#ResistTrumpTuesdays Anywhere!
Even if you can’t make it to an action today, resist wherever you are.
Tonight is another #ResistTrumpTuesdays protest at Goldman Sachs — but what if you can’t be there? Treasury Nominee Steve Mnuchin is a former partner at Goldman and has a horrendous record that consistently shows he favors the 1% over regular Americans. Is not showing up somehow failing to oppose the new administration?
Not so fast. With countless groups organizing against Trump, the local actions are so frenetic that attempting to participate in every event is futile. It’s okay to not make it to every one, and beating yourself up over your absence will only serve to demoralize you. Instead, ask yourself how you can best serve your political causes without causing unnecessary stress, guilt, or disruption to your life.
Maybe your book club typically meets on Tuesdays; try assigning Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals to the group to foster discussion about effective obstruction. Or it could be that your favorite yoga instructor teaches on Tuesday nights. Perfect! Commit to setting a restorative intention at the start of each class to focus on healing your despair over the election and staying with the fight even when it’s demoralizing.
Do you have a professional certification course that gets in the way of evening protest? Commit to donating a portion of the raise you’ll get once your new degree is complete to your favorite charitable causes. Important childcare duties blocking you? Think about exposing your children to what it feels like to be an active citizen, or spend time making signs together for a more flexibly scheduled friend to use in their own protests. Too many errands to run to go join an organizing meeting? Wear a pin that flags you as one of the resistors (it could be from the Hillary or Bernie campaigns, for Black Lives Matter, against fascism — whatever speaks to you) and keep a flyer of upcoming events and resources in your bag to hand out when the vendor at the farmer’s market or the woman on the subway comments on it.
No matter what your own particular roadblock is, don’t let the places where you fall short or can’t get involved distract you from what you can and do contribute. We all have responsibilities that can’t be neglected and a need to look after ourselves to prevent burnout. Perhaps you can reserve one Tuesday a month for stopping by a protest, or can block out the Tax Day march on your calendar. The key is in framing your choices so that you don’t get discouraged by everything you aren’t doing to appreciate what you are.
Even seemingly non-political actions can be put into a new lens. Volunteering and mentoring of all kinds is pitching in with our own valuable time to build the world we believe in. Attending films directed by women and minorities supports a discourse that sees American identity through a broad and inclusive lens. Supporting your local Yemeni restaurant signals that you stand behind your Muslim neighbors. Trump wants a fear-based and hateful environment to flourish, because it’s the only way his message can thrive. We oppose his message when we protest his nominees and Executive Orders, but also when we do the quieter daily work of mailing out postcards and picking up the phone to call our representatives. We all have something to contribute, and we’ll all take turns on the front lines.
Where will you be next Tuesday? Want to get involved? Get connected. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and we’ll see you out there for #ResistTrumpTuesdays.
