shall-not be named won the presidency by 1.6% of the vote—which is pretty slim. We can debate another time about which states he took by what margins and what that means—worth a look.
The point being: that margin doesn’t represent a fiat to do whatever he wants or threatens.
A lot of the rest of us who didn’t join the 1.6% Trump supporters are mobilizing a little pushback—okay a lot of push back. This just popped up—the Fifty Fifty One Movement is organizing a national day of protests in cities across the United States on April 5th.
It’s a big job deflecting or defeating attacks on so many policy fronts—immigrants’ legal status, racial justice and history recognition, voting rights, a functioning economy, women’s bodily autonomy—oh and let’s see—the Veterans Administration, Social Security—the list goes on but getting carpal tunnel over here typing it.
In the no-man’s land kind of policy war going on against the U.S. populace and the rest of the world—we’d best find our trench to jump into and fire back. Trench warfare first emerged in Europe during World War 1, not as an overall planned strategy, but, rather, a way to adopt to new brutal realities and weapons troops (and their commanders) hadn’t seen before.
So we’re here to discuss how best to dig your trench and jump in to return fire against the insane barrage of initiatives, aggressions and, when you take a look, big sloppy bully tactics from the new administration.
Not to say that many threats are not real—just ask the people hiding inside their homes for fear of ICE.
It’s knocked so many of us off balance—one of the first fight-back steps is that we acknowledge it our dismay and disorientation. Thing One in this trench warfare is psychological –calm yourself and acknowledge that many those fusillades of lies and tactics that are sending us all diving and gasping are frequently composed of bluster and rubbish.
Not to say that too many threats are not real—just ask the people hiding inside their homes for fear of ICE.
It’s important at this juncture to stop, consider and not get overwhelmed to figure out the best ways to push back. “We can’t battle everything,” says Christian Castro, who works with the Teamsters union in Southern California. “We also can’t keep track of everything with how sporadic this Administration is. We can’t battle everything so we’re choosing the one thing we can affect.”
So now’s the time to stop and pick out your trench.
A few suggestions here where to look—more in future writings:
Several judges, such as Judge James Boasberg, have put breaks on some of the most outrageous initiatives.
Not all of us can jump into the legal trench but we can at least take a deep breath and note that several judges put some the breaks on some of the most outrageous initiatives. Legions of legal efforts are going forward. On Friday an appellate judge upheld another judicial decision that mandated the Trump administration to reinstate 25,000 employees at 18 federal agencies, who were part of a workforce reduction—the decision supported a federal judge order that six federal agencies reinstate probationary workers laid off by Musk fiat at the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, the Interior, Treasury, Defense and Veterans Affairs.
Not preaching a happy-nice-time approach here –so many frightening legal struggles in play of course—just one example is the awful detention and incarceration by ICE of graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a high-profile activist in Columbia University’s protests against Israel’s violent policy in Gaza—he holds a green card (which—ahem—gives him legal status) but is now being held in what media reports describe as a remote detention facility in Louisiana a few thousand miles from his wife in New York—where they are expecting their first baby.
Reports abound of people afraid to go out of the house because of their immigration status and ICE sweeping neighborhoods.
It’s tough to navigate finding the right trench in all the legal fights against this repression—but there’s probably room for any research skills and knowledge at your local ACLU or immigrant rights organization. (Be patient of course because if you’re feeling overwhelmed, there’s a lot of it going around and it may take a moment to sync up your skills with their needs. Anyway—it’s a trench!)
Latinopia promises to keep you informed about those firing back (figuratively speaking!) on issues of immigration, police misconduct and being laid off just because Elon Musk says so.
Speaking of the newly crowned Prince Elon Musk. The judicial system has swatted back at his efforts to cut federal jobs just because the world’s richest man thinks it’s fun to bully rag and threaten and demand that workers outline five things they did last week.
DOGE is cutting federal jobs in the Veterans Administration, the Social Security Administration and other agencies that made life move along for normal people in the USA.
The senior advisor and “first buddy” of the White House occupant is the creator of Tesla and cars that look like dumpsters on wheels and now the boss of a made-up thing called the Department of Government Efficiency, comically known as DOGE.
The agency is cutting federal jobs in the Veterans Administration, the Social Security Administration and other agencies that made life move along for normal people in the USA. We have mentioned that the mass-layoff initiative is mostly stalled on the legal front as of now.
But with such a showy first buddy with his showy unsightly auto products, it’s not surprising that some dramatic pushback against Trump Administration policy starts with Elon and his cars.
That has meant literally taking sledge hammers to Teslas in show rooms and even Tesla charging spots all over the country. Every day there’s a report of another sledge hammer attack or torching. There is much hilarity on-line with photos of Tesla Cybertrucks’ parked next to dumpsters that are—um—shaped just like the cars.
It’s a damn shame that Teslas have become a target of sledge hammers after so many of us welcomed them as an electric alternative to gas-powered vehicles.
The Tesla overlord, though, is taking a sledge hammer and a torch to US social support systems, so it kind of makes theatrical sense as a form of protest.
The price the torchers and sledge hammers pay is going to get increasingly heavier—three vandals are facing federal charges for Musk is paying a price for his attempts to dismantle the social infrastructure—Tesla sales and stock profits are plummeting and even if he is the richest guy in the world that’s gotta hurt his narcissistic ego.
Top 10 companies on the Faithful America boycott list are: Amazon, Tesla, Walmart, Target, Google, Meta, Pepsi, Aldi, McDonald’s and Lowe’s.
People are also obviously feeling noisier and trying to be heard in other ways these days, ones that don’t require a sledge hammer. On the first day of Lent, grassroots Christian groups opposing Trump policies launched a boycott educating people in their communities and urging them to refuse to patronize companies that have supported those policies, such as Target’s reversal of DEI in hiring and promotion– top 10 companies on the Faithful America boycott list are: Amazon, Tesla, Walmart, Target, Google, Meta, Pepsi, Aldi, McDonald’s and Lowe’s.
We’ll keep tabs on the boycott and economic pressure trench, but that’s one lots of people have jumped into.
On March 7th, International Women’s Day, women and allies across the U.S. turned out in marches to push against the bro government that is (and has been) moving swiftly to curb women’s rights to their own bodily autonomy—access to birth control, pregnancy support, not being left to bleed out from a miscarriage.
The National Day Laborer Organizing Network was founded in 2001 and since has built a national organizational base and infrastructure that has poised them to fight back against the Administration’s anti-immigrant policies—NDLON has just filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Venezuelans deported to El Salvador.
NDLON’s day-to-day work has been built on defending the rights of day laborers –the people you see standing out in front of the supermarket hustling day labor jobs– hauling construction materials, painting, gardening.
If you want to jump into that kind of trench, “There’s always a need for research,” says founder Pablo Alvarado. “We can use help with technology.”
The Pentagon has restored the webpages of Black veterans and Navajo Code Talkers after huge public pressure to honor the real history.
There are so many trenches to pick—the Pentagon has restored the webpages of Black veterans and Navajo Code Talkers after huge public pressure to honor the real history of those who had been scrubbed in the name of anti-DEI. But lots of people showed up and fired back. And won.
There’s a petition to Congress to protest the DOGE firings of federal workers from national parks—a judge has ruled in favor of their reinstatement.
Next time around we’ll take a look at the trenches of environmental justice for low-income communities; building Black voter power and push back and more on immigration rights protection fights.
Until then—search for your trench—ask the Google about organizations around you that respond to your issues—immigration, overall racial justice, women’s autonomy.
And deep, slow breaths. You losing your mind in these crazy times ain’t gonna help.
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Copyright 2024 by Bobbi Murray. This is the first of a new Latinopia blog series Trench Warfare with Bobbi Murray. To contact Murray write: murratus@earthlink.net All images in this blog are in public domain.