I've Been to 4 Months of Protests and Trump Shows No Signs of Stopping: Now What?
Kyle Rayner is a popular character in the Green Lantern comics. In the comics, Kyle was chosen to join the ranks of the Green Lanterns, a group who save the universe from evil. But Kyle wasn’t a warrior; he was a comic book artist from LA. He also wasn’t fearless, like many of the Green Lanterns before him. He was constantly afraid of the horrors he encountered, and constantly questioned why he—of all people—was tapped to take on this role. The fact that he felt that fear and yet, through pure strength of will, did his job anyway, was the very thing that made him perfect for the job. That ability to look into the face of fear and to overcome it allowed a working class comic book artist to save the universe time and time again, in ways even the seasoned warriors before him had been unable to achieve.
We’re in the midst of experiencing our own horrors. Almost four months after inauguration day, this administration shows no signs of stopping its assault on our Constitution. If anything, it seems more emboldened to ignore the pillars of our democracy that have made the United States one of the best countries in the world. In times like this, it’s easy to feel some amount of sadness. Of anxiety. Of anger. And of fear. That’s by design. The administration wants to exhaust us, demoralize us, and get us to believe that all we can do is go home and quietly await our new world order. And if the fires of our resolve cannot be quelled, the administration wants to make that fire burn too bright: for us to become so unwieldy that those flames burn our movement to ashes before it can ensure our country achieves lasting change. In essence, the administration will bait us into violence that will be used as an excuse to claim it needs even more power to quell a so-called violent insurrection.
We can't give the administration any excuse to consolidate even more power. And nonviolent resistance is more powerful than violent resistance. We know these things, and we also know that we need to keep our cool, even as the administration burns everything down around us. But sometimes it’s hard to keep calm in the face of everything that’s happening around us. We don’t want to just sit around while the administration dismantles our democracy. We’re scared about what’s already happening, and we’re scared about the fact that four months of protests haven’t halted the administration’s assault on our Constitution. So what do we do? How do we stop these horrors? How do we deal with this fear?
Like Kyle, we use our strength of will to overcome the fear and anxiousness of our current times. Rather than acting on fear, we let that will, that desire to help our fellow Americans and to preserve our democracy, drive everything we do. That can be easier said than done. Many of us have a tendency to set ourselves apart from our real-life heroes: we assume we’re not knowledgeable enough, not trained enough, not something enough to make a difference, and so we struggle to overcome that fear. We’re afraid of failure in a time where everything feels so fraught. But really, all we need is that willingness to rise above fear and to conquer it. We already proved this to ourselves when so many of us overcame our fears to start physically attending local protests; and in doing so, we have already built a movement that has made international news and that continues to grow by the day. We can continue to build on that momentum in the coming months as long as we continue to challenge ourselves to overcome that fear, and that anxiousness that comes from doing work that is new or foreign to us.
Last week, 50501 contributor Jim Craig wrote, “the work is not done when the rally disperses.” Protests are great for uniting us in a central place. They can be a place where people can feel less alone. They can be a place where “veterans” of activism unite with people coming out for the first time, exchange knowledge and ideas, and to make plans to get together again to take further action. But protest alone doesn’t change government in an age where many have become desensitized to it. Many organizations — including Mass 50501 — don’t just focus on protests, but on a broader variety of critical work that all, collectively, will allow us to achieve widespread change. Diving into that work can often be a great way to quell that fear and build confidence in ourselves and what we’re doing.
Some of that critical work includes educating ourselves and others on how far we’ve come, so that we understand where to go from here. The U.S. has a rich history of activism that we follow, and to understand how best to use the knowledge we’ve been collecting for centuries to resist this new threat to our nation. Our indigenous communities’ faced genocide and long, active campaigns to erase their culture; yet, that community and culture still persists. Our black community was treated as cattle for almost a century and is facing constant attempts to revive that social order; and yet, the community persists. Our women persist. Our queer communities persist. So many communities over the years have dedicated their lives — frequently working together — to achieve a rapid evolution of civil rights that countries several times older than the United States have only just achieved, or still have yet to achieve. The Internet is abundant with their stories; their stories also live on in books, films, podcasts, and directly from their descendants. How did everyone before us persist in the midst of these historical challenges? And how much of that can we replicate now? These lessons from our collective history can often help us feel more hopeful about our future, by reminding us how much we have overcome and evolved over time. Often, knowledge is enough to help us combat our fear of the unknown.
Photograph via Pirkle Jones and Ruth-Marion Baruch/National Geographic
Sharing that knowledge with others is equally critical work. Our society is notorious for whitewashing aspects of our history, and as a result many of us, even if we are a part of these communities, are no longer taught many of the details of that rich history of activism. Worse, many are being force-fed an alternative version of history to convince them that the administration is on the side of justice; they are being actively routed towards extremist content that tells them that all (black and brown) immigrants are violent murderers and rapists; that slavery was actually a good thing; that women aren’t looking for equal rights, but superior rights; that the trans community are lying to us to harm women and children; and that our autistic friends and family are a danger to society. We need to make sure that we all, as well as our friends and family, and other members of our communities “paralyzed by the vacuum of uncertainty that was left behind when our social and legal norms evaporated” or who have become victims of misinformation campaigns, are reminded of how far we’ve come, and how far we can still go. We need to make sure that we’re helping others navigate the fraught landscape of the Internet to understand how to identify propaganda, and how to seek out our shared history. When simply having knowledge isn’t enough to quell our fears, helping others through that same fear we faced without it can also give us strength.
Some of that critical work is simply doing the things you can to chip away at the stranglehold this administration has on our democracy. Small actions can have large consequences when our communities do them together. One way to erode corporate influence on our government and the power of “billionaire edgelords,” is a good old fashioned boycott. Mutual aid initiatives help communities share resources and keep everyone afloat. Contacting your federal, state, and local government (by calling, or even by organizing letter or postcard-writing events) ensures they don’t forget what we expect from them. Being an ally to marginalized communities by propelling their voices, knowledge, and struggles over the noise of the administration, strengthens community bonds. And if you’re ever unsure about what else you could be doing, attending meetings hosted by local community organizers such as Mass 50501 can help you find other ways to get involved and help keep you informed about what is and isn’t working. Knowing the range of ways to get involved and make an impact, and being involved in an organization that can give you guidance on how you can make the most impact, can help silence that fear that there’s no action left to take but drastic and violent action.
And finally, some of that critical work is community building – in real life. Social media platforms plan to flood their platforms with AI profiles, amid controversy that foreign actors such as Russia have already started doing so. Social media is rapidly becoming an easy place to spread propaganda and misinformation, to keep people uneducated about what is going on in their own communities, to keep people divided, and to keep people demoralized. Once a way to bring people together, social media has rapidly become a way to “isolate[] people from the bars, parks, and real town squares where we built a revolution.” It may sound drastic, but we need to spend less time on social media, and more time talking to real people in our communities and building real connections with them. Soon that will be the only way to ensure that the time you’re investing into building relationships, is time spend building them with actual people. Talk to real people, learn about their real struggles, and use their knowledge and resolve to fuel your own. Strong communities are key to remaining resilient and united even if the administration attempts to invoke the Insurrection Act or invoke martial law. Being part of a strong community also ensures that you’re not struggling with fear on your own; in a community we all share the emotional weight of current events, the same way we share the responsibility of changing them.
To stand united, we need to be fully united. The administration continues to misinform its base, trying to convince people who don’t want what’s going on and are even willing to admit they regret voting for it, that they nevertheless have no choice but to accept it. We cannot let our fellow Americans remain isolated and misinformed. That breeds fear, and fear hurts our cause regardless of whether it comes from inside or outside of our movement. One of the reasons why the 50501 movement remains nonpartisan is because we will not forget the strength we share when we work together, despite our differences, towards a common cause. And we combat fear of “the other side” the more we talk to each other, learn about each other, and learn how to work with each other to continue on the path of progress. United we stand; divided we fall.
The idea of a nonpartisan movement, itself, brings fear to some: while we can all acknowledge the value of unity, many of us have reasons to fear the idea of standing side by side with people who enabled a man who seeks their eradication to win the presidency. To be sure, we will need to grapple with the fact that people actively voted for, or otherwise did nothing to prevent, this administration’s rise to power. And we will have to address the manner in which their choices have irreparably harmed some of our most vulnerable communities. History tells us, though, that division breeds fear, and fear breeds hate. An adversarial approach in the aftermath of a schism like this is more likely to create worse monsters than better allies. To begin healing as a country and to inoculate ourselves from future authoritarian infections, we must confront that fear and rebuild our society as a united front. We can best pave the way for that future, by building those community bonds now.
The road ahead is long but not endless. Each of us will inevitably face situations that make us angry, anxious, or afraid. We’ll question if we’re doing the right thing, or if we’re the right people to be doing it. We’ll question whether there’s anything we can do to solve a problem that just seems to get worse and worse. But by taking action in ways other than through protest, we can anchor ourselves and strengthen our resolve. And that strength of resolve can be enough to get us past fear and doubt and keep us on the path to liberty and democracy. If the artist from LA could learn how to save the universe just by refusing to buckle under fear, we can all do the same for our country. Let that willpower become your superpower; “in brightest day, in blackest night.”
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