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USA Robert Reich and Inequality Media Civic Action Are We Witnessing Fascism? PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWYqrVsBvwI&t=4s
Are We Witnessing Fascism? Robert Reich and Inequality Media Civic Action Nov 29, 2025 114,792 views ... 9.7K likes We’ve all heard the F word quite a bit these days. I’m talking, of course, about fascism. But what is its exact definition? What forms has it taken in the past? And is it happening here, under Donald Trump? Peter Burgess COMMENTARY I am easily frustrated by attempts to compare the present Trump saga with historical situations, though I understand the urge to relate what is going on now with what has happened in the past. I enjoy what Robert Reich has to say ... after all he has been a well respected professor for a long time ... but I think what is going on now with Trump is very different and probably even more dangerous ... and especially for Americans! The USA helped the allies win WWII ... which was good. But the USA has exploited its powerful economic position during the 80 years since the end of WWII and in the process no longer has any strong friends. Many countries continue to 'play nice' with the USA, but this is mainly to maintain economic ties that are not easy to replace. Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess Transcript 0:00 “Unhinged hysteria” — that's what I was accused of a few years ago when I started sounding the alarm that MAGA Republicans were veering into all-out fascism. But now that Trump and his regime have deployed the military within the United States, sent masked thugs into our cities to terrorize and abduct people, arrested lawmakers who questioned them, and started building mass detention camps, it doesn't seem so hysterical, does it? If you're as concerned as I am, I hope you'll find this collection of videos useful to better understand: What fascism is. The forms it has taken in the past. How it has returned to threaten us again. And ways we can fight back. First, let's define fascism. I think you will find this 2023 video eerily predictive of our current moment. I want to talk to you about the f-word. No, no, not that f-word. I'm talking about fascism. 1:05 Is Donald Trump really a “fascist,” as some would say? Or is the word “authoritarian” sufficient? The term fascism is often used loosely, but you can generally identify fascists by their hate of the “other,” vengeful nationalism, and repression of dissent. To fight these ideas, we need to be aware of what they are and how they fit together. Let's examine the five elements that define fascism and what makes it distinct from and more dangerous than authoritarianism. First, the rejection of democracy in favor of a strongman. Authoritarians believe strong leaders are needed to maintain stability. So they empower strongmen, dictators, or absolute monarchs to maintain social order through the use of force. But fascists view strong leaders as the means of discovering what society needs. 2:05 They regard the leader as the embodiment of society. The voice of the people. “I am your voice.” “I alone can fix it.” Second, stoking rage against cultural elites. Authoritarian movements cannot succeed without at least some buy-in from establishment elites. While fascist movements often seek to co-opt the establishment, they largely depend on fueling resentment and anger against presumed cultural elites for supposedly displacing regular people. Fascists rile up their followers to seek revenge on the elites. “The out-of-touch media elites,” “The political elites,” “But the elites,” “From the elites who led us from one financial and foreign policy disaster to another.” 3:04 They create mass political parties and demand participation. They encourage violence. “Know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this?” “They'd be carried out on a stretcher, folks.” “I’d like to punch him in the face, I’ll tell you.” “Knock the crap out of ‘em, would you?” “We fight. We fight like hell.” Third, nationalism based on “superior” race and historic bloodlines. Authoritarians see nationalism as a means of asserting the power of the state. For fascists, the state embodies what is considered a “superior” group — based on race, religion and historic bloodlines. To fascists, the state is a means of asserting that superiority. “When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you.” Fascists worry about disloyalty and replacement 4:01 by groups that don't share the same race or bloodlines. “And I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.” Fascists encourage their followers to scapegoat, expel and sometimes even kill such “others.” Fourth, extolling brute strength and heroic warriors. The goal of authoritarianism is to gain and maintain state power at any cost. For authoritarians, strength comes in the form of large standing armies that can enforce their rule. They seek power to wield power. Fascists seek state power to achieve their ostensible goal, achieving their vision of society. Fascism accomplishes this by rewarding those who win economically and physically and denigrating or even exterminating those who lose. 5:00 Fascism depends on organized bullying — a form of Social Darwinism. “Our people are tougher and stronger and meaner and smarter.” For the fascist, war and violence are means of strengthening society by culling the weak and glorifying heroic warriors. “I am your warrior. I am your justice. I am your retribution. I am your retribution.” Fifth and finally, disdain of women and LGBTQ+ people. Authoritarianism imposes hierarchies. It's about order. Fascism's idea of order is organized around a particular hierarchy of male dominance. The fascist “heroic warrior” is male. Women are relegated to subservient roles. In fascism, anything that challenges the traditional heroic male roles of protector, provider, and controller of the family 6:01 is considered a threat to the social order. Fascism seeks to eliminate homosexuals, nonbinary, transgender, and queer people because they are thought to challenge or weaken the heroic male warrior. “I will ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female, and they are assigned at birth.” These five elements of fascism fit together and reinforce each other. Rejection of democracy in favor of a strongman depends on galvanizing popular rage. Popular rage draws on a nationalism based on a supposed superior race or ethnicity. That superior race or ethnicity is justified by a Social Darwinist idea of strength and violence, as exemplified by heroic warriors. 7:00 Strength, violence, and the heroic warrior are centered on male power. These five elements find exact expression in Donald Trump. His uniquely American version of fascism is rooted largely in white Christian nationalism. It is the direction that most of the Republican Party is now heading in. It's not enough to call Trump and those promoting his ideas authoritarians when what they are really advocating is something far worse: fascism. A few months later, my team and I released a second video warning of five specific steps Trump could take to implement fascism. Since returning to office, Trump has followed the dictator's playbook to a tee. Watch. Fascism, backed by big money, is one of the most dangerous of all political alliances. 8:00 We saw it in 1930s Germany, when industrial giants bailed out a cash strapped Nazi party right before Hitler's election, thinking that Hitler would protect their money and power. We're seeing something similar now. Earlier this year, the GOP was running out of money, so Trump turned to his wealthy backers for help. Many super rich donors who once criticized Trump for stoking the violence of January 6th have since had a change of heart — deciding their profits are worth more than our democracy. Trump has promised them that, if elected, he'll extend his 2017 tax cuts, that went mainly to the wealthy, beyond 2025, when they're scheduled to expire. And he's hinted at even more. You’re rich as hell. We’re going to give you tax cuts. He promised oil executives he would scrap regulations favoring electric vehicles and wind energy if they would give his campaign $1 billion. The Trump White House is for sale and the wealthy are buying. 50 billionaire families gave at least $600 million 9:02 in political donations as of May, with over two-thirds going to support GOP candidates and conservative causes. Elon Musk, one of the world's richest men, who also controls and manipulates one of the world's largest communications platforms, has committed to spending millions of dollars a month to elect Trump. And Trump has promised to make it worth Musk's while. We have to make life good for our smart people and he's as smart as you get. In previous videos, I've highlighted alarming similarities between fascist regimes of the past and Trumpism. The alignment of American billionaires with Trump's anti-democracy movement is one of the most dangerous parallels. The billionaires want the rest of us to fight each other so we don't look up and see where all the wealth and power have gone, so we don't join together and raise taxes on the super rich to finance child care, better schools, our health care system, everything else we need. They fear democracy because there are 10:02 far more of us than there are of them. We need to see through their fear tactics and vote in overwhelming numbers this November. We can learn from history and spot the danger. We are not doomed to repeat it. Let's see how Trump's actions match the steps in that video. First, consolidate power. With uncanny similarity to the 1933 purge of Germany's civil service, Trump has driven out public workers. His goal is to replace civil servants who are loyal to the Constitution with henchmen who are instead loyal to him. Next, establish a police state. I'm speaking to you from California, where Trump deployed the U.S. military against the will of the governor. Across America, masked ICE agents have been terrorizing people and abducting them off the streets, caging them in makeshift detention camps, 11:03 or deporting them to foreign torture prisons with no due process. This will get worse, as the $170 billion for immigration enforcement in the Big Ugly bill turns ICE into the largest federal law enforcement agency in the country. What does he plan to do with that funding? He's already started to jail the opposition. So far we’ve seen a Democratic mayor, a Democratic senator, and a Democratic city comptroller violently detained for questioning this regime. Meanwhile, a Democratic congresswoman was indicted after visiting an ICE facility. How about his attempts to “Undermine the Free Press”? With frivolous lawsuits meant to intimidate news organizations. And funding cuts from public broadcasting. His strategy plays into a bigger, more sinister attack, 12:00 not just on the media, but on our minds. Why is Trump trying to fire you? Well, Elmo thinks it could maybe be because Mr. Trump is mad at Sesame Street for making fun of him. I'm Donald Grump, and I have more trash than all of you, so nyah, nyah, nyah-nyah, nyah! But trying to cancel Sesame Street, which has helped children learn to read and count for over half a century, is part of a larger plan. Throughout history, tyrants have understood that their major enemy is an educated public. Slaveholders prohibited enslaved people from learning to read. The Third Reich burned books. The Khmer Rouge banned music. Stalin and Pinochet censored the media. And Trump, like past authoritarians, 13:00 wants to control not just what we do, but also how we think. He has embraced one of the mottos from George Orwell's 1984: He knows that an uninformed public is easier to divide and conquer. I love the poorly educated! There are five facets to the authoritarian attack on our minds. The protagonist of 1984 works in the so-called Ministry of Truth where he's made to literally rewrite history because Big Brother knows that he “who controls the past controls the future.” That's chilling in a dystopian novel. It's even scarier in real life, where Trump and his MAGA cronies are making schools whitewash slavery and segregation, cover up the genocide of Native Americans, and erase the LGBTQ rights movement. Authoritarians know that if they can convince us 14:05 our country has never been wrong, they can make us believe our ruler is always right. If they can make us forget how brave activists fought for change in the past, they can stop us from seeking change in the future. Rewriting history goes hand in hand with the next facet of the attack on our minds. As Trump tries to abolish the Department of Education, he's also proposing to cut funding for K-12 public schools and to force universities to give him influence over student admissions, faculty hiring, and what's taught. As a professor, I know firsthand how education empowers young people's minds. We can't have a functioning democracy if people cannot deliberate critically about it. That's why authoritarians replace education with indocrination. 15:01 Children will be taught to love America. Children will be taught to be patriots. Instead of teaching students to think for themselves, authoritarians seek to instill blind allegiance and to suppress dissent. That's why the Italian and German fascists of the 20th century immediately turned their country's educational systems into instruments of the Party. Placing a chokehold on universities also relates to the next facet of the attack. By freezing university research grants and attacking the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and USAID, Trump is stifling medical and scientific research. And his cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration put all of us at risk. He's also abducting scientists who disagree with his administration. Can you imagine a crueler way to rob America 16:04 of the global intellectual capital that has helped us become the world leader in scientific research? All of this moves us further from cures for cancer, Alzheimer's, and HIV. This could seem baffling if you don't recognize it as part of a larger strategy. We all get sick, so how can medical research and disease prevention be political? Because science acknowledges objective facts. Authoritarians insist that the ruler is more powerful than the facts. As Orwell wrote, Another way to attack facts? As I call it, the fake news media. From suing ABC and CBS over their news coverage to threatening to strip network broadcast licenses to defunding PBS and NPR, 17:01 Trump is trying to silence major news sources. He wants control over what information Americans can or cannot get. A free press exists to question authority and help the public question it as well. But authoritarians insist they must never be questioned. Don’t ever say what you said, that’s a nasty question. Authoritarians want to consolidate state power over what the public can know. The final facet of the authoritarian attack on our minds also attacks our spirit. Which brings us to... The arts exists to provoke us, challenge our thinking, and help us see beyond ourselves. They're an important and independent aspect of an educated society, which is why authoritarians have historically attacked the arts. So it's no surprise that Trump is canceling grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, dictating what's 18:01 displayed at the Smithsonian, and has installed himself as the chair of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. To limit art is to limit free speech and expression. It's a crucial step that authoritarians use to silence anyone who dissents through creativity. Added up, these five facets of Trump's attack on the American mind render us less informed, less inspired, and easier to control. They empower him to divide us with hatred and fear. And they prevent us from discovering that we have more in common with one another than with the authoritarians who try to rule us. This attack on our minds reduces our capacity for self-government, because ignorance is the handmaiden of tyranny. Please – help spread the truth by sharing this video. Fascism comes in different forms. With their version of it, Trump and his supporters dangerously merge fascism with religion. 19:06 Here's how. Donald Trump is portraying himself as a religious savior. He says election day will be Christian visibility day. Trump has repeatedly compared his criminal trials to the crucifixion of Jesus, promoted videos calling his reelection, “the most important moment in human history”, and that describe him as a divinely appointed ruler. A shepherd to mankind who will never leave nor forsake them. So God made Trump. He claims to be a holy warrior against an imaginary attack on Christianity. They want to tear down crosses. But no one will be touching the cross of Christ under the Trump administration. I swear to you. He's even selling his own version of the Bible. We must make America pray again. Trump is playing to a rising white Christian nationalist 20:01 movement within the Republican Party. I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists. Christian nationalists believe that the law of the land is not the Constitution, but instead the law of God as they interpret it. Trump supporters are increasingly overt in their calls to replace democracy with a MAGA theocracy. The church is supposed to direct the government. And I’m tired of the separation of church and state junk. We’re meant to be a Christian nation. We should be a Christian nation. Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn't get all the way there on January 6th, but we will — we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here. That was a cross he was holding. The idea that the will of voters is irrelevant because God has anointed Trump was a recurring message in the efforts to overturn the 2020 election. It is not Joe Biden that rules this country. Jesus Christ is the king of everything in this world. 21:03 [Crowd chanting] Christ is King. In previous videos, I've highlighted how MAGA Republicans have embraced core elements of fascism. The combination of fascism and Christian nationalism is called Christofascism, a term first used half a century ago by the theologian Dorothee Sölle. Fascists rise to power by characterizing their opponents as subhuman. Christofascists take it a step further by casting opponents as not just subhuman, but actually demonic. People like Nancy Pelosi, she's a demon. Framing opponents as enemies of God makes violence against them not only seem justifiable, but divinely sanctioned and almost inevitable. We are going to put on the armor of God. And maybe strap on a Glock on the side of us just in case. 22:03 When we take power, they need to be given the death penalty. And these people that are suppressing the name Christ and suppressing Christianity, they must be absolutely annihilated when we take power. Christofascists want to strip away a wide range of rights Americans take for granted. Former Trump staffers involved in developing plans for a second Trump term have called for imposing biblical tests on immigration, overturning marriage equality, and restricting contraception. And MAGA aligned judges are already setting their dogma ahead of the Constitution. In his concurring opinion on the case that declared frozen embryos are people, Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker cited God more than 40 times and quoted the Book of Genesis and other religious texts. Nothing could be more un-American than the Christian nationalist vision. So many of America's founders came here 23:02 as refugees seeking religious freedom. The framers of the Constitution were adamant that religion had no role in our government. The words ‘God’, ‘Jesus’, and ‘Christ’ don't appear anywhere in the Constitution, and the very first words of the Bill of Rights are a promise that Christofascism, or any religion based form of government, is a rejection of everything America has aspired to be. A secular, multiracial society whose inhabitants have come from everywhere, bound together by a faith in equal opportunity,democracy, and the rule of law. Beware. In case you missed it, the man in the video who said: We're meant to be a Christian nation. We should be a Christian nation. 24:02 That's Russell Vought. As budget director, he now has one of the top White House positions. He was also one of the leaders of Project 2025, which created a playbook for transforming the presidency into a dictatorship. To understand how the Trump regime is implementing fascism and to fight back, it's crucial to understand Project 2025. A second Trump term would be more dangerous than the first. in part because of something called Project 2025, a plan to extend Trump's grip into every part of your life. Trump's gross incompetence in his first term wasn't all bad. It kept some of his most extreme goals out of reach. That's why his inner circle, including more than 20 officials from his first term, have written a step-by-step playbook to make a second term brutally efficient. At nearly a thousand pages, It's longer than most Stephen King novels, and a lot scarier. The Associated Press wasn't kidding when they called it 25:06 Project 2025 is a roadmap to ban abortion, give greedy corporate oligarchs everything they want, and strip Americans of our most basic freedoms — all without needing any support from Congress. There’s more to it than I can possibly get into, but here are three things I want you to know. Every nonpartisan government agency would be turned into an arm of the MAGA agenda. Some of the worst things Trump reportedly tried to do as president — like have the military shoot protesters or seize voting machines to overturn the election — were only stopped because sensible leaders in the military, or the professional civil service, refused to go along with it. In a second term, there would be no sensible leaders in the military or professional civil service because Trump would fire anyone more loyal to the Constitution than to him. You’re fired. Trump started the process in October 2020 with an executive order that would have let him fire 26:04 tens of thousands of civil servants and replace them with MAGA henchmen. I’m talking about traditionally non-political positions, like scientists at scientific agencies and accountants at the IRS. Trump could not act on the executive order then because he lost the election. If he wins now, he’s pledged to pick up where he left off and go further… …making every executive branch employee fireable by the president… Restricting abortion is such a central part of Project 2025 that the word “abortion” appears 198 times in the plan. Trump largely made good on his campaign promise to ban abortion. You have to ban it. Thanks to Trump’s Supreme Court justices, 1 in 3 American women of childbearing age now lives in states with abortion bans. Project 2025 would make that even worse, 27:03 without needing new laws from Congress. Page 458 of the playbook calls for a MAGA-controlled FDA to reject medical science and reverse approval of the medications Page 455 plans “abortion surveillance” and the creation of a registry that could put people who cross state lines to get an abortion at risk of prosecution. Another way around Congress is to enforce arcane laws that are still technically on the books. Page 562 plans for a MAGA-controlled Justice Department to enforce the Comstock Act of 1873, which bans the mailing of “anything designed, adapted, or intended for producing an abortion.” This could be used to block the shipment of any medications or medical instruments needed for abortions. control of American families goes even further. It plans for government agencies 28:01 to define life as beginning at conception — a position at odds with the process used for in vitro fertilization. Page 451 declares that thereby stigmatizing single parents, same-sex couples, unmarried coparents, and childless couples. Project 2025 even takes a stand against adoption, Now, maybe you live in a blue city or blue state, where you think plans like arresting teachers and librarians over banning books (which is on page 5) could never happen. Well, guess again. Trump has said one of the big things he’d do differently in a second term is override mayors and governors 29:03 to take over local law enforcement. You're supposed to not be involved in that. You just have to be asked by the governor or the mayor to come in. The next time, I'm not waiting. Page 553 lays out how to do this, and even plans for Trump's Justice Department to prosecute district attorneys he disagrees with. Immigration enforcement is to be conducted like a war with the military deployed within the U.S., and millions of undocumented immigrants rounded up and placed into newly constructed holding camps. This is outlined starting on page 139. Members of the Project 2025 team also reportedly told The Washington Post about plans to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy the military against anti-Trump protests. There is much more to Project 2025. There are more than a hundred pages of anti-environmental policies that would help Trump make good on what he reportedly promised to do for oil executives if they contribute a billion dollars 30:04 to his reelection. It would make drilling and mining a top national priority while killing clean energy projects, barring the EPA from regulating carbon emissions, and replacing government climate scientists with climate deniers. There are even cartoonishly cruel plans like slaughtering wild horses. Yes, that’s really there on page 528. I thought I understood the stakes of this election, but reading this plan… Well, it gives me chills. If Trump gets the chance to put this plan into place, he will. The country it would turn America into would be hard for any of us to recognize. There's one more element of fascism we need to discuss. That's the role that the super rich have historically played in propping up fascists. This video from right before the election can shed some light on that. You've heard Trump's promise: “I'm going to be a dictator for one day.” History shows there are no “one-day” dictatorships. 31:06 When democracies fall, they typically fall completely. In a previous video, I laid out the defining traits of fascism and how MAGA Republicans embody them. But how could Trump — or someone like him — actually turn America into a fascist state? Here's how in five steps. Step number one: use threats of violence to gain power. Hitler and Mussolini relied on their vigilante militias to intimidate voters and local officials. We watched Trump try to do the same in 2020. “Proud boys, stand back and stand by.” Republican election officials testified to the threats they faced when they refused Trump's demands to falsify the election results. “My email, my cell phone was doxxed.” “They have had video panel trucks with videos of me proclaiming me to be a pedophile.” 32:03 “A 20-something tech in Gwinnett County today has death threats and a noose put out saying he should be hung for treason.” If the election is close, threats to voters and election officials could be enough to sabotage it. Step number two: consolidate power. After taking office, a would-be fascist must turn every arm of government into a tool of the party. One of Hitler's first steps was to take over the civil service, purging it of non-Nazis. In October of 2020, Trump issued his own executive order that would have enabled him to fire tens of thousands of civil servants and replace them with MAGA loyalists. He never got to act on it, but he's now promising to apply it to the entire civil service. “We will pass critical reforms making every executive branch employee fireable.” That's become the centerpiece of something called Project 2025, a presidential agenda 33:04 assembled by MAGA Republicans that would, as the AP puts it, “dismantle the US government and replace it with Trump's vision.” Step three: establish a police state. Hitler used the imaginary threat of the “poison of foreign races” to justify taking control of the military and police, placing both under his top general and granting law enforcement powers to his civilian militias. Now Trump is using the same language. “It's poisoning the blood of our country.” Trump plans to deploy troops within the U.S. to conduct immigration raids and round up what he estimates to be 18 million people who would be placed in mass detention camps while their fate is decided. And even though crime is actually down across the nation, Trump is citing an imaginary crime wave to justify sending troops into blue cities and states 34:05 against the will of governors and mayors. “...you're supposed to not be involved in that, you have to be asked by the governor or the mayor to come in — the next time, I'm not waiting.” Trump insiders say he plans to invoke the Insurrection Act to have the military crush civilian protests. We saw a glimpse of that in 2020, when Trump deployed the National Guard against peaceful protesters outside the White House. And with promises to pardon January 6 criminals and stop prosecutions of right-wing domestic terrorists, Trump would empower groups like the Proud Boys to act as MAGA enforcers. Step four: jail the opposition. In classic dictatorial fashion, Trump is now openly threatening to prosecute his opponents. “If I happen to be president and I see somebody who's doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them.’ 35:04 They'd be out of the election.” And he's looking to remake the Justice Department into a tool for his personal vendettas. “As we completely overhaul the federal Department of Justice and FBI, we will also launch sweeping civil rights investigations into Marxist local district attorneys.” In the model of Hitler and Mussolini, Trump describes his opponents as subhuman. “The radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” Step number five: undermine the free press. As Hitler well understood, a fascist needs to control the flow of information. Trump has been attacking the press for years. “They are truly the enemy of the people.” And he's threatening to punish news outlets whose coverage he dislikes. He has helped to reduce trust in the media to such a historic low that his supporters now view him 36:02 as their most trusted source of information. Within a democracy, we may often have leaders we don’t like but we have the power to change them at the ballot box and through public pressure. Once fascism takes hold, those freedoms are gone and cannot easily be won back. We must recognize the threat of fascism when it appears and do everything in our power to stop it. So far, Trump and his billionaire backers have largely gotten what they wanted out of the bargain. The Big Ugly Budget Bill delivered on both the tax cuts for the rich and major giveaways to Big Oil in exchange for devastating cuts to the social safety net. And his biggest billionaire backer, Elon Musk, got a whole lot of what he wanted thanks to DOGE. Despite their falling out. When extreme consolidation of wealth intersects with extreme consolidation of power in a fascist regime, 37:06 that's a vicious combination. But we're not powerless. Giving into Trump's tyranny only invites more of it. I want to share a few things you can do right now in your communities to stand up to Trump's fascism. People are constantly asking me, “What can I do?” Millions have hit the streets in protest. America continues to show that Trump's authoritarianism won’t go unchallenged. But marching isn't enough on its own. Between now and the 2026 midterm elections, there's a lot more we can do. Here are five practical next steps you can take to make a difference. Number one. Call your representatives in Congress. We are in a national emergency. You may think that calling your member of Congress doesn't have much effect, but it does. Your representatives need to know where you stand as the Trump regime attacks our democracy — and they need to hear 38:06 from you every day if that's what it takes. 5calls.org makes it easy by providing guides and scripts you can use when getting in touch with your reps. It's their job to listen to you, and if they don't, replace them with somebody who does when they're up for reelection. Number two. Attend town halls. Why did you cut SNAP and health care research? We do not have unlimited money in the United States. Booooooo! Tax the rich! Tax the rich! If you haven't been to one, start now. It’s easy. You can find upcoming meetings held by your representatives near you at Indivisible.org. And when you're there, ask questions, speak up, and bring friends. A big part of standing up is showing up. Number three. Join local resistance groups or organize one yourself. 39:02 Start with groups related to issues that have motivated you to protest and follow up with organizers after the events to see how you can continue to support the efforts. This helps build solidarity. It also helps build a political organization for the future. Use online resources and attend virtual trainings from organizations like the ACLU and 50501 to learn about the basics of organizing. Because remember — we are the leaders we've been waiting for. Number four. Boycott corporations and organizations that are caving to Trump. Your dollar is a source of power. Use that power by boycotting corporations and organizations that either support Trump or fail to denounce his authoritarianism. The Tesla boycott has proven effective. How does it feel to lose $800 billion dollars? Law firms that caved to Trump have lost business to those that have stood up to him. They’re losing clients like McDonald’s, Oracle, Morgan Stanley, a major airline... 40:03 Target's profits are tanking after rolling back their DEI initiatives. Black economic power is real. Companies rely on your spending. So vote with your dollars. Number five. Protect the most vulnerable in your community. No quiero! Please please please! No! The Trump regime is not only targeting undocumented people and anyone it suspects is undocumented, but it's going after judges. It's stoking violence toward elected officials. It's trying to take away the rights of LGBTQ people. Join with others in your community to stand up to these attacks. Document what you see happening. Report it. Speak out. You need to stop kidnapping people off the f****** street! If you hear people making malicious or bigoted statements — refute them! The Charlottesville marchers... I respect their views — You really shouldn’t. Support local politicians who are standing up to the Trump regime 41:03 Support mutual aid groups that are serving people in your community — thousands of local projects and community groups you can connect with to learn more. Friends — democracy is not a spectator sport. It's not something we can just pick up and put down, especially when the stakes are as high as they are now. I know things seem dire — and they are. But you are not alone. And I believe in you. All of you. Together we will stand up for democracy. And together we will win. Thank you for watching. Please help spread the word by sharing this video.

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