We’ve been here before. This is not 2016, when Donald J. Trump’s surge to victory shocked much of the nation. We know how Trump operates and can better anticipate what he might do when he takes office in January.
The bad news is that this time, with the Republican Party having taken control of the Senate and the Supreme Court having granted Trump sweeping criminal immunity for his actions in office, there are dramatically fewer checks on his power to inflict harm.
Nearly a decade ago, when Trump first announced his bid for president of the United States, the late Truthout columnist William Rivers Pitt warned: “We are talking about a fascist, one with many fascist friends who are loud and proud about their menacing white nationalism.… A fascist Mussolini would have recognized on sight, for it was Mussolini’s movement that coined fascism in a barn nearly 100 years ago, calling it the merger of state and corporate power. What is that, if not President-elect Donald J. Trump?”
Pitt was right — and Trump’s own former chief of staff agrees. Since 2016, Trump’s draconian inclinations have become even more clear: He incited a violent mob at the U.S. Capitol to disrupt the electoral process, vowed to bring in the National Guard to conduct mass deportations of millions of people, mused about shooting journalists and threatened to deploy the military to fight “enemies within.” Racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric have been central to his 2024 campaign, much like they were in 2016.
The majority of the American voters in this election cycle saw this and said, “Yes, more please.”
Not only did Trump win the election, but at the time of this writing, he is up in every single one of the seven battleground states. The red wave that wasn’t in 2022 is now shaping up to be a red tsunami. The ocean receded just to feed the flood.
In the coming weeks and months, as Democratic strategists engage in hand-wringing and finger-pointing over what went wrong, grassroots movements have a different task ahead: working within our local communities to build strength and solidarity.
Before November 5, I spoke with two organizers about how they have been working collectively in already hostile conditions — and about their commitment to continue this work no matter what new attacks on their communities occur as a result of nationwide political shifts.
“I think most importantly for any grassroots organizer, any radical organizer, any left organizer, is continuing to base-build in local communities.”
“We know that no matter what happens, no matter what the legislative bodies throw at us, no matter what elections do, that living in the Deep South means that your right to have children the way you want and the circumstances that you want is always going to be under attack,” said Kelsea McLain, deputy director of the Yellowhammer Fund, a mutual aid group focused on reproductive justice advocacy and resources in Alabama. “Ultimately they can do anything they want to us.”
The mutual aid group was well-known for its abortion fund, which was operating until the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. After Roe fell, Alabama used laws that already existed to criminalize mutual aid funds like Yellowhammer for helping people obtain legal abortions out of state. “Even when there’s not a path forward for screwing up someone’s ability for accessing reproductive care in the way they need, the state will find a way,” McLain said.
Now, the group focuses on casting a broader net with its programming, investing in a mobile resource center to bring diapers, wipes, emergency contraception and safer sex kits to communities across the state. The Yellowhammer Fund has supported the legal defense of people who face criminal charges for lost pregnancies and trained a network of grassroots fellows on reproductive justice, political advocacy, self-managed abortion and steps to avoid criminalization. The fellowship program aims to empower people across the Deep South to serve as local resources in the face of increased criminalization, disseminating crucial information to their own communities about their reproductive health rights.
McLain said that while Trump winning the election is the worst possible outcome for abortion rights, “In some ways it might be the best possible outcome for people to get activated and engaged in the way that we need them to be for the next decade.” After all, she noted, the fight for reproductive justice did not begin at the ballot box, nor does it end there. “We need people to be active, engaged and aware of what’s happening.”
Kamau Franklin, an Atlanta-based community organizer dedicated to bringing power and resources to Black communities, has been organizing for 30 years. He’s been involved in efforts to fight gentrification and police violence and stop the construction of the massive police training center known as Cop City.
He said that in the wake of the presidential election, his community will continue “finding ways to organize around whether or not there are more cop cities, fighting against the genocide in Gaza [and] organizing against police violence.”
Stop Cop City organizers are all too aware that the broader left project must take on the state itself, regardless of who is in office. In Atlanta, activists have seen Republicans and Democrats joining together through law enforcement to suppress the Stop Cop City movement. Trump’s return to the White House and the Republican sweep of Congress stand to further erode free speech protections and embolden a new wave of state violence targeting protesters. But Franklin’s advice for the movement resisting this repression is universal.
“I think most importantly for any grassroots organizer, any radical organizer, any left organizer, is continuing to base-build in local communities,” said Franklin. “You have to get the energy up of people so they can understand they have to have power over their lives.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy