The first 24 hours
We are just a few hours into Donald Trump's presidency. In that short amount of time, he issued a flurry of executive orders to undo all the progress we've made on clean energy, end birthright citizenship, give handouts to Big Pharma, and much more.
He also pardoned violent offenders who took part in the January 6, 2021 insurrection.
Four years ago, Trump used every trick in the book to try and override the results of a free and fair election. When his efforts failed in courts and legislatures across the country, he whipped up an angry mob to attack the Capitol. Now, he's pardoning people from that mob. He's broadcasting to the world that he wants his supporters to use any means – legal or not, violent or otherwise – to overturn electoral outcomes that he doesn't like.
When leaders think the people's votes don't matter, they disregard the people's interests. They put their top donors first, they move stridently to take away civil liberties when those liberties threaten their agenda, and they take every opportunity to accumulate more power for themselves.
Right now, Trump has never felt more emboldened. We're going to see the full impact of that as he pursues a radical agenda – from dismantling programs that help working families, to slashing health care, to restricting reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights, to giving even more tax breaks to billionaires and making everyone else foot the bill.
And he's counting on Republicans in Congress to fall in line behind that agenda. I see no indication that any of them have the desire, or the backbone, to push back.
If we want to uphold our democracy, it starts with mustering every political muscle we can to expose the GOP's agenda and rally people against it. Our best defense right now is the popular will – and as dark as this moment right now may seem, I've seen narrow Congressional majorities fail to pass unpopular legislation time and time again.
Our job is to make the Republicans' anti-working class and anti-democracy agenda unpopular, and then sustain the political tides into 2026 and beyond.
We're going to face a lot of challenges. But we can overcome them. We must overcome them. Our democracy is counting on us.
So let's get to work. If you can, please chip in to help fuel our movement.
Ron
