But maybe protests alone aren’t enough—especially when the people in charge don’t actually feel the consequences. Maybe it’s time to talk seriously about a general labor strike. Not as a fantasy, not as a hashtag, but as a real strategy working people in this country could build toward. A strike is what happens when working people decide they won’t keep cooperating with their own oppression. No buses. No warehouses. No ports. No compliance. No quiet consent.
I could paraphrase this section, but it's too important. It's inspiring. I believe we must adopt this as our main goal for 2026. We must! I would like to add that we reach out to our friends around the world to stop buying from US. One big weekend at a time. It will sting and may cause pain and loss for the strikers. But we will prevail. Trump would lose his mind (what's left of it) and my favorite nemesis, Mr. Miller, would be really, really pissed.
Thank you for reading and, hopefully, an addition to this fantastic idea.
@Mike Nellis Hypothetically, what if the obsession with control of Greenland (and now Canada?) wasn’t about heading off a land invasion of foot-soldiers via Russia — but a disruption in the water-cycle associated with accelerating severe weather patterns globally (climate change)
i.e., where a shift in rain and snowfall patterns could be predicted to put significant quantities of fresh water directly back into the ocean, just by the math of the disproportionately greater surface area of the seas vs. that of land:
Would the Administration tell us?
Would we stop fighting like Republican Dogs and Democrat Cats, and start coalescing back into one American People, in order to preserve government by, for, and of the Members of our shared Republic?
Here's a suggestion, Mike. You're a Democratic strategist and fundraiser. How about sponsoring a contest for pithy, short ads generated by anyone, professionals, or those with a smartphone? Keep the entries public, and let the participants vote up the ones they like. Reward early winners, if only a bit. Attach fundraising. Allow even a dollar towards favored ads. Target the venues and timing to put such ads on TV, social media, etc. Let the best go the farthest.
A rapid-response set of ads could copy the start or parts of the Republican ads, deconstructing them. Or, like in Aikido, use their attacks to let them fall on their faces.
In that, well-financed bots magnified riling, negative ads in previous elections, fund bots that track the crazies and laugh them off, much as Bill Jubran does.
I crash whole pages of worthy appeals from Democrats because I don't know whether my meager $5 here or there would go to the most advantageous place. Like compassion fatigue, I get ad fatigue. I somehow got on Trump's appeal emails. I noticed the same colors, the same fonts, the same emotionalized appeals as I see elsewhere. What percentage of the money raised goes to the companies creating such ads? Do they play to both sides, lucratively?
And, thanks for publishing without requiring a paid subscription. A mere $8 to every worthy substack or candidate would drain me fast. I appreciate those who allow reading and comments. (Like this one.)
I just have One question -- how is it that tens of thousands of Americans aren't in the streets demanding the deranged man be removed from office? Look at other countries. I guess Americans are just too busy watching Netflix reruns. Or, perhaps, Trump is merely a mirror, a reflection, of Americans & their values? They did, after all, choose him because they thought he'd be a great leader. And a goodly number still support him.
Millions of people have been protesting at the No Kings/Hands Off Protests. But America isn't built for daily, ongoing protests. Lots of reasons why- access to public areas, cost, and most of all time. Most people do not have the time to do it.
Demanding he be removed from office is meaningless when you need a GOP House to hod impeachment hearings, vote to impeach him, and have 25 GOP Senators agree. None of that is happening.
More people voted for Harris or a 3rd party candidate than for trump. I know he claims that he won by an overwhelming majority, but that is just one of the many bald faced lies he tells. He is not a reflection of our values, only of his own narcissism.
I don’t know why anyone would still support him now, but the simultaneously good and bad news is that so many people are struggling financially because of his policies, and that has caused his support to diminish tremendously. Unfortunately, the republicans in congress are too afraid to do their jobs and remove this buffoon from office, so we’ll all pay the price of his authoritarian rule until the democrats can regain control of Congress. God willing that happens in November - if our democracy can survive until then.
Anyone voting 3rd Party or choosing not to vote is the same as a vote FOR Trump. It's a statement that they don't care whether he ends up in White House. Actions (and non-actions) have consequences. Hopefully, at least SOME Americans can learn a lesson from bad choices. Guess we'll see . . . They certainly learned nothing from his first term. He got MORE votes this past election.
Contact your local Indivisible chapter for training on how to protect your neighbors and yourself from ICE, they are only 2 hours long.
We can either curl up in a ball or we can learn how to fight tyranny. Our fore parents did it, and the vast majority of those who live here have immigrant ancestors. The rights younger generations took for granted and that are now at risk came from the hard work in the Civil Rights and Women’s movements to secure them. If we baby boomers can get out and fight, we all can fight, in someway. Don’t let a handful of sociopaths destroy centuries of our nation’s work to improve itself in less than 13 months.
Hello! It looks like we are all citizens of the newest nuclear armed super-shithole-country.
All brought to us by 77.3 million USA voters and millions of citizens too cowardly to vote.
Of course, the list of ultra-wealthy political networks like the Heritage Foundation, Koch, Crow, and ALL OF THE TECH BROS and Tech companies and multiple corporations are funding this while Putin pulls the Trump puppet strings.
You say that Trump secured the border. I don’t think he secured the border at all. It was plenty secure before, and it will remain secure. That illegal aliens are coming into the country is not something that is easily controllable, but I doubt that he’s been able to slow down it down much, let alone stop it. He’s merely arresting people who are here to work and pardoning a bunch of criminals.
I don’t have any answers, as I have said many times before. But I suspect that we are going to have to go through the worst of Trump, the far right, and theocratic Christians before the American people say enough.
As I wrote the last time I was here, I was around for Kent state. It galvanized the anti-war protests and what passed for the left at the time. The murder of Renee Goode did absolutely nothing. it’s already old news. The people who should know better on both sides of the aisle are either incapable or unwilling to do anything about it. They are about as useless as the Christian God.
We are selling our house that I love— I used to say that the only way I would leave it was feet first —because I think the political situation in this country is such that we may not be able to spend our last years here. I’m 75 years old and I’m not really willing to do much other than what I can. I will not be fighting off ICE with a club.
Mike, I have read your essays and watched your podcasts for the last year. I am thoroughly impressed--not only by the eloquence of your writing, but also by the sheer power and integrity of your beliefs. I join with you in saying it is all or doing--or undoing--to turn the tide by our daily attitudes and actions. Then we can honestly claim about our country the last sentence of the Pledge of Allegiance: With Liberty and Justice for All. Bill McGee
You nailed my feelings exactly. I am exhausted by it all....I'm mad, I'm flummoxed that enough Americans voted for this fool and still don't see reality. I'm scared for our country, our kids and grandkids, ourselves....
If an extortionist came to your neighborhood and your home and threatened to take the lives of your children and grandchildren unless you gave up one of them, would you just let them do it? Or would you band together with your neighbors to protect everyone’s families? We know ICE-aka the Trump Brownshirts- have already started doing this.
Sorry, but Trump gets no credit for "securing the border."
What has he really done? Legislatively, nothing. All he has done is terrorize migrants and LEGAL immigrants with ICE. He's empowered the Border Patrol to be worse than they were. He's basically SCARING the immigrant and migrant population.
That gets no credit for "securing" anything. Especially since we never had "open borders" under Biden. What changed in the immigration policy from G.W. Bush to Biden? Effectively NOTHING. It's just under Democrats you don't have white nationalists overseeing immigration policy and looking to terrorize immigrants and migrants.
Well done, Mike. You really outlined the horrific steps that this stupid president has taken.
I can't even listen to him talk because he is so dumb the way he speaks. We have to keep resistance either by protesting or telling the Democrats to impeach him or use the 14th Amendment to get rid of him. We need strategies of what will invite people to find a new leader.
Hmmmm..........happened on a protest of ICE today while riding my Enfield in Orange, Cali.. They didn't know anything about Substack & the 'crew'. I explained, but they were youngsters. They sure were exuberant though, eh ?
The Nazi party took power with about 40% of the vote. What does that mean? It means that 40% of the German electorate agreed to some degree with the principles of the Nazi party. Trump is now at about a 36% populatity level give or take. When I hear that Republicans are cowards I have to ask is it actual cowardice or is it that they support beyond wholeheartedly Trump's policies? Does the Christian Right, White Supremacists, true fascists believe in American values as embodied in the U.S
Constitution? Difficult as that may be to come to grips with, I think not.
Bravo Mike! You've said it all. People shouldn't become "comfortably numb" because it will doom us to worse than it is right now. We have to keep moving forward and doing what we can to pull ourselves out of this mess that has been created! I would love to see a major strike. It would at least prove the point that when people in this country are angry they have the power to change things.
But maybe protests alone aren’t enough—especially when the people in charge don’t actually feel the consequences. Maybe it’s time to talk seriously about a general labor strike. Not as a fantasy, not as a hashtag, but as a real strategy working people in this country could build toward. A strike is what happens when working people decide they won’t keep cooperating with their own oppression. No buses. No warehouses. No ports. No compliance. No quiet consent.
I could paraphrase this section, but it's too important. It's inspiring. I believe we must adopt this as our main goal for 2026. We must! I would like to add that we reach out to our friends around the world to stop buying from US. One big weekend at a time. It will sting and may cause pain and loss for the strikers. But we will prevail. Trump would lose his mind (what's left of it) and my favorite nemesis, Mr. Miller, would be really, really pissed.
Thank you for reading and, hopefully, an addition to this fantastic idea.
@Mike Nellis Hypothetically, what if the obsession with control of Greenland (and now Canada?) wasn’t about heading off a land invasion of foot-soldiers via Russia — but a disruption in the water-cycle associated with accelerating severe weather patterns globally (climate change)
i.e., where a shift in rain and snowfall patterns could be predicted to put significant quantities of fresh water directly back into the ocean, just by the math of the disproportionately greater surface area of the seas vs. that of land:
Would the Administration tell us?
Would we stop fighting like Republican Dogs and Democrat Cats, and start coalescing back into one American People, in order to preserve government by, for, and of the Members of our shared Republic?
Check out www.geoengineeringwatch.org
The melting of the Arctic is not due to an excess of carbon in the atmosphere.
Thank you! Will check it out now. Much obliged.
IMO , better not to set forth as opposing strategies.
Here's a suggestion, Mike. You're a Democratic strategist and fundraiser. How about sponsoring a contest for pithy, short ads generated by anyone, professionals, or those with a smartphone? Keep the entries public, and let the participants vote up the ones they like. Reward early winners, if only a bit. Attach fundraising. Allow even a dollar towards favored ads. Target the venues and timing to put such ads on TV, social media, etc. Let the best go the farthest.
A rapid-response set of ads could copy the start or parts of the Republican ads, deconstructing them. Or, like in Aikido, use their attacks to let them fall on their faces.
In that, well-financed bots magnified riling, negative ads in previous elections, fund bots that track the crazies and laugh them off, much as Bill Jubran does.
I crash whole pages of worthy appeals from Democrats because I don't know whether my meager $5 here or there would go to the most advantageous place. Like compassion fatigue, I get ad fatigue. I somehow got on Trump's appeal emails. I noticed the same colors, the same fonts, the same emotionalized appeals as I see elsewhere. What percentage of the money raised goes to the companies creating such ads? Do they play to both sides, lucratively?
And, thanks for publishing without requiring a paid subscription. A mere $8 to every worthy substack or candidate would drain me fast. I appreciate those who allow reading and comments. (Like this one.)
Lots of "likes" here, but no productive reply from the initial author.
I just have One question -- how is it that tens of thousands of Americans aren't in the streets demanding the deranged man be removed from office? Look at other countries. I guess Americans are just too busy watching Netflix reruns. Or, perhaps, Trump is merely a mirror, a reflection, of Americans & their values? They did, after all, choose him because they thought he'd be a great leader. And a goodly number still support him.
No, that's not it.
Millions of people have been protesting at the No Kings/Hands Off Protests. But America isn't built for daily, ongoing protests. Lots of reasons why- access to public areas, cost, and most of all time. Most people do not have the time to do it.
Demanding he be removed from office is meaningless when you need a GOP House to hod impeachment hearings, vote to impeach him, and have 25 GOP Senators agree. None of that is happening.
More people voted for Harris or a 3rd party candidate than for trump. I know he claims that he won by an overwhelming majority, but that is just one of the many bald faced lies he tells. He is not a reflection of our values, only of his own narcissism.
I don’t know why anyone would still support him now, but the simultaneously good and bad news is that so many people are struggling financially because of his policies, and that has caused his support to diminish tremendously. Unfortunately, the republicans in congress are too afraid to do their jobs and remove this buffoon from office, so we’ll all pay the price of his authoritarian rule until the democrats can regain control of Congress. God willing that happens in November - if our democracy can survive until then.
Anyone voting 3rd Party or choosing not to vote is the same as a vote FOR Trump. It's a statement that they don't care whether he ends up in White House. Actions (and non-actions) have consequences. Hopefully, at least SOME Americans can learn a lesson from bad choices. Guess we'll see . . . They certainly learned nothing from his first term. He got MORE votes this past election.
Contact your local Indivisible chapter for training on how to protect your neighbors and yourself from ICE, they are only 2 hours long.
We can either curl up in a ball or we can learn how to fight tyranny. Our fore parents did it, and the vast majority of those who live here have immigrant ancestors. The rights younger generations took for granted and that are now at risk came from the hard work in the Civil Rights and Women’s movements to secure them. If we baby boomers can get out and fight, we all can fight, in someway. Don’t let a handful of sociopaths destroy centuries of our nation’s work to improve itself in less than 13 months.
Solid advice.
Hello! It looks like we are all citizens of the newest nuclear armed super-shithole-country.
All brought to us by 77.3 million USA voters and millions of citizens too cowardly to vote.
Of course, the list of ultra-wealthy political networks like the Heritage Foundation, Koch, Crow, and ALL OF THE TECH BROS and Tech companies and multiple corporations are funding this while Putin pulls the Trump puppet strings.
You say that Trump secured the border. I don’t think he secured the border at all. It was plenty secure before, and it will remain secure. That illegal aliens are coming into the country is not something that is easily controllable, but I doubt that he’s been able to slow down it down much, let alone stop it. He’s merely arresting people who are here to work and pardoning a bunch of criminals.
I don’t have any answers, as I have said many times before. But I suspect that we are going to have to go through the worst of Trump, the far right, and theocratic Christians before the American people say enough.
As I wrote the last time I was here, I was around for Kent state. It galvanized the anti-war protests and what passed for the left at the time. The murder of Renee Goode did absolutely nothing. it’s already old news. The people who should know better on both sides of the aisle are either incapable or unwilling to do anything about it. They are about as useless as the Christian God.
We are selling our house that I love— I used to say that the only way I would leave it was feet first —because I think the political situation in this country is such that we may not be able to spend our last years here. I’m 75 years old and I’m not really willing to do much other than what I can. I will not be fighting off ICE with a club.
No it is not old news
Mike, I have read your essays and watched your podcasts for the last year. I am thoroughly impressed--not only by the eloquence of your writing, but also by the sheer power and integrity of your beliefs. I join with you in saying it is all or doing--or undoing--to turn the tide by our daily attitudes and actions. Then we can honestly claim about our country the last sentence of the Pledge of Allegiance: With Liberty and Justice for All. Bill McGee
You nailed my feelings exactly. I am exhausted by it all....I'm mad, I'm flummoxed that enough Americans voted for this fool and still don't see reality. I'm scared for our country, our kids and grandkids, ourselves....
If an extortionist came to your neighborhood and your home and threatened to take the lives of your children and grandchildren unless you gave up one of them, would you just let them do it? Or would you band together with your neighbors to protect everyone’s families? We know ICE-aka the Trump Brownshirts- have already started doing this.
Sorry, but Trump gets no credit for "securing the border."
What has he really done? Legislatively, nothing. All he has done is terrorize migrants and LEGAL immigrants with ICE. He's empowered the Border Patrol to be worse than they were. He's basically SCARING the immigrant and migrant population.
That gets no credit for "securing" anything. Especially since we never had "open borders" under Biden. What changed in the immigration policy from G.W. Bush to Biden? Effectively NOTHING. It's just under Democrats you don't have white nationalists overseeing immigration policy and looking to terrorize immigrants and migrants.
"A better Democrat party"...oxymoronic phrase don't you think citizen. Both parties corrupt from head to toe. A few progressives a tad less so.
Well done, Mike. You really outlined the horrific steps that this stupid president has taken.
I can't even listen to him talk because he is so dumb the way he speaks. We have to keep resistance either by protesting or telling the Democrats to impeach him or use the 14th Amendment to get rid of him. We need strategies of what will invite people to find a new leader.
Well said Mike.
Hmmmm..........happened on a protest of ICE today while riding my Enfield in Orange, Cali.. They didn't know anything about Substack & the 'crew'. I explained, but they were youngsters. They sure were exuberant though, eh ?
I will just add this point
The Nazi party took power with about 40% of the vote. What does that mean? It means that 40% of the German electorate agreed to some degree with the principles of the Nazi party. Trump is now at about a 36% populatity level give or take. When I hear that Republicans are cowards I have to ask is it actual cowardice or is it that they support beyond wholeheartedly Trump's policies? Does the Christian Right, White Supremacists, true fascists believe in American values as embodied in the U.S
Constitution? Difficult as that may be to come to grips with, I think not.
Bravo Mike! You've said it all. People shouldn't become "comfortably numb" because it will doom us to worse than it is right now. We have to keep moving forward and doing what we can to pull ourselves out of this mess that has been created! I would love to see a major strike. It would at least prove the point that when people in this country are angry they have the power to change things.
Republicans in congress are complicit in this entire scheme.
Time to make them take action to save the United States.
(I almost wrote "America", but indeed they need to save America)
Quit beating on the Democrats!
Beat on the Republicans!!!