“I am the one; I run the country; I am your retribution;” are the utterances of an angry, narcissistic, bully-like man who happens to be the President of OUR country. This man is exercising expanded and often illegal executive power to act out his malevolent wishes to try and inhibit and sometimes destroy OUR government that was designed to support OUR democratic way of life. His goal is to eliminate the power of any societal institution that might oppose his actions.
Quoting from David Brook’s New York Times article, “What’s Happening Is Not Normal” published on April 17, 2025: “Over the centuries, people built the sinews of civilization: Constitutions to restrain power, international alliances to promote peace, scientific institutions to cure disease, news outlets to advance public understanding, charitable organizations to ease suffering, businesses to build wealth and spread prosperity, and universities to preserve, transmit, and advance the glories of our way of life. These institutions make our lives sweet, loving, and creative, rather than nasty, brutish, and short.”
“Trumpism is threatening all of that.” “Trumpism is about ego, appetite and acquisitiveness and is driven by a primal aversion to the higher elements of the human spirit—learning, compassion, scientific wonder, the pursuit of justice.”
“Our battles with Trump are not separate battles. This is a single effort to undo the parts of civilizational order that might restrain Trump’s acquisition of power. And it will take a concerted response to beat it all back.”
“We need to band together to create something larger—a mass countermovement,” which is evidenced by the ever-growing number of motivated citizens demonstrating against Trump’s outrages as his popularity in all areas is going down—his approval rating is underwater by twenty points or more. What Brooks is suggesting includes all forms of organized society from universities to businesses to nonprofits to associations to political groups, working together to counter Trump and save OUR democracy. A civic uprising designed to in the “Short term: Stop Trump. Foil his efforts. Pile on lawsuits. Turn some of his followers against him.” Long term: create a fairer society that moves beyond the status quo to improve all governmental systems such as immigration and health care; to improve the global economy; to create a stronger foreign policy that supports democracies. In short, help create a better, more equitable life for all Americans as well as want-to-be Americans to reestablish the possibility of the AMERICAN DREAM.
ICE is a good place to start demonstrating against and demanding change. Currently ICE agents are masked and heavily armed as they sweep brown-skinned immigrants off the streets. Often brutally hustling their victims into detention facilities without access to constitutionally guaranteed due process with a lawyer before a federal judge. Immigration judges who show too much or any compassion are now being fired since Trump/Miller want total control over the removal process. Immigrants are being picked up after they leave the Immigration Court is a perverse process that punishes them for trying to follow the dictates of the Immigration system. How Un-American are ICE’s actions!
Now, ICE is being enlarged due to the passage of the “Big Bad/Beautiful Bill” by the Republican dominated Congress which will make ICE 62% larger than the federal prison system and larger than the US Marines according to the calculations of the non-partisan American Immigration Council. ICE is hiring 10,000 new agents with maximum hiring bonuses of $50,000 each along with funds to create new detention facilities. ICE will be the largest federal police force that some people fear will move beyond immigrants to targeting Trump’s critics creating the elements of a police state.
Detention is open-ended with no legal limits which encourages some immigrants to self-deport rather than face continued, indefinite imprisonment. Most of these immigrants are not criminals. They are people caught up in a broken immigration system whose backlog of cases now stands at 3.5 million. What are their chances of having a fair hearing of their requests for asylum or for a green card?
Detention seems designed to punish these unfortunate immigrants since these facilities are overcrowded, lacking in proper medical care, adequate food, proper sanitation, lights on 24 hours/day that interrupts sleep. These immigrants are not violent criminals. They are poor people who came to America for a better chance of working to have a good life as many of our own Italian, Irish, German and Eastern European ancestors did. Some came to escape death threats and gang violence against them and their children. Where I live in Rossmoor, a gated community, our gate personnel now have been instructed to bar ICE intrusions except when they have a signed federal judicial warrant!
Stephen Miller, Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff, speaking of immigrants, “claims that we were invaded and occupied. Entire neighborhoods were conquered. Entire towns subjugated. Our treasury was plundered,” Miller’s lies were quoted by Heather Cox Richarson, in Letters from an American, March 31,2025. Miller is putting huge demands on agents to arrest thousands of immigrants each day/week. This has become a crazy exercise that is depleting the labor force our economy needs in agriculture, hotels, nursing homes and hospitals, construction, factories; all the areas where hands-on-labor is needed which will cause labor shortages in all the above areas.
All of Trump’s illegal actions are reasons we choose to demonstrate: to stand up and to be visible: creating and holding signs that voice our opinions, our concerns, supporting our constitution, expressing our love for our immigrant neighbors, reigning in ICE, deploring Trump’s fascist actions, demanding a return to due process and the rule of law. By demonstrating with like-minded people who share OUR love for the United States of America, we are creating a movement, of groups of people working together to advance OUR goals of protecting and promoting OUR democracy by expressing an underlying love of OUR country and each other. Demonstrations become communities where joint action (marches, roadside declarations of power) are happening that elicit positive responses from passing motorists and pedestrians. Within the demonstrations, participants find a source of connection that helps combat aloneness, prevents us from being overwhelmed by the assault of the would-be-authoritarians, promotes feelings of joy and belonging that buoys OUR spirit and creates a sense of accomplishment. We talk with each other forming immediate bonds with like-minded people where OUR actions are validated as well as theirs, creating a self-supporting universe. We walk away feeling better and feeling heard as horns honk and thumbs go up, as we fight to support the American Dream! We demonstrate to be on the right side of history knowing that our voices and actions will be seen and heard.
The greater the number of participants, the greater the impact of these demonstrations on those witnessing it and on those reading or hearing about it. This mass power, visible resistance and pledges of non-cooperation will counter Trump’s illegal executive power and his distortion of reality seen in his continued lies, mirrored by members of his administration to justify their illegal actions.
Since Congress, dominated by weak and willing Republicans, is not standing up to Trump’s usurpation of their congressional power, we will and are by putting our bodies on the line. The federal courts are often on side of democracy in opposing Trump’s actions but not always especially at the appellate court and supreme court levels. We are again called to demonstrate, to show that their opinions do not express the will of the people, and to counteract their limited/distorted view of OUR democracy.
Attending Town Halls held by members of Congress is a direct way to make your opinions known. If you are a Republican and your representative does not and will not hold Town Halls, then attend one organized by a Democrat and again move off the couch to voice your opinions.
OUR last and most important action is to vote, to vote into office Democrats who will stand up for democracy and not bow down to Trump’s oligarchic ambitions and attempt to rule. As OUR actions demonstrate OUR power for all to see. We are the People!
Rossmoor Walnut Creek, CA 94595