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Protests and supporters gather as Donald Trump takes the oath of office and becomes the 45th president of the United States, during the Jan. 20, 2016 inauguration ceremony in Washington D.C. (Photo: Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

It's midnight in America.

Donald J. Trump has ascended to the highest office of the United States, making the billionaire bully the most powerful person in the world, and he did it with a campaign that Made America Hate Again.

These are dark times, and Trump's behaviour since winning the Electoral College, despite losing by 2,864,974 votes, has allayed no fears.

George W. Bush, who also lost the popular vote in 2000, used his inauguration speech to reach out to those who didn't vote for him. He said that immigrants "make our country more, not less, American," and pushed for civility and "community over chaos."

Trump, on the other hand, delivered an inauguration speech echoing his divisive campaign. He ranted about the "carnage" of the Obama era during which the U.S. saw its largest ever job creation streak, prison populations reduced for the first time in decades and crime rates falling to the their lowest rates since the 1960s.

He spoke of taking the country back from the elite, leaving out that his cabinet is full of billionaires and Goldman Sachs bankers, and to an almost entirely white audience he promised that "the forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer" while failing to mention he won't forget to take away their health care by the tens of millions.

Trump also said that "from this moment on, it's going to be America First," a slogan he borrowed from an anti-Semitic political movement in 1940 that tried to keep America from taking on the Nazis.

All told, it's been a bleak day.

But don't give up. Resistance isn't futile. If there's one thing that progressives should learn from Trump's election, it is that protest works.

Obama was inaugurated with 84 per cent approval and Democrats in charge of the Congress and Senate. But the reason why the U.S. doesn't have a Canadian-style single-payer medical system is because the right showed up en masse to health care town halls and scared Democrats into backing off.

Yes, Republicans are more ideological and likely to follow their leadership in lock-step, but some are already starting to get scared from non-violent crowds protesting the Obamacare repeal.

And on January 21, the world will be demonstrating against Donald Trump. Hundreds of Women's Marches, including some across Canada expected to draw big turnouts, will march in solidarity with the main Washington D.C. protest's anticipated 200,000 participants.

But that's just the beginning.

The right created a movement, the Tea Party, which not only protested in the streets -- beginning with the September 12 Taxpayer March on Washington -- but energized the Republicans to win the 2010 midterms. They literally took over the party and pushed it to the far-right, eventually electing anti-establishment Trump as their presidential standard bearer.

Progressives can do the same.

Senator Bernie Sanders speaks out against president-elect Donald Trump during a rally next to the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 17, 2016. (Photo: Getty Images)

So demonstrate and march non-violently, but also use the movement that developed around Bernie Sanders to organize at a community level and work your way up. Progressives can effect change from the grassroots by pushing local, state and federal Democrats leftward from Clintonian establishment centrism and by reminding Republicans that progressives are their constituents, too.

And, most importantly, defend the marginalized. Make no mistake, Muslims, people of colour, women and LGBTQ Americans will all be under constant attack from the Trump regime.

Trump may have won by scapegoating minorities and inflaming white fright, but he doesn't represent the majority. Trump was inaugurated with a historically low 37 per cent approval, and that was according to a Fox News(!) poll.

Don't get depressed. Learn. Fight. Resist.

And that's also true here in Canada, where progressives need to defend our border from Trump's influence by pushing Trudeau to fulfill his campaign promises as a firewall to Conservative party populism.

It is midnight in America, yes. But if people pull together, dawn will break once again.

Also on HuffPost:

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Progressives Need Their Own Tea Party - Huffington Post Canada

Tom Krattenmaker Published 11:58 a.m. ET Jan. 20, 2017 | Updated 19 hours ago

A military band performs in Washington on Jan. 19, 2017.(Photo: Mandel Ngan, AFP/Getty Images)

At the dawn of the Trump presidency, to be a progressive is to feel buried under an avalanche of wrong: the shocking election of an unqualified, undignified man to the White House, the unjust repudiation of an admirable Obama presidency and a period of substantial progress; a seeming victory for bigotry, nationalism, and ignorance.

Hope is hard to find. Yet hope is needed for people to carry on. The good news for true-blue progressives is that there are real reasons for hope in this time of fear and loathing, including the following five:

Demography

Despite all that went haywire in the November election, the underlying demographic trends remain and they bode well for progressives. Even if the Trump administration brought all immigration to a halt today, Americans will continue to become more diverse in terms of race, religion, and other characteristics.

To the extent that todays progressive movement is fueled by diversity andpeoples growing comfort with it, the winds are blowing in progressives favor. Age, too, is a factor in this dynamic. Data show that the millennial generation is more diverse and, among whites, more at ease with diversity than older generations. As the members of this younger generation age, those progressive values will follow them to mainstream status. Or so the theory goes.

USA TODAY

Women's March will send message to Trump: Wendy Sherman

USA TODAY

Jesus teaches us to love even Donald Trump: Column

Trump phenomenon has little to sustain it

Donald Trumps ascent to the White House is a phenomenon with the markings of a one-and-done. It revolves around a singular celebrity personality. Distinct from the Republican party, which sports organizational strength at the local, state, and national levels and which the new president flouted all the way to the top Trumpism has almost nothing going for it by way an infrastructure or movement. Its Electoral College success came despite Trump finishing nearly 3 million votes behindan unexciting Democratic opponent burdened by decades worth of accumulated baggage.

In view of all this, and the fact that the white Christians who propelled Trump to office move deeper into minority status with each passing day, Trumpism is an -ism with a bleak long-term future. Barring apartheid-light voter suppression or Democratic and progressive incompetence of epic proportions, it seems more than possible that future generations will see the 2016 election as the last hurrah for once-dominant American identity running on its final fumes.

GOP will bear the burden of governing

Is there more to Trump than bluster and hot air? Does the conservative GOP have something to offer beyond grievance and empty rhetoric? We are in the early stages of finding out. And if progressives are more right than wrong in their understanding the world, the answers could turn many voters against conservatives for a long time to come.

Exhibit A: health care. Confusion and national grumpiness about the Affordable Care Act have provided Republicans with endless political benefits. As many a quipster has noted, Trump and the GOP are like the dog that catches up with the car its been chasing: What do they do now?

Lest they go down as the party that took health care away from tens of millions of Americans, leaving many to die prematurely for lack of prompt and high quality care, they have to accomplish something they show little sign of being able to do: go beyond simplistic talking points and master an incredibly complex political and public policy challenge.

Good luck with that, GOP. And good luck answering to voters if you fail.

Progressive movement energized

Its striking to hear so little Im-moving-to-Canada nonsense from progressives post-election. Instead we find a grim determination to stay, and fight.

Obviously, this can go too far. Progressives would be foolish not to lend support if the Trump administration brings forward sensible policies that benefit people. But with so many progressive values and constituents under threat, a fighting spirit is what this moment requires and what we see.

Take, for instance, the effort to flood Congress members offices with calls of concern about health care repeal. And the womens march on Saturday, already being described as the biggestinauguration protest ever.

As the punk icon John Lydon famously sang, Anger is an energy. So is anxiety. Theres been plenty of both right now. The task is to channel them productively and sustainably.

POLICING THE USA:Alook at race, justice, media

USA TODAY

I voted for Trump, not against Planned Parenthood: Column

All is not lost

Fueling progressive angst is the imminent undoing of the accomplishments and legacy of the widely admired outgoing president. But comfort can be found in knowing that an African-American named Barack Hussein Obama was elected president twice, and that he comported himself with dignity, disciplineand class during his eight years in the White House.

Yes, that happened. As did societys growing inclusion of many Americans who had long been excluded. Even if Trump and the GOP Congress are able to roll it all back, this progress will remain indelibly etched in the nations history.

Yes we can, yes we did, Obama declared in his farewell speech. And as progressives ought to remind themselves, yes we can again, whatever havoc this next administration might wreak.

A member of USA Todays Board of Contributors, Tom Krattenmaker is a writer specializing in religion in public life and communications director at Yale Divinity School. His new book is titled Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower.

You can readdiverse opinions from ourBoard of Contributorsand other writers ontheOpinion front page,on Twitter@USATOpinionand in our dailyOpinion newsletter.To submit a letter, comment or column, check oursubmission guidelines.

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5 reasons for liberal hope in the Trump era: Column - USA TODAY

Hundreds of activists stage a peaceful protest at Trump International Hotel and Tower in New York City to fight against the radical changes to the American health care system proposed by the Trump administration and Republicans. (Photo by Erik McGregor/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

This post originally appeared at In These Times.

Something remarkable has happened over the past few years: A new silent majority has emerged, decades after Richard Nixon made that phrase famous. Nixon meant the people whose values were, he said, dominant in American culture, but underrepresented in American politics. Calling them the silent majority was a way of channeling the white backlash against the civil rights movement.

The new silent majority is defined by the broad consensus that has emerged in the United States around progressive policies. This consensus isnt widely reported. In fact, its obscured by the oft-repeated idea that the nation is deeply polarized, as if Americans are torn between support for conservative and progressive policies. They arent. On the battlefield of ideology, conservatives have been routed.

For Democrats looking for a path back to power, lifting up the grievances of the forgotten, silent majority and focusing on the economic and electoral structures that stifle and suppress its voice and vote would be a good place to start.

The progressive consensus cuts across economic and social issues and includes even traditional culture-war flashpoints. On most policy questions, polling shows that about three-fifths or more of the public prefers progressive positions.

Consider some examples.

Health care reform: In a Gallup survey last year, roughly half of respondents favored repealing Obamacare, while half favored keeping it. But 58 percent supported a third option: replacing it with a federally funded health care system providing insurance for all Americans. The wording is vague, but that sounds a lot like the single-payer, Medicare for All system that progressives have lobbied for.

Unions: Fifty-eight percent of respondents to a 2015 Gallup survey said they approve of labor unions and 72 percent said unions should have either more influence than they now have, or at least the same amount. Historically, the approval rate was in the 70s through the mid-1960s. It declined to roughly 60 percent in the early 1970s and dipped to the high 40s in the wake of the financial meltdown of 2008, but has steadily recovered since then.

Campaign finance reform: Seventy-sevenpercent of the public supports limits on campaign spending, according to a 2015 Pew poll. Voters in the deep-red state of South Dakota made that clear last November by approving a sweeping campaign-finance reform initiative. The measure passed despite strong opposition from the state chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a PAC funded by the Koch brothers.

Climate change and renewable energy: There was a sharp spike in people who reported they are at least a fair amount worried about climate change last year from 55 to 64 percent according to Gallup. The share of people who believe that the effects have already begun also rose, from 55 to 59 percent. Its true that opinions about climate change fluctuate significantly based on current events, the wording of the question and other factors. A recent Pew poll, for example, found that only 48 percent of respondents believed human activity causes climate change, versus 65 percent in the Gallup poll. But whatever they believe about the causes, Americans overwhelming agree about solutions. In the Pew poll, support for solar panel and wind turbine farms was more than 80 percent. A majority opposed every other potential energy source: offshore drilling, nuclear power plants, fracking and coal. And a post-election poll found that even people who voted for Donald Trump are on board with taking some action against climate change. Sixty-one percent said companies should be required to reduce carbon emissions, and 78 percent support air-pollution regulations.

Reproductive rights: Fifty-six percent of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

LGBT rights: In 1996, 27 percent of Americans thought same-sex marriages should be legal. Last year, 61 percent did. And, by a narrow majority, most Americans believe transgender people should be able to use the public bathroom of the gender they identify with.

The list of issues on which roughly 60 percent of Americans agree with progressives could go on at length. It would include, for example, a higher minimum wage, legalized marijuana and free child care. The trend holds true even on Trumps signature issue of immigration. Last summer, Gallup found that 84 percent of Americans supported a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, while only 33 percent supported building a wall along the US-Mexico border. Among Republicans, 62 percent supported building the wall but 76 percent also supported a path to citizenship.

An uneven playing field

Americans prefer progressive policies nearly across the board, yetthe federal government and a majority of state governments are controlled by a party that aims to undermine, overturn and resist those policies.

How did this happen?

Democracy plays a minor role. White, elderly people vote at higher levels than any other demographic bloc, and they vote Republican, especially if they identify as Christian.

That advantage would make the GOP a competitive but distinctly minority party if the playing field were level. But the playing field isnt level. Increasingly, the GOP uses anti-democratic tools to tilt the field to its advantage. Those tools include radical gerrymandering of congressional districts, voter suppression in competitive states and flooding the political process with dark money from corporations and wealthy donors. These are in addition to the strong bias toward small, predominantly white Republican states built into the Senate and the Electoral College, and the use of pre-emption laws by state legislatures to block progressive policy in urban centers.

Together, these measures radically inflate the power of the GOPs comparatively small base of white religious conservatives, transforming it into an electoral juggernaut. At the same time, they pull the Democratic Party to the right, making it ever-more reliant on corporations and wealthy donors in an attempt to remain competitive in a rigged system.

A path back to power?

The worst example of the process to date is North Carolina, where the GOP-dominated legislature is so corrupt that the state is only slightly ahead of the failed democracies that constitute much of the developing world, as Andrew Reynolds, a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina, recently wrote.

Reynolds noted that the states gerrymandering is especially obscene. Its not only the worst case of unfair districting in the United States; its the worst case ever analyzed by the Electoral Integrity Project, which has measured 213 elections in 153 countries and is widely agreed to be the most accurate method for evaluating how free and fair and democratic elections are across time and place.

The rigging works as intended, giving the GOP a hammerlock on the North Carolina legislature: One party wins just half the votes but 100 percent of the power, Reynolds wrote. The other party wins just a handful of votes less and 0 percent of the legislative power.

Its the same story across the nation. Trumps victory is the anti-democratic system in microcosm: The GOP wins with a minority of votes and claims a mandate to push through policies that a majority of the nation opposes. Voters feel, rightly, that their voices dont count. They become more cynical and disengage, while the Republican minority feels ever-more empowered. There is nothing in their way and no authority that can derail their power grab. Our polarization is more like a hostage-taking.

Weve heard a lot since the election about white working class voters who feel disenfranchised and put Trump over the top. That story is certainly worth telling. But it pales by comparison with a much bigger, largely untold story: the 60 percent of Americans who support progressive policies and have little voice in the nations politics.

The problem has been decades in the making. There is no easy answer. But for Democrats looking for a path back to power, lifting up the grievances of the forgotten, silent majority and focusing on the economic and electoral structures that stifle and suppress its voice and vote would be a good place to start.

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Progressives Are the New Silent Majority - BillMoyers.com

In the two months since the election, there has been an energetic, oftentimes vitriolic, effort on the part of Hillary Clinton surrogates (and the large contingent of neoconservative Republicans who supported her) to blame her defeat at the hands of Donald J. Trump on Democrats like myself who could not in good conscience vote for her on Nov. 8.

Their argument goes something like this: America would have been spared the horrors of a Trump presidency if only the Bernie holdouts and other recalcitrants had been able to put aside their bitterness and come around to voting for Clinton.

Because Bernie Bros and other critics of Mrs. Clinton along with, unknowingly or not, Russian cyber saboteurs undermined her candidacy, were now stuck with a dangerous and irresponsible man steering the ship of state for the next four years.

This thesis has become even more popular as news of Russias interference in the U.S. election has spread. Conveniently, this line of thinking generally absolves the Clinton campaign for tactical mistakes like ignoring key Midwestern battleground states in favor of campaigning in Republican states like Texas and Arizona. It also shrugs off polling data that suggests Trumps economic policies swung thousands of voters who had previously cast their ballot for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.

It further allows supporters of Clintons foreign policy to dismiss uncomfortable questions about whether Trumps rejection of our current interventionist foreign policy orthodoxy added to his appeal.

Instead of pointing the finger at Bernie Brosfor Clintons defeat, mainstream Democrats might ask themselves if supporting arguably the most pro-war candidate in the partys history was what actually midwifed the Trump presidency.Was nominating Clinton, a supporter of the Iraq war and a politician whounreservedly played the race cardagainst candidate Barack Obama in 2008 therightthing to do?

Was it a wise decision to nominate someone who pushed for an expansion of the war in Afghanistan, for a needless and reckless war in Libya, and for wider war in Syria?

Were the Clinton campaigns deep financial ties to billionaire Haim Saban, who only a month ago smeared Congressman Keith Ellision by calling him an anti-Semite, not worrying?

Were the Clinton Foundations lucrative links to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and the Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk something to be shrugged off?

But questions such as these seem to be out of bounds these days.

Instead, progressives and anti-war Democrats have been the target of baseless accusations of unpatriotic disloyalty, some of which would be funny, if the stakes weren't so high.

Self-proclaimed leaders of the Trump #Resistance on Twitter are growing increasingly fond of insinuating and in some cases accusing those of us who were not with Her of being with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

The irony of such accusations, coming as they are from Democrats, is rich. During his 8 years as president, Barack Obama repeatedly tried to work with the Russian president in some cases successfully. Indeed, many of the Obamas signal foreign policy achievements, like the Iranian nuclear accord, the successful effort to dismantle Syrias chemical weapons stockpiles, and, of course, the New START nuclear agreement, only could have come about with the cooperation of the Russians.

To point that out may be heresy these days, but it is not wrong.

In their rush to cast opponents of Clintonism as pawns of the Kremlin, some high profile Democrats are abandoning the partys proud tradition of opposing such polarizing rhetoric. Playing into anti-Russian hysteria and scapegoating and marginalizing the voices calling for a more prudent and pragmatic foreign policy is no substitute for finding solutions to the very real national security challenges facing the United States today.

James Carden is a contributing writer for The Nation.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook

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Stop blaming anti-war progressives and 'Bernie Bros' for President Trump - Los Angeles Times

Things are not looking good for American progressives.

President-elect Donald Trump is poised to put in place many regressive policies in his quest to make America great again that are fundamentally at odds with what are generally considered progressive values such as transparency, inclusiveness, equity, fairness and dignity for all. Examples include his plans to build a wall on the Mexican border, deport undocumented immigrants or at least immigrants with criminal records, ban or severely restrict Muslims, deny climate change and repeal the Affordable Care Act, as well as his conflicts of interest and possible nepotism.

This situation is a stark reversal from only a few years ago when it seemed progressives were winning the battle of ideas on such issues as marriage equality thanks to the Supreme Courts 2014 decision Wall Street reform and the passage of Obamacare, which extended affordable health insurance to millions of Americans.

Today, this progress appears to be in jeopardy, while other pressing issues such as widening income inequality and climate change desperately need addressing. With both houses of Congress and the White House now in the grip of conservatives and the Supreme Court about to be steered to the right for potentially many years to come where do progressives go from here?

My research on how to affect large system change offers some answers. It begins with realizing progressives have a story problem.

Framing a narrative

Heres the thing: Conservatives have been remarkably effective at framing the debate and articulating what they stand for, as linguist George Lakoff explains in The All New Dont Think of an Elephant.

For example, the notions of personal responsibility, limited government, free markets and free trade are all deeply embedded in our collective psyches. Along with the maximization of shareholder wealth as the primary purpose of the corporation, these are all key elements of the neoliberal economic agenda established in the ashes of World War II.

While Trump may not adhere to all of these ideas most notably free trade they remain core elements of the Republican vision and most of the voters who elected him.

In contrast, progressives have been entirely ineffective at crafting a narrative and cant seem to agree on a core set of issues, values and supporting memes (in the form of phrases, images, words and symbols). Progressives act like what ecologist L. Hunter Lovins calls a bucket of crabs. Crabs, placed in a bucket, are said to fight each other, pulling back down any crab that attempts to escape. Progressives, Lovins argues, do much the same in their otherwise laudable effort to be inclusive, democratic and accepting of multiple perspectives.

Lakoff, who directs the Center for Neural Mind and Society at the University of California at Berkeley, finds that progressives come in at least six different types, each with a different focus: socioeconomic themes, identity politics, environmentalism, civil liberties, spiritual renewal and anti-authoritarianism.

Each type thinks its ideas are most important. Thats the bucket of crabs.

The big battles ahead

Problematically for progressives, the battles they face are only getting bigger, more complex and more challenging. Besides protection of the hard-won rights of recent years, unprecedented levels of inequality, the looming threat of climate change and an impending employment crisis are all on the horizon.

Work Ive done with colleagues on large system change offers two considerations for progressives as they seek to find their footing in the current climate.

First, large system change takes place in a context of complex systems fraught with wicked problems, which involve intertwined issues with no obvious beginnings or ends and many stakeholders with different ideas about what the problem actually is, what should be done about it and what it would even mean to solve the problem. Climate change, inequality and the jobs crisis all fit this framework.

Sounds like the bucket of crabs, no? In such systems, change can potentially come from many different quarters and numerous actors. By its nature, large system change cannot be controlled or planned as many people might like. Such change becomes particularly difficult when the people in charge, currently conservatives, disagree with the fundamental premises of would-be change agents.

How in this context could progressive change occur?

The second consideration provides an answer: Successful large system change is best guided by a powerful, coherent and compelling narrative or story based on resonant core values and readily transferable memes. Such narratives, values and memes shape attitudes, beliefs and, ultimately, actions and policies. People respond to stories and compelling ideas (memes), not just long-winded policies, because stories not only explain what is happening but also tap into emotions and values.

Of memes and men

In other words, to counteract the forces that would reverse President Barack Obamas policies to fight climate change or exacerbate income inequality by cutting taxes for the wealthy, progressives need to come together and find ways to clearly articulate what they stand for, while telling a simple and compelling story that shows how their ideas will help shape a better future.

Developing memes is an important part of that process. Memes are core units of culture and can be ideas like free markets or maximize shareholder wealth, phrases like Make America great again, symbols and images such as red baseball caps and pink pussyhats, pink hats with cat ears that symbolize resistance to misogyny. Such memes resonate broadly with people because they tap into and connect with their core values. They underpin and support a narrative and the way we relate to each other and the world around us. Their power and importance are frequently overlooked in system change.

Consider the resonance of Make America great again combined with the symbolism of red baseball caps. They created a collective identity and identifiable area of agreement among Trump supporters. Contrast that with the considerably less resonant and memorable Stronger together and Im with her slogans of the Hillary Clinton campaign.

While it certainly lacks specifics, Make America great again sounds meaningful, presumably connects with something identifiable in supporters lives and clearly offers a vision of a different future. The vaguer Im with her or Stronger together slogans, in contrast, seem to offer little guidance about what the vision is or how to create a meaningful collective identity.

For progressives to succeed, they need to identify the common values, ideas and goals that create common ground, the same way conservatives have used individual responsibility and free markets.

A narrative takes shape

Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont, 2008 Democratic presidential candidate and then chair of the Democratic National Committee, powerfully pointed out in 2007 that people respond to and make choices on the basis of values and resonant supporting memes, not policy papers and positions.

Dean identified fairness, fiscal responsibility and strength/toughness as core progressive values. A group called ThinkProgress adds to the list freedom (e.g., freedom of speech, association and religion, and freedom to have a fulfilling life), opportunity (e.g., preventing discrimination and embracing diversity), responsibility (individual and shared) and cooperation (recognizing our interconnectedness).

In such a progressive context, the story for companies might be that they operate in fair markets (not just free markets) with collective value (not just profitability or shareholder wealth) as a goal.

Or something like that. The Leading for Wellbeing coalition, for example, is an initiative set up by Lovins and others to develop an economy that provides well-being and dignity for all, where businesses work to enhance life in all respects. This kind of shared process of values identification and articulation is clearly needed right now.

Only by building such a powerful and unified vision can progressives continue to push their agenda in the era of Trump and conservative dominance in Washington.

Sandra Waddock, Galligan Chair of Strategy and Carroll School Scholar of Corporate Responsibility, Boston College

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Can progressives make changes in the Trump era? - Salon