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By Eugene Robinson, San Antonio Express-News

The larger crowd relative to Donald Trumps inauguration at the Womens March in Washington speaks to the level of opposition in the country to the new president.

The larger crowd relative to Donald Trumps inauguration at the Womens March in Washington speaks to the level of opposition in the country to the new president.

Womens march a beginning for progressives

It matters that the crowd for the Womens March on Washington was far bigger than that for President Donald Trumps inauguration. The new president often boasts of having started a great movement. Let it be the one that was born with Saturdays massive protests.

If size is important, and apparently to Trump it is, there was no contest. The Metro transit system recorded 1,001,613 trips on the day of the protest, the second-heaviest ridership in history surpassed only by former president Obamas inauguration in 2009. By contrast, just 570,557 trips were taken Friday, when Trump took the oath of office.

Those are the true facts, not the alternative ones the administration wants you to believe.

Among all the news of the past few days, I begin with crowd size because Saturdays rallies and marches, in cities across the nation, were simply unprecedented. Perhaps half a million demonstrators, many wearing pink hats, filled the streets of Washington. Protests in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles also drew crowds measured in the hundreds of thousands, and there were big anti-Trump gatherings in Denver, Boston, Atlanta, Austin, San Antonio and other cities in the U.S. and around the world.

The White House predictably tried to blame the messenger. But, if Trump believes journalists can be so easily cowed, hes in for a long four years.

The president is skilled at diversionary tactics. He has been known to pitch a fit in order to draw attention away from news he finds inconvenient or embarrassing. Indeed, while his spokespeople have been spewing nonsense about television ratings and such, the administration has taken significant steps. Trump signed an executive order beginning the dismantling of the Affordable Care Act; withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact; imposed hiring and pay freezes for federal workers; and reimposed a ban (lifted by the Obama administration) on U.S. aid to family planning groups that provide or promote abortions overseas.

But whether Trumps ostentatious pique about the not-so-historic size of his inauguration crowd is real or feigned, the fact that so many more people came to town to protest Trumps presidency than to celebrate it is important.

Remember that the tea party movement looked at first like nothing more than a rowdy, incoherent bunch of sore losers until it swept Democrats out of power in the House in the 2010 midterm election.

I covered some of those early tea party rallies, and I saw similar levels of energy and engagement and, yes, anger at the womens march. The millions who participated nationwide now constitute the kind of broad-based network that can be harnessed into effective political action. The Trump administration can haughtily dismiss the dissenters by saying, as the Obama administration once did, that elections have consequences. But the next election is right around the corner.

If progressives are going to recreate the tea partys success, Saturdays multitudes will have to begin organizing at the local level. They will have to field candidates not just for Congress, but for governorships and state legislatures. They will have to develop policy positions that go beyond stop Trump and that also go beyond traditional Democratic Party dogma.

The movement will look to lions such as Vermonts independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., for guidance, but ultimately must find younger leadership with fresh ideas. The Democratic establishment now faces the same existential dilemma that the Republican establishment had to confront: adapt or step aside.

The administration will argue that, after a bitterly divisive campaign, it is time for the nation to come together behind the new president. No, it is not. We are in the midst of a political realignment that is nowhere near complete, and it is more important than ever that progressive voices make themselves heard.

And always remember: If Donald Trump can become president, nothing is impossible.

eugenerobinson@washpost.com

Excerpt from:
Women's march a beginning for progressives - San Antonio Express ... - mySanAntonio.com

Common Dreams

If Progressives Want to Defeat Trump, They Must Win Back Workers ... Common Dreams During the Sanders campaign I heard a high level official give a powerful speech blasting the Trans-Pacific Partnership Act (TPP) for the harm it would bring to ... and more »

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If Progressives Want to Defeat Trump, They Must Win Back Workers ... - Common Dreams

About this past weekend

Someone won.

Someone lost.

When it came to the National Football League playoffs, it was pretty cut and dried. The New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons won and will be going on to play in the Super Bowl a week from Sunday.

The Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers lost and have gone home or wherever it is football players go when their presence is no longer required in a stadium.

In local and national politics, determining who wins and who loses can be somewhat more complicated.

On Saturday, supporters of President Donald Trump including those who bused or drove from our area to the ceremony could bask in the afterglow of their man being inaugurated the previous day.

Mr. Trump won the election, and by extension, so did his followers.

Hillary Clinton lost, but by extension, were those who greatly preferred her to Trump losers?

Many of those folks who live in our area have told us they have felt that way since the election.

They didnt watch the news on TV or follow the post-election events online. They turned to Netflix, situation comedies, movies and catching up on their novel-reading.

They have been depressed, in a funk. Waking up each morning hoping that the shocking election results had all been just a bad dream. It was almost like a death in the family and having to go through the five stages of grief denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Then, something happened Saturday. All over the country and many other places around the world, including here in Oneonta, Cooperstown and Delhi, progressives paused their mourning. They rallied in massive numbers in Womens Marches against the new president and the statements he made during the campaign and since the election.

In Washington, their numbers dwarfed those at the inauguration. In major American cities and in small towns, attendees carried signs, listened to speeches, cheered and generally felt a palliative sisterhood and brotherhood.

They realized that they were not losers. Under the new administrations plans, the environment lost, health care lost, reproductive rights lost, tolerance lost, immigration lost and criminal justice reform lost.

But the estimated three million worldwide protesters Saturday did not lose. By their common purpose, they made a statement. They are not defeated until they say they are defeated.

Has Trump awakened a sleeping giant? Does the prospect of a Supreme Court that may overturn Roe v. Wade give a much-needed booster shot to the abortion-rights movement? Will a denuded Environmental Protection Agency, global warming denial and oil pipelines springing up hither and yon invigorate those who care about such things?

The rally in Oneonta like the others was a worthwhile exercise in democracy. Organizers estimated about 450 participants, but it looked like there were more. From across the street from Muller Plaza, a young man repeatedly called out his support for Trump from an apartment window as marchers passed by, taking it in their cheery stride.

Among the speakers was another young man, who insisted that ex-President Barack Obama is a war criminal for the bombs he authorized to be dropped in the Middle East. The crowd booed, but heard him out. The other speakers pleased the audience by denouncing Trump and calling for resistance to his policies.

What the rallies and marches tell us is that in the long run, who has really won and who has really lost are yet to be determined.

Excerpt from:
In Our Opinion: Marches helped progressives fight back - Oneonta Daily Star

CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. -- Roughly 450 people will decide in a February vote who will run the Democratic National Committee moving forward. None of them were in the small Cheektowaga union hall Tuesday night as Idaho Democratic Committee Executive Director Sally Boynton Brown spoke.

The candidate for DNC chairperson came anyway, more than 2,200 miles away from her home in Boise, at the request of members of the Liberty Union Progressives. The organization originally formed to campaign for Bernie Sanders the presidential primary.

Member Jamie Diamond said she found a video of Brown speaking and was impressed. She reached out to her online.

"I said, 'why don't you come to Buffalo' and I was really expecting her to say something along the lines of, 'my schedule's really busy' because you know, you get that with leaders," she said.

Brown has made it a focus of her campaign to speak with any group that asks her to join them. She said not doing so would be hypocritical.

"It would be ridiculous for me to run a campaign saying that I'm going to return power to people and then not go out and talk to people and only focus on 447 people in our country when our nation is so large," she said.

Brown said she wants to represent the ideals of the party, not push her own on others. She wants to get back to local politics, communicate a focused message and said she knows how to organize.

"I'm a worker. I'm the executive director of the Idaho Democratic Party and I'm the president of the National Executive Directors so I hang out with the people in our party who get the work done," she said.

She also told Sanders supporters she knows she's an underdog in a contest with seven active candidates. The Vermont senator has already endorsed Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison. Former Labor Secretary and Buffalo native Tom Perez is running as well.

"Ultimately, I think all of my colleagues and I agree on what needs to happen," Brown said. "I think we definitely agree on why it needs to happen. I think it's the how that ultimately is what comes down to differentiating this race."

Diamond said it's good to have choices, but she's fully behind Brown.

"As I talked to her, I just really was able to relate to her and she kind of spoke my language so to speak," she said.

Brown said regardless who wins, this is the most important DNC chair election in her lifetime.

Continued here:
Candidate for DNC Chair Pitches to Progressives in Cheektowaga - Spectrum News

A group of former Democratic congressional staffers wants to stop President Trump and thinks emulating the Tea Party is the way to do so, assembling a new group called "Indivisible" to push back against Trump from the grassroots.

Their manifesto, "Indivisible: A practical guide for resisting the Trump agenda," is a 26-page "how to" manual written by scores of former staffers that outlines how progressives can use the most successful tactics employed by the Tea Party to their advantage.

"This all sort of stems from the disappoint and despair that we all felt after the election," explained Angel Padilla, a co-author who previously worked for Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill.

"To us it's not really about the party; it's about the things that we value," Padilla said. "As former staffers, we don't have many skills, but we know how Congress works," Padilla said, quoting another one of the authors, Ezra Levin, who worked for Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas.

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Trump wants to "reshape America in his own racist, authoritarian, and corrupt image," Padilla, Levin and Leah Greenberg, who worked for Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Va., wrote. "If progressives are going to stop this, we must stand indivisibly opposed to Trump" and congressional Republicans.

"We examine lessons from the Tea Party's rise and recommend two key strategic components: A local strategy targeting individual members of Congress; a defensive approach purely focused on stopping Trump from implementing an agenda built on racism, authoritarianism, and corruption," they wrote.

They advise voters to assemble at the local level and to focus solely on their own elected representatives.

"I still get these alerts that say, 'if you want X call Speaker Ryan,'" Padilla said. "That to us is wasted energy. The only way you're going to move Paul Ryan on this is if you happen to be a constituent or get enough of his constituents or House members" to move in your direction, he said.

The four actions that influence lawmakers most are when voters turn up at town halls and speak up; when they turn up at photo-ops, such as ribbon-cutting ceremonies, and ask them questions; when they show up at members' district offices for meetings or to protest via "sit-ins"; and when they burn up their phone lines with coordinated calls, the guide advises.

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"[W]e can all learn from their success in influencing the national debate and the behavior of national policymakers," the group says about the Tea Party. "To their credit, they thought thoroughly about advocacy tactics."

The "indivisible" group does not advocate replicating bullying and violent methods, which they say the Tea Party used.

"In terms of some of that violence and aggressive and abusive rhetoric and behavior we are 100 percent opposed to that as a tactic and it's not consistent with our values," Padilla said.

The indivisible guide says the Tea Party's "ideas were wrong, cruel, and tinged with racism."

Jenny Beth Martin, spokeswoman for the Tea Party Patriots, said she's seen the guide but argues that "indivisible" misrepresents the Tea Party.

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"It's intriguing that the same people who mocked and maligned us now think they have to model what we did," she said. "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." However, "they mischaracterize what the Tea Party movement is. They've done that for the last eight years. They do that in their document. Our movement is peaceful," she continued. "We obey the law. We didn't have to tell people to obey the law."

Padilla said that after so many people accessed the initial Google doc where the guide was stored, people volunteered to make a website for it. Half-a-million people downloaded the guide in the month after it went live Dec. 21, he said.

"We had no idea what was going to happen," he said.

Word spread rapidly after former Labor Secretary Robert Reich promoted it, Padilla said.

During Saturday's women's march in Washington, protesters discussed it and recommended following it to the uninitiated. More than 2,400 local groups have registered with the website, http://www.indivisibleguide.com, Padilla said.

All the contributors, who now conduct activism training and speak to groups, are volunteers whose day jobs are unaffiliated with the cause, Padilla said. They also are not affiliated with or funded by any larger, better-known progressive groups, he said.

"We're just trying to respond to the need," he said. They have registered as a "social welfare organization" with the IRS better known as a 501(c) (4) but as far as fundraising or endorsing candidates, "that's way too premature," Padilla said. "We haven't really thought out where we want to go."

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A Tea Party for progressives? Left steals an idea from the Right - Washington Examiner (blog)