Remember when that woman was dragged out an an idaho town hall and people were all talking about how it was the end of democracy and the beginning of thugs ruling our country?
Nope.
Dr. Teresa Borrenpohl, who was violently dragged out of an Idaho town hall, has filed a $5 million legal action against the Sheriff, the private security company involved, and others
and the people who did it were charged
The security guards involved in the controversial removal of Teresa Borrenpohl from a town hall meeting in Kootenai County have pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges of battery and false imprisonment. The incident occurred in February at a high school auditorium hosting several Republican legislators.
Paul Trouette, Russell Dun, Christopher Berg, and Jessie Jones, the security guards involved, were also cited for not adhering to private security codes. Their employer, Lear Asset Management, has since had its city license revoked.
PANIC 2: Trump will be invoking martial law on 4/20!
This one was all over the internet and the speaker at the rally I went to on the 19th was all about it and how it was a real thing and we might lose everything. There were podcasts like this — Will Trump Declare Martial Law on 4/20? The Shocking Truth Behind the Rumors. I’m not even going to link to the fear mongering but I am sure lots of you heard about it and many people were really panicked
and then…. nothing. First, it was never really martial law (it was the insurrection act which was a threat). and then very quietly it didn’t happen. Nothing. His cabinet members studied it, recommended not invoking the insurrection act (which is not martial law, btw) and he didn’t do it.
PANIC 3: trump cut funding for a super important women’s health study
This is another one you might not remember but there was a huge amount of panic about it and tons of people sharing articles about it
and then….
The Trump administration is restoring financial support for a landmark study of women's health, an official said Thursday, reversing a defunding decision that shocked medical researchers.
People used their voices and changed this!
PANIC 4: the national park service removed all mention of Harriet Tubman
Another thing that people (rightfully) panicked about and shared lots of info about and then...
National Park Service restores original Harriet Tubman, Underground Railroad webpage
The National Park Service has reversed edits and restored content to its webpage about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad in the wake of news reports and public backlash over the changes.
“Changes to the Underground Railroad page on the National Park Service’s website were made without approval from NPS leadership nor Department leadership,” NPS spokeswoman Rachel Pawlitz said late Monday in an email. “The webpage was immediately restored to its original content.”
Initial changes to the NPS site included removing Tubman’s picture from the top of the page and making multiple edits to the text to exclude references to slavery.
Our voices worked!
PANIC 5: there is an autism registry
This is another one were there was a solid week of panic and worry and arguing about how this would be used and what it meant. And then….
No new autism registry, HHS says, walking back NIH director’s claim
The federal health department is not creating a new registry of Americans with autism, a Department of Health and Human Services official said in a written statement Thursday. Instead, the official said, HHS will launch a $50 million research effort to understand the causes of autism spectrum disorder and improve treatments.
Our voices worked!
PANIC 6: We will never have elections again!
This one is ever green. And I get the worry, except… we are having elections. All the time.
AND we are winning a lot of those elections.
Air Force veteran Gina Ortiz Jones wins runoff race for San Antonio mayor
San Antonio’s next mayor will be Gina Ortiz Jones, a 44-year-old West Side native who rose from John Jay High School to the top ranks of the U.S. military on an ROTC scholarship.
Jones defeated Rolando Pablos, a close ally of Texas GOP leaders, with 54% of the vote on Saturday night in a high-profile, bitterly partisan runoff.
Thanks to new, longer terms that voters approved in November, this year’s mayor and City Council winners will be the first to serve four-year terms before they must seek reelection.
The closely watched runoff came after Jones took a commanding 10-percentage-point lead in last month’s 27-candidate mayoral election, but weathered nearly $1 million in attacks from Pablos and his Republican allies.
x
Some bright news overnight in Texas!Congratulations to USAF Veteran Gina Ortiz Jones, San Antonio’s next (& first LGBTQ+) Mayor!🌈🪅The GOP poured over $1M into her opponent’s campaign, but Gina prevailed with 54.3% of the vote and will be sworn in on 6/18!👉🏽 www.texastribune.org/2025/06/07/s...
— Lisa Reyna Loe (@lisaloe.bsky.social) 2025-06-08T11:02:03.879Z
Democrat ousts incumbent Republican in Omaha mayoral race
Douglas County, Neb., Treasurer John Ewing Jr. (D) ousted Republican Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert in the latest victory for Democrats during President Trump’s second term, according to a Decision Desk HQ projection.
Ewing, who is also a former deputy chief of police for Omaha, will become the city’s first Black mayor. He denied Stothert a chance at an unprecedented fourth consecutive term in office in an election that was officially nonpartisan but featured a Democrat and a Republican facing off.
The city hasn’t had a Democratic mayor since 2013, when Stothert beat Democratic incumbent Jim Suttle to become Omaha’s first female mayor.
PANIC 7: We’ve lost the young men!
Again, this is a real reason to worry. It was awful to see young men go for trump in the last election. But….
Young Men Are Already Souring on Trump
What exactly drove young men’s hard-right shift is one of the most pressing questions that came out of the 2024 election after male voters under 30 proved key in helping deliver Donald Trump’s victory. Since then, there’s been a flurry of media coverage trying to explore the underpinnings of young men’s support for a 78-year-old convicted felon who was found liable for sexual abuse. While many of these stories hand-wring that young men may be forever lost to MAGA-world, less than 100 days into Trump’s second term, it appears some of them are already experiencing buyer’s remorse.
A new national youth poll released on April 23 by the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School found that 59 percent of men between the ages of 18 and 29 disapprove of Trump. Additionally, 47 percent of them say that he’ll hurt the economy, and 40 percent say they are worse off under the current administration compared to the Biden era. Young men had a different take on the president as recently as January. At the time, 62 percent of men under 30 approved of how Trump handled the economy, according to polling by the youth research firm SocialSphere. But by early March, even before tariff chaos and the economic tailspin that followed, that number had already dropped 14 points, to 48 percent, Puck reported. “If life doesn’t become more affordable as Trump promised, and quickly, even his strongest backers may conclude he can’t deliver,” John Della Volpe, who runs SocialSphere, told the outlet.
Young Men Who Elected Trump Just Realized They Screwed Up
The young men who helped get Donald Trump back into the White House are now realizing they made a massive mistake, according to a Harvard polling expert.
“More younger people are concerned that Donald Trump is doing more harm to them than good. OK. That’s essentially what the report card looks like,” he told the Beast’s chief content officer.
During the 2024 election, Trump won narrow margins in key battleground states after making an outreach to disaffected young men, using right-wing influencers and anti-woke rhetoric to secure their votes. “I believe younger people were responsible for putting Donald Trump in office to start with, specifically younger men,” Della Volpe said.
“Younger people are quickly asking important questions like, ‘I thought this was going to improve my economic standing. What about me?’” said Della Volpe, who advised Joe Biden during his 2020 election campaign and worked with a PAC that tried to rally support for Kamala Harris in 2024.
But after six turbulent months in the hot seat, young people are “clearly overwhelmingly dissatisfied,” the pollster added. “His approval ratings among younger people are in the 30s,” he said.
PANIC 8: they will never bring back Kilmar Abrego García
I heard this a lot after they were told they would have to bring him back. So many people were so sure it wouldn’t happen. But it did.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been returned to the U.S
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man whose erroneous deportation to El Salvador became a protracted battle over due process and a test of wills, was returned to the United States
Kilmar Abrego Garcia Scores Win Over Trump Admin in Emergency Appeal
On Friday, Robert E. McGuire, acting U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, ruled that Kilmar Abrego Garcia should remain in jail at the request of his own legal team who said they feared he could be deported if released from custody.
Why It Matters
Garcia attracted widespread attention in March when he was deported to his native El Salvador in what federal officials later admitted was an "administrative error." The Trump administration insists Garcia is a member of the MS-13 criminal gang, which he and his family have denied.
Whilst being held in a Salvadorian mega prison, Garcia was visited by Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen, and his case became a cause against the backdrop of Trump's vow to crackdown on foreign criminal gangs and illegal immigration.
PANIC 9: Elon Musk is the real president and he is evil
Well he is evil, but he is no longer in charge. Remember when it seemed like he would always be in charge? Remember when we were marching against him? Remember all the panic about him?
Well now he is saying he is going to form another political party and destroy everyone who votes for the “everyone is going to die” bill.
That is a change!!!
Musk Lashes Out at ‘Dumb as F***’ Bannon as Their Public Feud Explodes
Elon Musk has escalated his war of words with Steve Bannon, branding the MAGA strategist “dumb as f---” over his remarks about Musk’s government contracts.
Responding to a clip of Bannon’s comments early Tuesday, Musk fired back with his favorite slur. “Bannon is such a r------d liar. Dumber than a doorstop,” Musk wrote. “SpaceX revenue this year will be $15.5B and NASA is only worth $1.1B.
“If Bannon’s dumb as f--- reasoning made any sense, then anyone who bought products from any company would automatically own that company,” Musk added. “Bannon is truly peak r-----d.”
The exchange is the latest escalation in a bitter feud between the MAGA heavyweights, which has also seen Bannon call for Musk’s deportation.
PANIC 10: Everyone is apathetic this time around
There was SO MUCH panic about how no one was willing to fight back in trump 2.0
Nope!
Contrary to conventional wisdom, the size and scale of anti-Trump protests this year have dwarfed those in 2017, and they have been extraordinarily peaceful.
protests against ICE raids have been intensifying around the country for months, alongside protests opposing perceived power-grabs by the Trump administration. And we know that the movement’s tactics have been extraordinarily peaceful.
In fact, as we discussed in March, protests in the U.S. have been quite robust since Trump took office the second time. Our ongoing research on protests in the United States reveals that within the first two weeks of the second Trump administration, protest activity surpassed that of 2017. By the end of March 2025, there had been three times as many protests as had taken place in 2017. Protest has been surging since, with large boosts coming from major, multi-location actions in April and May.
Two notable surges of protest came on the nationwide Hands Offs protests on April 5 and No Kings protests on April 19. To date, we have tallied 1,145 protests on April 5, with events occurring in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Significantly, protest activity occurred throughout the country, including in rural and GOP-leaning towns.
For April 19, we tallied 928 protests also occurring in all 50 states and D.C. And on May 1 and May 3, we tallied over 1,000 anti-Trump May Day protests.
These are significant showings. If we look back to the first Trump administration, in April 2017 the most prominent multi-location protest was the March for Science on April 22, which occurred in 390 locations including most major cities. In 2017, we tallied 80 May Day protests nationwide, compared to over 1,000 this year. Overall, 2017’s numbers pale in comparison to the scale and scope of mobilization in 2025 — a fact often unnoticed in the public discourse about the response to Trump’s actions.
and —
Mote than half of the country’s largest protests have happened while Trump was president or president-elect.
It turns out that when you attack Americans and American institutions from inside, Americans fight back.
We are showing up
The real problem, for the Trump regime in the making, is that Americans are turning out in large numbers to defend the vulnerable by exercising their right to free assembly and protest.
Authoritarianism depends on breaking the horizontal bonds of solidarity and empathy that lead people to risk their safety to protest injustices against others. The massive and exaggerated deployment of state security personnel and the display of arms and uniforms is designed to frighten people into hiding. There is nothing stronger than solidarity shown publicly, which is why the state responds with outsized threat and violent acts.
Weak authoritarians fear empathy, a sense of justice and morality, love for others, and collective action. All they have is force and lies. They may feel immensely empowered right now, but those protesting them are on the right side of history. A reckoning will come for the aggressors as more Americans open their eyes to the criminal nature of this administration.
and it matters This Is How the Protests Could Break Trump’s Deportation Machine
“What we’re seeing is a continuation of the digital witnessing tradition: using mobile devices not just to record harm, but to demand accountability in real time,” said Allissa Richardson, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Southern California who has long studied how African Americans use mobile and social media to change narratives. “Black witnessing laid the blueprint, and now other communities are building upon it, adapting it and carrying it forward.”
Many of the videos that are circulating online have been filmed by Latinos, whose communities are disproportionately impacted by the raids and who are severely underrepresented in the traditional news media, where they have long been unable to correct inaccurate and dehumanizing stereotypes about immigrants. These community videos, a form of citizen journalism, may represent a tipping point.
In the face of boldfaced authoritarianism, filming ICE arrests may seem futile and even absurd. After all, in a world of echo chambers, it’s easy to turn away from evidence that contradicts our beliefs. Can these videos actually change people’s minds?
Such stories are what forced Mr. Trump to end his family separation policy during his first term. More recently, the story of Kilmar Abrego Garcia — the Maryland man mistakenly deported to a prison in El Salvador — provoked so much outrage that the administration was forced to find a pretext to bring him back. Earlier this month, the story of a 4-year-old Bakersfield, Calif., girl with a rare and life-threatening medical condition who was facing deportation mobilized people across the country and sparked a reversal by immigration authorities — possibly saving her life.
These videos are particularly dangerous to Mr. Trump because they expose something his politics can’t touch: the fierce humanity of people willing to risk everything for one another. They don’t just document resistance — they ignite it. They move people not just to care, but to act, to intervene, to put their own bodies on the line.
PANIC 11: Trump will always be popular. His voters won’t turn on him
LOL
PANIC 12: Companies are turning against DEI!
Well they were, but we changed that!
Target CEO's Pay Cut In Half After Going Full MAGA
Target CEO Brian Cornell thought he was playing the game. He donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, axed Target’s DEI programs, and figured the MAGA morons would make him a hero and start shopping at Target.
Instead, he got boycotts, sales dropped off a cliff, and so he watched his salary fall by 45% since last year alone. For comparison, his compensation fell from $77 million in 2020 to just $9.9 million last year. That’s still a ton of money per year for anyone. But for a CEO? He is definitely feeling the heat. Target’s shoppers have decided never to return because of his MAGA idiocy.
Good job, everyone! Keep boycotting Target until he’s gone.
Why Standing Up Against Trump is Good for Business
Standing up against Trump is not only important politically and morally. It’s also profitable.
Diversity, for example, is good for business. CEOs that have scaled back their companies’ diversity programs in response to Trump’s attacks have misread the market and are now suffering the consequences.
When Target rolled back DEI, the company confronted a consumer boycott, which led to a 17 percent drop in the value of its stock. A similar boycott of Walmart has contributed to an 18 percent drop in its stock value in the past month alone.
Palantir, a data analysis and technology firm whose contracts with the federal government are expanding, has taken heat over its rejection of DEI and coziness with Trump. (In a recent speech to the Economic Club of New York, Palantir CEO Alex Karp told the audience that DEI programs are antithetical to meritocracy.)
On the other hand, corporations like Costco and Apple, which have stood firm against Trump and in favor of DEI, have done well.
Similarly, law firms that have refused to cave to Trump’s blackmail are being rewarded by clients, while those that have surrendered are being penalized.
At least 11 major companies — among them Oracle, Morgan Stanley, Microsoft, and McDonald’s — have shifted their legal work to firms that have stood up against Trump and away from firms that struck deals with him, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Microsoft dropped Simpson Thacher & Bartlett — one of the first law firms to surrender to Trump —and signed on with Jenner & Block, which took the administration to court. (A federal judge struck down Trump’s executive order against Jenner, saying it was “doubly violative of the Constitution.” Trump is appealing.)
Legal talent is also parting ways with firms that surrendered to Trump. Key lawyers and rainmakers are joining firms that have held their ground.
Paul, Weiss lost four of its partners after its surrender. One is among America’s top antitrust litigators; another co-chaired its litigation department.
As many as seven partners are exiting Willkie Farr & Gallagher in the wake of its surrender to Trump and joining rival law firm Cooley, which has helped successfully challenge one of Trump’s orders in court.
Another lesson: boycotts work. The consumer boycott of Target for abandoning DEI has been hugely costly to the corporation. Similarly with Walmart. The boycott of Tesla due to Elon Musk’s destructive role has caused investors to flee.
The Definitive Story of Tesla Takedown
In February, a Bluesky post caught the eye of Alex Winter. The result is a coalition of environmentalists, anti-Trump advocates, and federal workers that’s been hyping Tesla’s stock slide ever since.
So there you go. A whole bunch of times when terrible things happened (or threatened to happen) and everyone panicked and then we worked our asses off and CHANGED things.
The lesson here is NOT that bad things aren’t happening and that we shouldn’t work hard to fix them. What are the lessons?
Lesson: try not to panic about everything
Lesson: we have so much power
Lesson: with hard work, we can save democracy!
Lesson: don’t forget to CELEBRATE when we do something that helps people and saves democracy! We deserve to enjoy things as well!!!!
What can you do to save democracy?
Remember, the good news happens BECAUSE we fight! So let’s do this. What can you do?
Here are some ideas.
-
If you can, I strongly recommend going to an in person meeting in your area. One way to find a local group is through indivisible: indivisibleproject.formstack.com/…
- Join the truth brigade! Grassroots-powered lie-stopping. Person by person; mind by opened mind
-
Election Response Center is a project hosted by Working Families Party, MoveOn Civic Action, Indivisible, and Public Citizen. They are organizing lots of events to get people fighting. Join one at this link
-
The ACLU plays a key role in filing lawsuits that often stop voter suppression. Get involved with them at this link.
-
Get involved with the Democratic party. We aren’t perfect, but they are fucking evil.
- Get involved with the States Project They are working on turning state legislatures blue
- Get involved with Swing Left. They are working on races right now!
- People For the American Way is a national progressive advocacy organization that inspires and mobilizes Americans to defend freedom, justice, and democracy from those who threaten to take them away. Get involved with them here
- Center for American Progress Action Fund is an independent, nonpartisan policy institute and advocacy organization that is dedicated to improving the lives of all Americans through bold, progressive ideas, as well as strong leadership and concerted action. Get involved with them here
Also, continue to find joy in your life! Don’t let that fuckface live rent free in your mind! This is your life!!!!!
Looking for something more specific?
Want to focus on the ENVIRONMENT:
Want to focus on CIVIL RIGHTS:
HUMAN RIGHTS - GENERALLY:
LGBTQ+:
WOMEN:
Huge thanks to DKos user dabug for help with this list.
Don’t let the options overwhelm you! Try to pick one thing and see if it calls to you. If it doesn’t find something else.
There are so many ways to get involved and help!
Some inspiration before I say goodbye
“Whatever happens, stay alive.
Don't die before you're dead.
Don't lose yourself, don't lose hope, don't lose direction.
Stay alive, with yourself, with every cell of your body, with every fiber of your skin.
Stay alive, learn, study, think, read, build, invent, create, speak, write, dream, design.
Stay alive, stay alive inside you, stay alive also outside, fill yourself with colors of the world, fill yourself with peace, fill yourself with hope.
Stay alive with joy.
There is only one thing you should not waste in life,
and that's life itself..."
.
At Albany Bulb with Elaine
By Alison Luterman
Side by side on a log by the bay.
Sunlight. Unleashed dogs,
prancing through surf, almost exploding
out of their skins with perfect happiness.
Dogs who don't know about fired park rangers,
or canceled health research, or tariff wars,
or the suicide hotline for veterans getting defunded,
or or or. We've listed horror upon horror
to each other for weeks now, and it does no good,
so instead I tell her how I held a two-day old baby
in my arms, inhaling him like a fresh-baked loaf of bread,
then watched as a sneeze erupted through his body
like a tiny volcano. It was the look of pure
astonishment on his face, as if he were Adam
in the garden of Eden making his debut achoo,
as if it were the first sneeze that ever blew,
that got me. She tells me how her dog
once farted so loudly he startled himself
and fell off the bed where he'd been lolling,
and then the two of us start to laugh so hard
we almost fall off our own log. And this
is our resistance for today; remembering
original innocence. And they can't
take it away from us, though they ban
our very existence, though they slash
our rights to ribbons, we will have
our mirth and our birthright gladness.
Long after every unsold Tesla
has vaporized, and earth has closed over
even the names of these temporary tyrants,
somewhere some women like us
will be sitting side by side, facing the water,
telling human stories and laughing still.
I am so proud and so lucky to be in this with all of you. ✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿 💙❤️💛💚✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿
