By Stan Taylor
We’re living at an inflection point in history. The Donald Trump-Elon Musk-JD Vance administration is made up of grifters who conned enough Americans into believing they would “make America great again.” The truth, as set forth in the Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership, is they intend to hollow out the institutions of American government, end programs aimed at the welfare of the public and transfer this wealth to the 1 percent through tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and the privatization of public services.
It is the colonization of the last reservoirs of the public domain. Historically, states referred to themselves as commonwealths because their purpose was to preserve resources in the public domain for the benefit of their citizens. But under the Trump presidency everything is being privatized — health care, education, prisons, the military, social security and the list goes on.
Even our national parks and wilderness areas are seen as a reservoir of resources to be exploited. This is what Ken Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, which produced Project 2025, refers to as “the second American Revolution.”
Intertwined with this revolution is a vision of America as white, Christian, nationalistic and autocratic. A world where the president is king and elections are circumscribed and controlled so only the right sorts of people vote — where Black and Hispanic people, former felons, women and even Democrats are scrubbed from voting lists and subject to stringent and difficult barriers to get registered.
The Democratic Party has fractured between progressive Democrats and neoliberal free-market Democrats. Progressive Democrats promote politics and economics to meet the needs of both the people and the planet, while free-market Democrats have engineered their own demise by embracing the politics of globalization and financialization of our economy and politics.
Globalization and unrestricted banking undermined the working class, accelerated inequality and eroded the Democratic Party’s commitment to civil rights. These are the very people who formed the base of the Democratic Party constituency until the mid-1970s. Abandoned by the neoliberal Democrats, industrial workers and people of color responded by abandoning the Democratic Party. The Democrats, like the Republicans, became intertwined with the ultra-wealthy that their politics created.
So here we are, at a point in history where the majority of both parties are controlled by big money, where MAGA Republicans control all branches of government — the presidency, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and a purchased Supreme Court. Key Democratic Party leadership in Congress are afraid to step forward and demand change as it would require them to move away from their corporate backers and embrace the tangible and unmet needs of their constituents.
The only alternative left is people collectively joining to create a better world.
This means collective political action across differences to form alliances to resist the destruction, to reclaim our politics and to rebuild by creating a world that meets people’s needs and protects the environment. Resist by refusing to comply. Resist by boycotting companies of the billionaire bros. Resist by protesting to demonstrate our anger and solidarity. Reclaim by utilizing electoral politics to take back our government. Rebuild by joining together to “build a coalition rooted in justice, equality and unwavering solidarity, where every voice is heard, every struggle is shared” as Kuitlahuak Lopez Rojas, youth program director of the Community Alliance of Lane County, recently said.
Today this movement of collective solidarity is growing rapidly. Protests, boycotts and electoral engagement have emerged. Two national grassroots political organizations, 50501 and Indivisible, have called for a national day of action to create a nationwide mass mobilization to demonstrate the strength of the opposition.
Indivisible Eugene Springfield responded by fostering the creation of the Activist Coalition of Eugene (ACES) consisting of activist organizations focused on social and environmental justice. Together, we are hosting a rally at noon April 5 at Eugene City Hall, 500 East 4th Avenue.
We will protest Trump’s grift and celebrate as a community united in building a just, sustainable world. Please join us. Register at Mobilize.us. Find “Hands Off” protest rally details at Indivisible-eug-spr.org and Reddit r/50501.