Liberal Activists Join Forces Against a Common Foe
Liberal Activists Join Forces Against a Common Foe:- For years, Justin Boyan worried about the effects of climate change but focused on his wife, his two daughters and his work as a computer scientist in Rhode Island. Then Donald J. Trump became president, and Mr. Boyan was jolted into political activism.
Within days of the election, Mr. Boyan began volunteering for the Working Families Party, a liberal political organization focused on income inequality, and attended almost weekly protests to voice his dismay. He traveled to the Women’s March on Washington with his family the day after inauguration, protested Mr. Trump’s travel ban at the Rhode Island state capital, and began studying criminal justice issues, which he connects to climate change as two issues where policy makers, he believes, have put the demands of big-money contributors over the needs of ordinary people.
The same energy motivating Mr. Boyan is bursting out at demonstrations and town hall meetings across the country. Protesters who had focused on issues like police shootings of black people, a $15 minimum wage and climate change are collaborating against a common foe, President Trump. In cities and states, activists are exchanging civil disobedience tactics, pooling financial resources and showing up to demonstrations about issues that they may not have previously focused on.
Call it Protest Nation: Activists across the country have been strengthening old partnerships and making new ones.
The Working Families Party has joined with MoveOn.org, a left-wing group that goes back to President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, and People’s Action, a national progressive group, to encourage people to protest weekly on what they call Resist Trump Tuesdays. Meetup.com, a site that often hosts opportunities for social gatherings, has created more than a thousand local groups called #Resist Meetups aimed at encouraging political activism.
In New York, organizers of the Women’s March on Washington last month made sure to address a broad range of issues, including abortion rights and access to contraception, racism, immigration laws and demands for pay parity between men and women. In Charlotte, N.C., on the weekend that the travel ban went into effect, African-American activists accustomed to blasting out information about police shootings sent a mass text message asking people to gather at an airport to support travelers from Muslim-majority countries.
In Chicago, a group focused on racial discrimination has teamed up with one focused on Latinos to push a new initiative aimed at expanding both the number and the definition of sanctuary cities to protect undocumented immigrants and curb police brutality.
“I was on the phone arranging a car pool to violin practice and I said: ‘All right, I’ll be there in 20 minutes. Bye.’ And the mom said, ‘Resist,’” Mr. Boyan, 46, marveled about a recent conversation. “When people say goodbye to each other, they are saying, ‘Resist.’”
For opponents of Mr. Trump, there is a risk protesting a president who revels in opposition, mocks demonstrators and says he speaks for a silent majority, said Micah White, 34, of Nehalem, Ore., who helped start Occupy Wall Street in 2011. That movement prompted thousands to camp in public parks, protest the excesses of “the 1 percent” — and eventually disperse with little to show for the efforts.
“Donald Trump is a master of stagecraft, and he’s obsessed with ratings,” Mr. White said. “So large-scale protests, they are just part of the spectacle game. They draw more attention to him. They help him feel like he is the center of the universe. And until there is a social protest movement that is ready and willing to take power and govern, then protests will always be ineffective.”
Activists opposing Mr. Trump still see strength in mass action, and they have begun broadening their reach.
Since she helped organize the Women’s March on Washington, which drew hundreds of thousands of people, Tamika D. Mallory, a gun control advocate and one of the march’s four co-chairwomen, has protested against the travel ban, spoken out against Attorney General Jeff Sessions and worked on organizing follow-up events to keep people involved after the march. She said that while she was still focused on racism and the lives of black people, she also understood that Mr. Trump’s rapid-fire pace meant people must work together and learn about issues outside their main concerns.
“This is the moment for us to show up for one another and to show up as concerned Americans versus being sort of stuck in our silos,” Ms. Mallory, 36, said. “It won’t be long before a different community is under attack.”
“The playbook has changed,” she added.
Two weeks ago, when thousands of people protested the travel ban at airports across the country, Nelini Stamp, national membership director of the Working Families Party, said she could sense the coalescing of a national protest movement. Messages to gather at Kennedy International Airport in New York came through texts, emails and Facebook posts across a spectrum of interest areas. Ms. Stamp, who several years ago got involved in organizing through Occupy Wall Street, said that by the time she got to the airport it felt like a family reunion.
“I saw folks that I worked with on labor issues, folks that I had worked with on the street, folks I’ve been arrested with doing civil disobedience,” she said. “A community of folks just merged, and it felt like magnets drawing to each other.”
In Chicago, Black Youth Project 100 is pairing up with Mijente, a Latino civil rights group, to push to increase the number of sanctuary cities, a term used for jurisdictions that limit local law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration agents. While the groups had teamed up in 2015 to stage a large protest in the city when the International Association of Chiefs of Police held its annual conference, last month the groups held their first news conference together.
“As organizers we already understand the value of relationships, and as organizers we also understand the urgency of this particular moment,” said Charlene Carruthers, 31, national director of Black Youth Project 100.
Tania A. Unzueta, 33, policy and legal director of Mijente, said she saw the collaboration as crucial for undocumented immigrants like herself and to minority communities where discrimination can have deadly consequences.
“We really do think our survival depends on being able to find collective strength,” said Ms. Unzueta, who came to the United States from Mexico at 10. “They are attacking our communities in different ways, and I think there are ways that our communities may be pitted against each other.”
Last month, Jimmy Dahman, 25, and about 100 volunteers from across the country started a push called Town Hall Project 2018. Through a publicly accessible Google spreadsheet, the group is listing dozens of town-hall-style meetings being held by members of Congress on both sides of the aisle. Mr. Dahman, who worked as an organizer for Hillary Clinton’s campaign, said he wanted to make it easier for people to have face-to-face interactions with elected officials.
“We have volunteers who are particularly upset about the prospect of climate change regulations being rolled back,” he said. “There are folks who are very nervous that they or someone they know and love may lose their health care. There are folks who are upset about the Muslim ban and some of the travel bans that the administration has put in place. They are all fired up for different reasons.”
Source:- https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/us/politics/protesters-resist-trump.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=us®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront&mtrref=www.nytimes.com
