Now is the Moment: Take to the Streets This Saturday

Most of us are not professional activists or politicians. We may recognize the authoritarian consolidation that is underway, and we may protest and otherwise exercise our voice when we can, but we cannot attend every protest nor spend our whole lives taking active measures of opposition.

Now is the moment to make that time. Specifically, this Saturday, the 14th, find one of the protests happening near you, and join them on the streets.

The Trump administration’s actions in LA grow more alarming by the day. It was their conscious decision to discard procedural safeguards and simply ramp up workplace raids that led to a popular backlash in the first place. They have responded to that backlash by sending in the military. 

Yesterday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced:

We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city.

This amounts to a promise of military occupation. Moments later, Senator Alex Padilla spoke up to attempt to ask a question and was manhandled, handcuffed, and forcibly removed.

We cannot let this stand, never mind letting it escalate. We must take to the streets, we must do everything in our power to change the collective perception of the political environment that political, institutional, and civil elites must survive in. 

Take to the streets on Saturday. Call your members of Congress and your state representatives. Make it clear to all that this cannot be allowed to go on.