A Simple, Very Hard Thing to Do

8 days of calls. It's not likely. But it's possible. Here's who to call.

TL;DR Skip to the action at the end.

Trust and faith are hard to restore once they’re lost.

One of the major challenges we face in the US is a complete loss of faith and trust. Trust in each other, our institutions, our government, and our own capacity to change anything. As a society we can’t legislate or paperwork our way back to legitimacy and trust. We likely won’t be able to count on the courts to defend us from our current calamity.

Gavin Newsom flew to Davos to tell European leaders to “buck up.” He was upset the White House quashed his appearance. Meanwhile, back home, he leads no protests. He calls for no shutdown. Running his mouth in Davos but refusing to put his ass on the line in America.

Robert Reich had a similar message for Europe, writing from Berkeley that world leaders need to speak out. That their collective repudiation of Trump could be a tipping point. That they have means to oppose him and we don’t.

What I can’t, for the life of me, understand is why we’ve decided we’re powerless. Why we need Europe to stand up to our bully. It defies reason.

We can’t wait for Europe to stop our president. We can’t wait for Europe to impeach our Supreme Court justices that have declared the president above the law. We can’t wait for other countries to fix the brokenness that is American institutions. They can’t fix Congress. They can’t fix Wall Street greed. And they sure as shit cannot fix an American authoritarian system.

This is our job. Our responsibility. Trump is a dark mirror of all we’ve let rot in this nation of ours. We need to set things right our damn selves. We need to step up for ourselves and for the rest of humanity. Giving people like Trump and those he’s surrounded himself with in this administration this kind of unchecked power cannot be something we do not loudly and vigorously oppose.

It’s up to us.

This week a five-year-old boy was detained and used as bait by ICE in Minnesota. Grabbed in his driveway after preschool. Made to knock on his own front door. His family has an active asylum case. No deportation order. He’s in Texas now.

Yesterday the El Paso medical examiner ruled a death in ICE custody a homicide. Geraldo Lunas Campos. 55 years old. Someone pressed on his neck and chest until he couldn’t breathe. A witness heard him cry out “No puedo respirar.” Six people have died in detention in the first three weeks of this year.

Protesters in Minneapolis shot point blank with less-lethal rounds. Two blinded. A man shot in the leg. Renee Good shot in the face and killed. She was a legal observer. American citizens detained and asked for their papers like it’s Nazi fucking Germany. A woman tackled to the sidewalk for asking “Are you ICE?” A citizen put in a headlock during his lunch break shouting “I’m a citizen” while they dragged him away.

ICE agents ate lunch at a family restaurant then came back after closing and arrested the workers who served them. Schools circled. Buses followed. Maine just got “Operation Catch of the Day.” Tennessee about to require local cops to work with ICE. This is what the White House wants every state to become.

Yesterday the Guardian published a piece about civil war simulations run at the University of Pennsylvania. Senior former military and government officials. The scenario they gamed out in 2024 looks like Minnesota right now. Courts probably can’t or won’t intervene fast enough. Service members may face orders to use force against civilians and state national guard units. Minnesota may be the first test of whether constitutional limits still hold.

We are not in a drill. This is not a warning about what might happen someday. This is happening.

One of the most troubling aspects of this moment is the assumption that we will have more leverage and power as an opposition sometime in the future. Generally that’s not how these things unfold. The Iranian protests have largely died down. Rebellions don’t get more powerful as authoritarians take control. We get less so.

Federal agents are killing and shooting Americans. They are rounding up children and using them as bait. People are being murdered in custody. If not now, when?

Eight days from now, on January 30, funding runs out for the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the State Department, and others.

All of them weaponized. Defense used to threaten Greenland, threaten Venezuela, bomb Caracas, kidnap their president. They’re talking about American troops in American cities. Already done it with the National Guard and the Marines. State Department wielded to intimidate our allies. DHS using paramilitary forces against American citizens, against children, against anyone in their way.

We cannot fund any of this and pretend we’re opposing this administration.

Shut it down. All of it.

Democrats say they’ll vote against the Homeland Security bill. The Progressive Caucus says they’ll oppose immigration enforcement funding without reforms.

Not enough.

Shut down DHS. Shut down Defense. Shut down State. Shut it the fuck down. And ask the American people to stand with you.

Ask us to stand with each other. Ask us to get into the streets, to get involved in our communities, to support one another, to make sure people can weather the storm. Because we have to put the brakes on this train.

A lot of things are already funded through the end of the year. Food stamps. Veterans benefits. Much of the government’s basic operations. This isn’t about destroying the country. This is about drawing a line. This is about leaders doing something unprecedented and disruptive and dangerous because the moment demands it.

We need our leaders to put up a fight that looks like it matches the stakes.

If their efforts are just lawsuits and whining and bemoaning the lack of normalcy, it’s hard for Americans to stand strong. To be bold. To be brave. We’ve seen what this administration is willing to do. Tear gas. Grave bodily harm. Shooting us point blank in the face. Killing American citizens. Ripping families apart.

We can’t respond to that with thoughts and prayers any more than we can respond to school shootings that way.

We have to say enough is enough. We have to make our voices heard. The only way to do that is to yell together, loudly.

The only way our leaders can lead is if they show us the stakes are high enough that they’re gonna do something unprecedented and disruptive and dangerous. Shut the government down as long as it’s being led by people willing to disregard the Constitution and basic human rights.

Stand up now. Together. Before it’s too late and gets so much harder to do.

In 2013 we stopped a war with our voices. Obama ready to bomb Syria. Ships in the Mediterranean. Bipartisan consensus. Then the American people flooded Congress with phone calls, letters, and visits. The count flipped to 248 No versus 50 Yes in the House. MoveOn’s 8 million members mobilized tens of thousands of calls. Antiwar vigils in 224 cities. On the right, libertarians threatened primary challenges. The yes votes vanished. We did that.

The stakes are bigger now. The rot isn’t overseas. It’s in our driveways.

Eight days. Make the phones ring. Tell them to shut it down. All of it. Tell them we’ll have their backs if they have ours. Leave messages. Be loud.

Call Hakeem Jeffries at (202) 225-5936

Call John Fetterman at (202) 224-4254

Call Catherine Cortez Masto at (202) 224-3542

Call Ilhan Omar, Progressive Caucus Whip at (202) 225-4755 Tell her to hold the line. No bipartisan cover.

Call Henry Cuellar at (202) 225-1640 Tell him to walk away from the table. He represents the Rio Grande Valley He got his Trump pardon, time to nut up.

Last but not least Call Chi Ossé at (212) 788-7354 Tell him history is calling. Tell him to run. Tell him he has our support. He can run and beat Jeffries. Petitions start in 5 weeks

We beat fascism before. Here at home and worldwide. We can do it again.

But not by waiting. Not by funding the machine while we wring our hands. And not by asking Europe to save us from ourselves.

Eight days.

Corbin Trent

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