The Opposition Playbook: What Would an Effective Resistance to Trump Look Like?
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From KQED. From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal. At the beginning of Donald Trump's first term, the popular resistance to his administration was enormous. The massive women's march in Washington, D.C., was just one of a variety of other marches, actions in the streets and new organizations.

This time around, the Trump administration has blitzed the nation with a dizzying array of executive orders and Elon Musk's doge monkey wrenching of federal agencies. Where in all this is the opposition? Where are Democrats and civil society groups? Will there be marches on the scale of last time? We talk with people organizing the Trump opposition. That's all coming up next, right after this news. Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal.

In these first weeks of Donald Trump's second term, his administration has taken radical steps to shrink the size of the federal government without authorization from Congress and in the face of a flurry of legal challenges. These actions are far outside the norms of recent administrations of any political stripe and rely on legal interpretations that had little support among legal scholars or in either party until the MAGA movement's ascendancy.

It's hard to even describe what Elon Musk is doing with Doge without sounding like a crank. Scientists losing research funding, civil servants abroad endangered, computer systems and the basic HR functions of the government intentionally kneecapped. Meanwhile, Donald Trump's cabinet picks are sailing through Congress, RFK Jr.,

just confirmed, Democrats seem largely to be ducking. And while there's widespread alarm and rage online, the streets have not seen anything approaching the scale of the actions during Trump's last term. But that doesn't mean there's no opposition. Today we're going to talk with a handful of people who are doing meaningful thinking and organizing around what many legal and political observers say is a constitutional crisis.

We're joined this morning first by Rebecca Solnit, writer, historian, activist, recently launched a newsletter called Meditations in an Emergency about politics, language, possibilities. The author of more than 20 books, perhaps most germane to this conversation, classics Orwell's Roses and Hope in the Dark. Thanks for joining us, Rebecca. Great to be with you, Alexis.

We're also joined by Ezra Levin, who's co-founder, co-executive director of Indivisible and co-author of We Are Indivisible, a Blueprint for Democracy After Trump. Welcome, Ezra. Great to be here. Thanks. So, Ezra, you're in the trenches. What has the first month been like for you? How do you feel like your actions within Indivisible have been different from the first time around? Oh, gosh. Well, we definitely are in the thick of it now.

I would not call this the first month, though. A week after the election, we released a new Indivisible Guide, and it was a guide to this new political moment that we were in. And in response to that, we saw something akin to what we saw after Trump was elected in 2016. We came out with the original Indivisible Guide, which was a surge of energy on the ground that was not yet visible to everybody. That was just...

consuming national news or to folks who weren't connected to communities across the country. In November of last year, we had more new indivisible groups join and form with us than in any month since 2017. We then beat that number in December. We then beat that number again in January. And I think this energy is responding to two things.

It's responding to just the heinous acts and initially promises and now acts of this administration and of the Republican enablers in Congress who are allowing it to go forward. But it's also responding to a sense of a leadership vacuum from the opposition party and a desire –

among people over the country to see democrats fight back with everything they've got and so this energy is looking for leaders to rally around they want to cheer on that unified opposition and in the absence of that they're pushing that opposition to become unified rebecca sold it there has been such um a large number particularly of executive orders but also the actions uh by doge and associated folks there

That it seems like it has confused a lot of people. Do you see among activists that there's sort of a clarity around what the Trump administration is actually trying to do? I think there's two really different constituencies in this crisis. One is people who've said, I'm here for trans rights or I'm working on immigration or I'm defending this or I'm organizing that. And those people are very clear about what they're here to do and they're doing it. I think a lot of other people say,

And I waver between the two groups. A lot of other people are spending too much time online and it's really like subjecting yourself to a barrage. I was gone for three or four hours yesterday and came back and there was just, you know, just the sense that every few hours more corruption, more violation of law, more attack on democracy and human rights, more lies, more propaganda, more grotesquerie comes at you.

I think can be really paralyzing and it's intended to do that. And there's been some very good advice about rationing your intake and keeping your focus that I think we could all heed.

i was also really struck by a piece of your newsletter that was really about social media's effect on political discourse and kind of the fundamental distance that americans seem to have from our politics you wrote quote it seems like a lot of americans perceive themselves as sitting in the stands not playing on the field that is they see it as someone else's job to get a goal or prevent the other team from getting one and see their job as booing the opponents or rendering a verdict on the performance

Do you think what do you think might change that sense of, you know, disengagement from the actual processes of democracy?

I'm not sure exactly what would change it, but I think a huge number of things in recent decades have tried to convince Americans that they're consumers, not citizens. Citizen for me, I want to use as a term, not that means your legal status, your birthplace in this country, but your sense of yourself as a member of civil society, a participant in democracy.

Whereas a consumer is just somebody who can make some consumer choices. We see that even with the climate movement where you're encouraged sometimes to just have a perfect tiny climate footprint with what you don't consume or how you consume rather than go after the oil companies and the major forces in climate change. And so people see themselves as powerless. And when you don't have power, you don't have responsibility.

I often see people as trying to shirk the real power almost every one of us has because it gets them off the hook. But also...

That gets all mixed up with being told you don't have any power, you have the power to go vote every year or every four years and to make some consumer choices. Whereas we have so much more power than that, which is part of what Indivisible tells people and other good organizers tell people, here's how when we come together as civil society, we can change the world, we can push back meaningfully.

We can live in public rather than in private. We can be citizens, not consumers.

Ezra, I think, you know, Rebecca is speaking to the sense of powerlessness that a lot of people who didn't vote for Trump are feeling. And a big part of that seems to be the way the channeling of that energy in or through the Democratic Party. It's like it's not really working like you hear from Democrats and we'll hear from from one later, Latifah Simon, that it seems like they can't do that much. Do you think that's true?

Well, so much of what Rebecca said resonates with me. And so let me just pick up off a couple points and say before I get there, Latifah Simon is phenomenal and isn't one of the folks that we worry about not using the power that she's got.

We are in a moment where it is incredibly important not just for people to fight back, but for people to find their community. Indivisible in many ways is old fashioned in this respect. We have a digital apparatus. We have you can find us online and you can join an email list. But that's not where the power comes from. Where the power actually comes from is technology.

normal, everyday people gathering in living rooms or in libraries or community centers with their fellow constituents physically based on geography, identifying where they have leverage. They might have leverage over their senators if they organize enough. They might not, though. Maybe their senators don't care what they think. Maybe they have leverage over their house rep. Maybe they have leverage over their city council person or their state rep. It's fundamentally, though, going to be up to them to figure it out.

It is our job, all of our job, to figure out, as Rebecca is saying, not just how do we consume politics, how do we watch the nightly news or just listen to informative radio stations like this. That's not what we need to do right now. We should be informed by all means, but we actually need to act. And at Indivisible, we really have this bias towards action. We are not in this to just consume the same content. What we want to do is have an impact on the world.

And we still have this theory of politics that is based on the idea that we are a constitutional republic. And every day, every elected official from dog catcher up to U.S. senator, they wake up in the morning thinking, how am I going to get reelected? And that is good. It is good that they wake up thinking that. And if you understand that as the way politics works, then inexorably that leads you to an understanding that, oh,

I can have power if I organize with folks because they're going to care what I think. You know, one thing as I listen to you talk that listeners may be wondering is, do you think that the resistance strategies of the first Trump administration were effective?

Some of them were quite effective. And also, we're in a new world right now. We cannot just simply rinse and repeat the exact same strategies of 2017. So it is a balance. I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. I would recall that back in 2017, a lot of the early protests were not just directed at Republicans. They were directed at Democrats to strengthen their spines, to get them to actually become an oppositional party.

And it took some work. It took the Women's March. It took the first congressional recesses that we have coming up next week. That happened in February of 2017 as well and took a lot of Democrats off guard and got them into fighting posture. That oppositional strategy in 2017 did a lot of good in 2017, like saving the Affordable Care Act, which is the top legislative priority. Demolishing it was the top legislative priority of the Republicans. But it also created a contrast

which is so important in politics, where we were able to say, no, we are against this. If you are against this, join us. And that at a 30,000 foot level, that is what built the largest midterm margins in the history of the Republic and brought over the House of Representatives, but brought it into the hands of Democrats so we could actually exercise some oversight. Now, I will say,

Headed into this year. The Republicans are far more unified ideologically there. They have a game plan called project 2025 Which is not just a bumper sticker. It's 900 pages of a detailed policy and procedure and they are going for it They are moving forward fast

So I think in many ways our opponents are stronger now. They're more unified and they're more dedicated to getting it done. But the basic idea that we need to have an opposition party, the basic idea that constituents gathering in their own communities to apply that power is still real. The main shift that I would look at in this moment is we need to be smart about where do we have leverage? Because many Republicans in this moment

are more scared of Donald Trump and MAGA than they are of their own constituents. And so we should be identifying, do we have power at the federal level where we live based on where we live? Or do we need to apply our power at the state level? Or do we need to apply our power at the city level? But we still have power to apply if we choose to build and wield it. And that's what's different.

We're talking about the state of the movement to resist President Trump's agenda with Ezra Levin, who's co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible. We're also joined by Rebecca Solnit, writer, historian and activist, recently launched a newsletter called Meditations in an Emergency. We want to hear from you. You know, what do you think is missing from the strategies that Democrats are employing to counter Donald Trump? You can send us an email, forum at meditations.

KQED.org or call 866-733-6786. We'll be back with more right after the break. Xfinity Mobile was designed to save you money. So you get high speeds for low prices. Better than getting low speeds for high prices. Jealous? Xfinity Internet customers, get a free unlimited line for a year when you buy one unlimited line. Bring on the good stuff.

Welcome back to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. We're talking about the state of the movement to resist President Trump's agenda, joined by Rebecca Solnit, writer, historian, and activist. Of course, has written many books, including Orwell's Roses, Hope in the Dark, Men Explain Things to Me, among other things. Ezra Levin also joins us, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible and co-author of We Are Indivisible, a Blueprint for Democracy after

after Trump. Listeners are writing in with some of their suggestions. One writes and say, I would strongly suggest that the Democrats host weekly press conferences in the lobbies of the federal agencies that, quote, President Musk is targeting for cuts and elimination.

They could state the beneficial work that agencies do and the damage being done by halting their progress. They can explain how the freezes are damaging the public opinion of America to the world. Public and proactive acts of resistance like this would help generate momentum heading into the midterms to help ensure that a blue wave occurs at that time. Let's bring in another guest. We have Congresswoman Latifah Simon, who's the representative for California's 12th congressional district. Welcome, Congresswoman.

Good morning. Thank you for having me on. So you just heard that listener basically saying Democrats should be doing this. Democrats should be doing that. You are a Democrat in Congress. What do you what are you doing?

It's a great question. And I actually love the fervor of our constituents. We're getting hundreds of calls a day and our amazing young staff, they're trying to pick up every call. That's one. I think folks need that access to the Capitol at this point because these threats are real. They're real. And I am in no way...

in no way telling folks that it's going to be all right. What we can do is fight in the now. So a couple of things, you know, I'm voting no on every ludicrous bill that's coming in front of the Congress. I voted no on Lake and Riley act. I'm the voted no on a bill that targets trans young people in sports. I, you know,

I think that everything that we can do with our votes, I can go on and on. I voted on a bill that would criminalize doctors who are providing reproductive health care. Moreover, we have a bully pulpit. You know, every single day I have been at an action with hundreds from DOE to the Trump administration trying to shut down the Center for Consumer Protections. We have to be out there in the streets, but we actually are...

elevating a grand strategy that includes one litigation. There are 56 currently right now active cases. And, you know, folks say, well, what if he doesn't

Follow the law after the judge's rule. Well, we are, we're doing okay. I mean, I think that there's a lot more that we have to do in terms of this pushback, but our movements on the street are strong. Listen, when the court said, hell no, absolutely not. We're not going to diminish birthright. We won that battle. We have won the battle with our voices and in the courts around stopping this funding freeze. I'm working with federally qualified health centers in my district right now. Some are still locked out.

But, you know, we cannot go down without a fight. And I will say this, my 30 years of organizing, my historical understanding of this country, that rights are not given. They are fought for and won. We are, you know, again, California's 12th district. We have a history and pushing back against

heinous policies. And I do think that we have a fight on our hands, but we will win. How much unity is there among Democrats to push back like this? And is there a difference between where you are in the House and over in the Senate? You know, I am hoping that our Senate colleagues, that Senate Democrats will use the power of their votes. I

I was disappointed that there were a number of Democrats who voted on some of these cabinet secretaries. I was...

as again, I've been in my job five weeks, right? I'm learning how things work here, but I was very disappointed in that. The fact is the trifecta is real. We don't have the house, don't have the Senate. We do not have the presidency. And some would argue we don't have the Supreme court. Many would argue that said, I think what I have is the power of my voice, the power of my vote. There is,

an opportunity and a responsibility for us to consistently, whether it's in committee, I'm on the oversight committee. So when you see me in that committee, go to my website. Every day I'm telling the stories and fighting back around the hypocritical notions that good Democrats, good people, I don't care how you vote, don't care about government spending. But I'm also calling into question these ridiculous decisions to diminish the Department of Education, which supports

Not just low-income families from our breakfast programs, but programs that support disabled students, the attack on Medicare, everybody's grandparent who's struggling in a nursing home. Imagine those funds being dilapidated. And committee, you know, I am talking about the urgent need for all of us

Republicans and Democrats alike to think about the possibility of a day where Social Security is diminished from the children of dead parents to disabled elders to our children who need Social Security benefits to access some of the most basic of needs. Again, these are American atrocities, not partisan atrocities that are happening. So whether it's, you know, me yesterday in a small business meeting

committee telling folks, if we believe that there's a backbone economy where our small businesses are going to be supported,

Federal employees are being laid off in the Small Business Administration. So from our farmers to our dry cleaners, our automobile owners, our automobile mechanic owners, folks are going to suffer. And it's bigger than the politic. It's the life story. We're going to win on the narrative. At least I'm trying to win on the narrative in spaces that I can as a very junior freshman. But I'm here to work. Yeah.

Congresswoman Latifah Simon, you know, it feels different to me that there are these kind of two core forces, you know, in Washington, D.C. right now. There were the one that I think a lot of people expected, which is to say, you know, traditional MAGA folks and, you know, Project 2025 and Heritage Foundation. I think a lot of people saw that coming and, you know, a lot of people apparently voted for that.

But then there's also this kind of tech fueled Elon Musk part of the kind of power structure. Does the fact that there are these kind of two different sources of power and influence in the Oval Office make it harder or easier for you to oppose this administration from your position as a Democrat in Congress? Sir, I want to be clear if I haven't been. The democracy is.

that we seek, the frames that the framers had around separations of power. You know, our democracy is in hospice. I think we need to be honest and clear of where we are. That said, if you can imagine any department

Any government institution, any mayor, any governor hiring one of their best friends, but no accounting experience, no auditing experience to go into their institutions and rapidly dismantle departments with no study, with no clarity. These are unprecedented times and it is urgent. Again, we have the federal bench and I'm thankful that

Many of many of these judges have been so thoughtful and pushing back on the constitutionality of these issues from, again, from the slashing of resources to expounding that, you know, the executive branch has power over the purse, which it doesn't. I mean, Article one, Section one, we are very, very clear that we are.

You know, we're on the freedom side. We are abiding by the Constitution. The executive branch refuses to acknowledge its role. This is going to be a fight.

I want you to take a couple of comments from listeners here. One listener writes, "I'd like to find out what your guest advised when it comes to living in a district where our representatives share our values." So perhaps it might be in your district, Congresswoman. "And to one or agree or another act on them, but we're seeing the rest of the country's elected officials act differently. Having been a staffer to elected representatives, I can tell you calls and protests by people from outside the district didn't influence at all."

Scott writes, is your guest saying that we should resist? Resist what the majority of voters wanted? That's not my idea of a democracy. I don't see that we have another way. We can talk all day long about why we lost. Was it apathy of the voters on the left? Was it being in the West Coast bubble? Apparently, we get the government that we deserve. What do you think? No. A principal in Iowa who maybe voted for Donald Trump doesn't deserve a class size election.

in our school of 60 students. She doesn't deserve the call and the letters that she's getting from teachers

the Department of Education saying that her aides will be cut at the end of the month, those aides who are supporting autistic children. We don't get the... We have a democracy to look after. Under that democracy, we have checks and balances. I don't care who you voted for. At the end of the day, there is a social safety net. Yeah, let's find some waste, fraud, and abuse and get rid of it. You don't do that by firing inspector generals. You don't do that by...

rushing to slash and burn supports for poor farmers. You don't do so. We know right and wrong. We don't get the government that we deserve. We fight back against an oligarchy. So we're all geniuses now about what we could have done better before the election.

That being said, right now we're in it. We're in the mud. I'm coming back to the district and I have every day, you know, I have about eight days in the district from, you know, eight to 10. I have activities in communities, small roundtables, whether it's Know Your Rights, going to our high schools. I took a tour with Representative Catherine Clark, who's our whip representative.

of the Children's Hospital in Oakland about a week ago so she could see the devastating effects of immigrant parents nervous to schedule their children's

Heart transplants, because they are fearful that while that child is in surgery, that they and that child could be subject to deportation, that the beautiful work that we're doing around sickle cell disease, we will cure sickle cell disease probably, you know, in the lab at Children's Hospital, that those resources, there may be. So, you know,

I believe regardless of the administration, the good people in government need to care about the sick, the elderly and our children instead of cutting resources

cutting resources that help folks leave poverty. It's ridiculous. And again, I am a junior member of this body, but I came here to not be comfortable. I don't want to be on TV every night. I want to be organizing with my folks. I want to be in a position where I'm meeting with Republicans, which I have done. I actually, I have a bill in the hopper right now with the chairman of the Small Business Committee to stop the waste, fraud and abuse and to ensure that folks accessing

and resources from SBA, if they've been convicted of PPP fraud, they can't access any more of those resources because my businesses on the ground in my district are flailing and they deserve those good men and women from, again, our barbershops, auto mechanics. They deserve, they deserve everything.

And we have to protect those good people. So I'm going to work with Republicans where I can. I'm going to work with moderate Democrats and progressive Democrats. I'm going to work with the folks who signed up to make America a place where, you know, we actually have true opportunity. And nothing coming out of the White House suggests that that's where we're going. But again, my job is to work. Congresswoman Latifah Simon, U.S. Representative for California's 12th Congressional District. Thanks for joining us this morning. Thank you, sir. Rebecca Stelnit, coming out of this,

There are things that Democrats are doing in Congress. And of course, we heard earlier from Ezra that some of the marches in the streets made their job change, stiffen their spines, I think was the phrase that Ezra used. What do you think is the interplay between people like yourself who are on the outside or Latifah Simon, who used to be on the outside as an activist as well, and whatever is happening in the national government?

The national government is the three branches, and one branch is attacking the other two. And I just want to make that clear. When I heard the reader who was like, well, you know, the people chose Donald Trump, you just have to accept what he does. It's like, we don't have to accept a coup attempt, a violation of law, an attack on the powers granted to Congress, a refusal to obey the laws and the rulings of the courts, etc.

I think that those of us on the outside need to put a lot of pressure on those on the inside who are not yet doing what they need to do. I heard an analogy that's a little horrific and extremely useful for me.

Which is that in a way, a lot of Democrats feel like the police in Uvalde when that massacre was going on in the elementary school, and maybe they became police because they wanted to hand out traffic tickets and wear a uniform, but they signed up for a job that meant in that moment they needed to go into that school.

And there's a way, I think Democrats, and we've seen some, Elizabeth Warren and Jamie Raskin among them, a lot of young Congress people of color, really stand up and speak out. But we're not seeing nearly what we need to see from the Democratic Party as fierce, uncompromising action.

outspoken. I think the idea of the weekly press conferences that came up is a really good idea. They need to be communicating with us better about their commitment. They need to be standing up more clearly, saying more clearly that this is a violation of the constitution of the law, that it's hugely destructive. They need to point to the consequences. We just need to see so much more from them.

Let's bring in a caller here. Let's bring in Joe in San Francisco. Welcome, Joe.

hi good morning yeah a couple of things from the conversation i'm hearing and i'm wondering if uh... just the idea of thinking of opposition for opposition's sake is just counterproductive but what i really wanted to say was that i think what we need is democrats is to have more of a unified message follow behind a more consistent message because we tend to get all over the place there are so many things that are broken and we talk about all these other things

I think the message is lost. But if we just unify behind a more simplified message that everybody can understand and rally behind, I think it will be more effective in, again, gaining traction among the voters, regardless of opposition. Thinking about opposing and being the victims and being, oh, we lost, we lost. Forget that. Move on. Just think about what's going to win the game as opposed to whining about why we lost the game.

Joe, appreciate your perspective. Thanks so much for the call. Ezra, I mean, do Democrats need a unified, simple message? And if so, what would it be? I think that would always help. I think that is always a challenge for the Democratic Party. It has been as long as I've been paying attention to politics. And that's it. I think we actually have a pretty simple message that's available to us right now if we choose to use it. It's the message that we used in 2017 and 2018 that, as I mentioned, was so effective. And the message was no.

Really simple. It's two letters. It's no. And the reason why that's an effective message right now is because Donald Trump won the presidency and the Republicans won the Congress based on a lie. And it was based on the lie that they were not going to implement Project 2025. They got marginal votes that got them into office based on the promise to lower the price of bread and the price of eggs. And instead, they're delivering one of the most deeply unpopular policy agendas that's ever been pulled.

So I know we're talking a lot about what Democrats should do. And I like talking about that because I think we can move Democrats into better positions. We should not give Republicans a pass for what they're doing. We just heard from Latifah Simon, who is just a phenomenal number. If we had 200 more Latifah Simons, I think we'd be in a much better place. But we just heard from her that congressional recess is coming up next week.

She's going to be back home in the district for eight days, and she's traveling all over the district, visiting with constituents, telling them what's going on. You know who's probably not doing that? You know who's probably not doing that? Republican David Valadao from California's 22nd. Republican Kim Calvert from California's 41st. Republican Kevin Kiley from California's 3rd district. Republican Young Kim from California's 40th. You know what all of those Republicans in the House ought to be doing today?

They ought to be switching parties. They ought to be switching to the Democratic Party, throwing the House of Representatives to the Democrats so they can actually exercise some oversight over this lawless and deeply unpopular agenda that's being put forward by this administration, the Republicans. We should not be giving Republicans a pass just because they're in that party. They shouldn't be doing that. Democrats...

can help pull those Republicans who are up for reelection next year over to the side of opposition if they present a unified front. And right now, there's just not a unified front, as we were talking literally in the last hour.

There was a vote for yet another Trump nominee for secretary of agriculture. And we had the senators vote and there were 19 democratic senators who voted for another Trump nominee in the midst of a constitutional crisis. Your senator, Senator Padilla in California, he voted against your other senator, Senator Schiff voted for him.

We're talking about the state of the movement to resist President Trump's agenda with Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible and co-author of We Are Indivisible, a blueprint for democracy after Trump. We're also joined by Rebecca Solnit, writer, historian and activist. And earlier we heard from Congresswoman Latifa Simon. We'll be back with more right after the break.

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Welcome back to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. We're joined this morning by Rebecca Solnit. You should check out her new newsletter, Meditations in an Emergency. Also, we're joined by Ezra Levin, who's co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible.

Rebecca, you know, when I interviewed you a couple of years ago about your climate work, you know, not too late, you were really speaking from the position of someone who had seen victories in your work and among the movements that you care about, kind of in the long sweep of things like over over the years. And it seems to give you both sort of comfort and courage amidst kind of the daily up and downs of, say, climate policy.

Are you finding that same fortitude in that history now or does it feel different to you? I mean, we're in an unprecedented crisis, so there isn't really a way to frame this as like, here's what worked last time. Although we understand if we look at other countries that have resist authoritarianism already.

some of the tactics and strategies that have been effective. And, you know, I talk about victories just to remind people that when we fight, we don't always win. Sometimes we do. If we don't fight, we definitely don't win. Because I often feel that

People feel powerless. They often have bought into stories that there's nothing we can do. No one cares. No one's doing anything. We'll never win. This kind of position of surrender. And we're seeing that now. We've seen that a lot with the climate struggle. And...

You know, a lot of the way I frame the stuff I write is what will encourage people to become participants rather than audience, to recognize the power they have when we come together. And some of that comes from looking at the past and seeing what worked before, what we accomplished before, that we have exerted power and it has been important and more than important, it's been transformative. Yeah.

You also seem, you know, in your writing recently to say that even people have sort of the power of the language that they decide to use in a moment like this. Yeah, I wrote a piece in The Guardian and I've been reiterating it since because all these great lists of all the things you should do, call your senators, go to this protest, donate, all these things that are really good to do. And I just wanted to remind people that

Every conversation you have about politics, the state of the nation, is a moment where you can stand on principle, speak up for immigrants, for trans people, for reproductive rights, for human rights, for climate justice. You can speak against the lawlessness, etc.,

I saw everything people were being told to do as these very specific and kind of formal activities, and just being bold, being outspoken, not letting the lies prevail, not giving in to some of the propaganda or the pressure to get on board with

The demonization of various people in our country is really an important part of what we do and what we've seen people do under authoritarianism in other times and places to not buy the story being pushed by the administration to speak up and speak your truth is really an important thing we can all do just in everyday life.

Let's bring on another guest. Tom Temprano is the managing director of external affairs at Equality California. That's an LGBTQ plus rights advocacy organization. Welcome, Tom. Hey, Alexis. Thanks for having me.

So the Trump administration has come down very hard on trans rights, issuing an action that there are only two sexes. Other actions are on schools, medical care, prisons, housing, passports, the military. And a lot of trans people say that these actions have undermined their identities, made their lives much more difficult. There have been lawsuits filed, more to come. How are you seeing that opposition coalescing?

Yeah, well, what we've seen during these for the first month of the Trump administration, even the first couple weeks of that administration was an unprecedented attack from the federal government on LGBTQ plus people and trans people in particular.

I mean, I think it's quite clear to anyone watching that, you know, rather than focusing on issues that he campaigned on, like lowering the cost of eggs, which last time I was at the grocery store, higher than they've ever been. Donald Trump is trying to distract folks by attacking people.

an already marginalized community and the transgender community. And so what we've seen, as you mentioned, was a very strong legal response. Nearly all of these executive orders, including ones that would ban qualified patriotic transgender members of the community from serving in the military, would ban families and youth from

Accessing medical care would ban LGBTQ students from being themselves and safe and affirmed in schools have have been challenged in court. And, you know, in a number of instances, those policies have been paused as they work their way through the court system.

What we're also seeing here in California, thanks to the very strong protections that we have put in place over the years to protect transgender folks, are folks like our Attorney General, Rob Bonta, making very clear that in California, state law does protect transgender.

families, young people and doctors who want to make their own medical decisions. It does protect teachers and students in classrooms and ensures that they're safe and are able to actually teach accurate histories around race, sexuality and gender identity. And so we're seeing a strong and we have a legislature and a governor that just passed

millions of dollars in funding to provide legal services for immigrants, LGBTQ folks, folks we know are under attack. So we're seeing a strong response here in California from our elected leaders. And finally, what we're seeing and I'm hearing from folks across the country is, you know, as was discussed earlier,

unprecedented numbers of people who are directly impacted by these attacks from the Trump administration getting involved, coming together and looking for ways to push back on this and to protect themselves and their loved ones. You know what we're seeing? Oh, sorry, go ahead. Oh, you know, I was just going to ask, you know, a lot of these actions are happening, you know, at the state level. Do you see...

From your perspective on the issues that you care about, do you see opportunities in the national conversation or do you feel like that the, you know, we were hearing earlier about kind of leverage points that for your movement, the leverage point is really at the state level?

You know, I think as the Congresswoman noted, we are dealing with a trifecta of extremism right now in terms of our branches of government. So in terms of the levers of power themselves, I don't think any of us are especially optimistic about seeing meaningful change. What I do think we are starting to see, again, is everyday Americans who are

may have voted for Donald Trump for, you know, they were concerned about the economy. They were concerned about, you know, perceptions of public safety. And now what they're seeing instead of meaningful addressing of those issues is a president and his administration bullying kids, their families, their doctors, their teachers. And my hope would be that that's an opportunity to open folks' eyes to what is actually happening here, which is just a

an attack on an already marginalized community. You know, I do think also this is an opportunity for, you know, I think what we found when you look at how public perception around marriage equality, which even here in California between Prop 8 and the passage of Prop 3 last November, saw a 30 point shift towards support for marriage equality, is as these issues become more public,

Folks start to actually get introduced to trans people. They get to hear stories about parents who just want what is best for their kids. They get to hear stories about service members who are putting their life on the line to defend us and our freedoms, who are being denied the ability to do that by this administration.

And we start to humanize members of our community to a broader audience who may not, you know, may not know a trans person, a trans kid or their families. And that's an opportunity that I hope will ultimately lead towards not just a rejection of these horrific policies, but an opportunity for everyday Americans to be comfortable with and get to know trans folks and embrace them in their communities.

Tom Temprano, Managing Director of External Affairs with Equality California. Thanks for joining us, Tom. Very welcome. Let's bring caller Robert in Santa Rosa in. Welcome, Robert.

Hi, thank you very much. I want to thank your panel members, particularly the freshman congresswoman and as well as Ezra. Thank you, Ezra. You were on Indivisible on Zoom just yesterday. I guess I wanted to say a couple of things. I recently retired as an attorney and I'm going to try to volunteer with the NCOU up in the Sonoma County area on vacation issues. I think it's hard for people who are upset and who want to revert to actually find an outlet or someplace they can plug into

I also wanted to say something about this being a marathon and not a two- or three-mile run. We should set our – I feel I'm setting my odometer on, you know, the long distance. I'm not saying I'm happy at all day to day. If I react every day to the kind of noise that President Trump is putting out, I'll be exhausted before we get to Fourth of July.

Robert, appreciate your perspective. Thanks. Hope to find a way to plug in to civic participation. Ezra, what would you say for someone who, you know, recently retired lawyer, obviously has a skill set that seems pretty applicable to this moment?

Oh, gosh. Again, a lot resonated with me there. I'm thinking of a quote that I heard from an indivisible group leader. This would have been a few years after we started, as we'd been organizing at that point for a long time against some of the worst of the Trump administration, the first Trump administration. And she said, the choir keeps singing when one of us takes a breath.

And that was such a beautiful sentiment to me, this idea that it's not on any individual one of us and no individual one of us has to be on every single hour of every single day. We can take a break.

We can focus on the things that give us the most energy. That's okay and that's important. If we are going to build up people power to push back, we can't run that people power ragged. That's not the way to actually build a sustained opposition that will have the impact that we want it to have. I do think that is the beauty of having your unit of activism not be the individual but be the local group.

Local groups can build up lots of leaders. Local groups have lots of folks who are engaged on different aspects of the fight. But by building up a group, you not only wield power in numbers, you also allow people to take breaks when they need to take breaks and the work keeps on going. So I would highly encourage folks to

find the way to engage that makes sense to you. That might be forming a local indivisible group or joining one that already exists, or it might be plugging into a different existing group. That's okay. I do think the enemy right now, as Rebecca said earlier, I'm paraphrasing, the enemy isn't Donald Trump. It's not congressional Republicans. It's not even Elon Musk.

The enemy's apathy and cynicism and fatalism and nihilism. That is how we lose. If people think there's nothing I can do, there's no point, there's no way for me to productively engage. And for those of us organizing the real challenges to tell people, no, there is something you can do and this is it and we need you. Yeah.

Let's bring in caller Dave in Castro Valley. Dave, welcome. Yeah, hi. Thanks for this important program. You know, I've been thinking about three different areas where, you know, we need to really start getting involved a lot. One is, you know, we need more mass demonstrations where it's covered by the major media, where, you know, marches up and down Market Street.

and buildings and so forth federal buildings or whatever uh... you know what i'm talking about hundreds of thousands of people coming out to show that there is a resistance and that needs to be organized the other thing is we have a tradition in this country of acts of civil disobedience going back to the civil rights movement and we should really seriously think about putting our bodies on the line and be willing to go to jail to stand up for what we believe

that's right even if we get arrested for uh... blocking a federal building or the department of education or whatever and on the longer run we need now to start talking about how we're going to win back one of the houses in twenty twenty six in the midterm that is just really

you know, a game changer. If we can get back the House of Representatives, Congress, senators, that will make a big difference. So thank you very much for this program. I appreciate your perspective. Thanks for the call there. You know, Rebecca Solnit, I wanted to bring a question to you. One of our listeners writes in to say, you know, one of the things that's making this whole thing possible is that the people who voted for this are not hearing what is really happening. And

There does seem to be this attentional or like informational landscape out in the world built over time and, you know, both involving broadcast media and online stuff and influencers and all kinds of things.

At this point, how do you see trying to get information about sort of like the reality of what USAID was doing or what the Department of Education does? Not necessarily to say to people, you must do this, you must support this, but to just say, but this is what this place does. Like, how do you see that? It's been a huge problem long before Donald Trump emerged that a lot of people live in a right wing media bubble. I also think there's a kind of centrist media bubble where

With organizations like the New York Times, which, as we kept saying last year, were sane-washing and normalizing Donald Trump's outrageousness, downplaying the threats. And, you know, I haven't even really seen enough stories until the last couple days in the mainstream news about here's people dying because USAID cut off their oxygen or, you know, the end of USAID campaign.

in their place took away vital life support. Still haven't seen a story where somebody goes to Africa to look at the people suddenly cut off from access to AIDS medicine. And of course, because it's so chaotic, I don't know if they've been restored or cut off again. So I think we have a much larger problem that really led to the rise of the new right. That's been a Fox News and other

stuff, almost conspiracy to capture the consciousness, to push a lot of false information, to distort reality. But even people in the mainstream often have a very inaccurate picture of things and the left has its own distortions and problems often too. And I do think finding good news sources is part of the job of being a good citizen. And it's really challenging right now.

Joan writes in to say, you know, if you're a farmer in Wisconsin that's somehow being affected by bird flu, I don't hear anyone reminding those farmers that the agency that can help them has just lost the staffing to pick up the telephone, the researchers who can find the cure and the agency that can help them with a loan or information about where or what they can do to survive it having been decimated.

Ezra, last thing to you on, you know, kind of courts and the ways that the that the courts are or are not providing a check on President Trump and how we can even follow that, which I found quite confusing.

We're a movement based on the idea that we've got elected representatives wherever we are and those representatives wield power. The courts are not elected. And although I'm very interested to see how the courts intervene, I would not depend on them to write in and save the day. The administration and its allies are already saber-rattling at the courts threatening to ignore additional court orders.

That's not where I would put my faith right now. It's fine to hope for that, but that's not where you can actually exercise power. I would strongly encourage folks who are listening to this and thinking Democrats should do that, activists should do this, to consider nobody's going to do it unless we do it. There is nobody that's going to write in and save the day. If you want to see a Democratic elected official do more good things, you've got to organize and tell them that. If you want them to do less bad things, fewer bad things...

You got to organize and tell them to do that.

But that all comes down to you organizing other folks and that our entire movement is built on folks who saw things were going wrong and looked around and said, oh, my gosh, I guess I've got to do something. And reluctantly, teachers and lawyers and IT technicians decide to form groups. It's up to us. We just got to do it. Good lesson in civics there. We've been talking about the state of the movement to resist President Trump's agenda with Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible. Thank you so much.

Thank you. I've also been joined by Rebecca Solnit, writer, historian, activist, author of many great books. Thank you so much, Rebecca. Thank you. Earlier, we heard from Congresswoman Latifa Simon and Tom Temprano, Managing Director of External Affairs at Equality California. Thank you so much for all the calls and the comments. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of Forum Ahead with Mina Kim.

Funds for the production of Forum are provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Generosity Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.