Three things we can do this week (4-7-25)

This one’s for Sarah at O’Hare who stopped me outside of Gate B8 yesterday and said “I’m afraid we’re gonna lose our democracy. What can we do?”

I was in Chicago for the weekend and went to the Hands Off protest at Daley Plaza. Got there right at noon but there were so many people gathered and I was so far back that I couldn’t see or hear whoever was speaking. What a great problem to have! More people than watts.

But it didn’t matter. The message was clear even without amplification: we choose to fight.

And it wasn’t just Chicago. There were close to a thousand protests across the country, hundreds of thousands showed up, and many millions get the message. 

There’s cause for hope right there: people are stepping up and out of despair and into action. 

Earlier in the week, Cory Booker broke the distance record for a Senate speech, 25 hours — a feat of human endurance that broke through the complacency and cynicism that dominates that institution. 

The next day pro-democracy candidate Susan Crawford won a critical state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin — by 10 points! — despite Elon Musk spending over $20 million dollars to defeat her.

And then at the end of the week we saw another example of courage from the judiciary. Paula Xinis, a federal judge in Maryland, excoriated the Trump administration for wrongly deporting a Salvadoran migrant to the “Terrorism Confinement Center” in El Salvador and then refusing to bring him back after realizing their mistake. “As defendants acknowledge, they had no legal authority to arrest him, no justification to detain him, and no grounds to send him to El Salvador — let alone deliver him into one of the most dangerous prisons in the Western Hemisphere,” she wrote in her ruling.

So much of our hope rests with this co-equal branch of government. So there is cause for optimism in the actions that judges like Xinis and James Boasberg and others are taking to stand up for the constitution, the rule of law and our imperiled democracy.

In summary: people are coming together in huge numbers, pro-democracy candidates are winning critical elections and the separation of powers in this country is holding for now.

So — for Sarah and everyone else who is worried that we are about to lose our democracy — know that we can and will overcome the challenges before us. There is real cause for hope and optimism, but there is also much work left to do.

Here are three steps we can take this week:

1. I will be holding a town hall in Wichita Falls this Saturday — a lot going on, this is an important one. The Texas legislature is about to vote on a voucher scheme to further defund public education and the state rep refuses to answer to his constituents on this — or any — issue. Meanwhile, Trump is trying to rule as a tyrant and the local member of Congress won’t hold a town hall either. So we’ll hold one for both of em. Please join us: https://www.mobilize.us/poweredxpeople/event/772514

2. Speaking of vouchers — the legislature will be voting on vouchers this week — now is the time to push with all we have to protect and improve public education and save it from the billionaires and their paid representatives who are trying to bankrupt public schools to fund private education for families who already go to private schools. Call your Texas state representative and tell them you want them to vote NO on vouchers! Texas capitol switchboard: 512-463-4630

3. Want to help us register the next generation of Texas voters? We are training and deploying volunteers for registration canvasses throughout Texas (the toughest state in the nation in which to register and vote). Find out more and sign up here: https://www.mobilize.us/poweredxpeople/event/622514/

Keep the faith and keep up the fight!