Publisher’s Note 55.2

Written by Wade Rathke

As a quarterly journal there’s no way to ever get ahead of the news cycle.  In Trump 2.0, it’s impossible.  The cycle starts and stops everyday with new outrages, advances, and retreats.  As I write, the DOGE forges ahead without Musk, while he tries to mend fences that Trump claims to be uninterested in repairing.  For all of the pundits who have bemoaned the lack of protests this time around, thinking wistfully of the Women’s March among other things, but also the airport protests in New York City opposing travel bans, we have now action aplenty as immigrants and their supporters resist the efforts of ICE and federal intrusions in the workplace, which are now being abetted by the National Guard and US Marines. 

Whole communities and families have gone into hiding, while others are standing up.  Most of the demonstrations are peaceful.  Some object to many waving Mexican flags.  Other reports mention people wearing purple shirts, underlining the participation – and rage – of SEIU members over the arrest and injury to the California State Council president, an observer rather than a participant who was hurt, arrested, and released.  Abrego Garcia, wrongfully deported to a hellhole prison in El Salvador, and now needlessly charged with trafficking so that the administration can pretend they had cause without admitting error, was returned thanks to the work of CASA in Maryland and the National Day Laborers Network (NDLON).  In terms of resistance, perhaps there won’t just be flashes of resistance, but more sustained efforts supported by unions and large community-based organizations?  There participation and leadership could make a huge difference.

We can’t keep up with the news, so our job has to be trying to look underneath and look at what’s coming.  Many voices in this issue try to do exactly that.  Frank Strier, a former professor in California, who has written about gun control for Social Policy in the past, makes a case not for simply enforcing the Constitution, but amending it to meet the moment.  No one will hold their breath, but it makes you think.  The second part of Mike Miller’s argument for training “from the bottom” looks at the nuts and bolts of moving people in communities to organize.  Bruce Boccardy, another frequent contributor, again tries to help us understand all of this from the perspective of workers and how they are impacted by the economy. 

In this same vein, we wanted to share two pieces that came our way that move the needle forward.  One is from Lynn Parramore and INET dissecting the way that Musk, corporations, and the billionaires are gutting the government for their own ends, not some budget cutting bonanza.  The other is an interview that came to us from a relatively new online publication, Hammer & Hope, by John Hopkins professor Hahrie Han, long a student of organizing, who interviews the key organizer in Minnesota’s ISAIAH organization about how they have built power for change in the state in these difficult times. 

The excerpts look forward and backward.  Tracey Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis, organizers and strategists behind the Los Angeles Tenants Union and its creative use of rent strikes, share a case study from their new book on how power for tenants can be built.  Eric Blanc looks at a similar problem in building power in the workplace.  Both worry about how to get organizations to scale.  Blanc makes the argument that we need labor organizing models that allow workers greater ability to self-organize.  Josh Silver looks at one of the great work of community organizations to end redlining and force more equitable lending regardless of race, income, and more.  There are many lessons here.  One is simply that we can win big.  The other is that we have to build the capacity for continued struggle in order to protect the victories.  Lending in our communities continues to be an issue, just as there continues to be concerted efforts to dilute the Community Reinvestment Act over the last almost 50 years. 

James Mumm is on time with a review that looks at how immigrants have organized and are sustaining their movement.  These are the people every country should be fighting to bring into their countries. 

In our columns, Phil Mattera reminds us that despite the abandonment of corporate accountability by the federal government, states have a role here, and many have led the way and won’t give up the fight.  Drummond Pike sees echoes of the unresolved issues from the US Civil War in our current civil and political unrest.  John Anderson worries about the demise of the New Democratic Party in Canada, and what it might teach all of us and itself about how to recover a critical world in politics.  Geogory Squires joins Silver in looking at the history and future of the Community Reinvestment Act and its importance.  I offer some crazy sounding ideas about how to turn the benefit cutbacks in the Republicans budget bill into a fight to retain the rights for recipients by converting the bills draconian requirements into organizing tools.

I’m not saying there’s something for everyone in this issue, but if you’re looking for some light in these dark times, there are some high beams in this number that might help you find your way along the road.