This is a coup! What we can do!

It’s painful, but we need to stay keenly aware of where we are about this Maga* stampede over the Constitution and what we as individuals can we do about it that’s effective.

Obviously there is nothing that any single one of us can do to change the tide. But there are a lot of things that any of us – any of us! – can do to make a big contribution. I list nearly 30 ideas at the end of this post, and I promise that if you peruse them you will find something effective that you not only could do, but that you would have fun doing.

I’ll get to that later, but first it is important that we keep in mindwhat we are fighting, the painful stuff. For starters, during Donald Trump’s first 25 days in office he openly broke the law or violated the Constitution repeatedly. He:

• Pardoned 1,500 insurrectionists who assisted Trump in his first attempted coup, including some who attacked police officers with weapons,.
• Converted the Department of Justice into his political hit squad by opening investigations into members of the FBI, Congress, state prosecutors’ offices and the DOJ itself, seeking anybody who was involved in the attempt to hold Trump accountable for his crimes.
• Fired a dozen inspectors general, whose job it is to identify fraud and corruption and to serve as a check on abuses of power by the president.
• Fired dozens of prosecutors and FBI agents who worked on criminal cases relating to Trump.
• Fired dozens of prosecutors who worked on criminal cases against January 6 insurrectionists.
• Opened investigations into thousands of FBI agents who worked on cases against January 6 insurrectionists.
• Disbanded the FBI group of agents designed to prevent foreign election interference in the United States.
• Disbanded the DOJ group of prosecutors targeting Russian oligarchs’ criminal activity affecting the United States.
• Fired the chairs and members of the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission and the Federal Election Commission, and refused to replace them, effectively shutting down those independent boards.
• Shut down and defunded the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
• Shut down and defunded USAID by placing virtually the entire staff of the agency on leave, thus abandoning millions of hungry people, including babies, many of whom will die, and millions of people who will be born HIV positive.
• Impounded billions of dollars of grants appropriated by Congress to USAID, National Institutes of Health, Department of Education and the EPA.
• Allowed a group of hackers to seize control of large swaths of the federal government’s computer network by attaching unauthorized servers, changing and creating new computer code outside of federal security protocols, creating “backdoors” in secure systems, installing unsanctioned “AI” software to scrape federal data (including personal identification information), and installing “spyware” to monitor email of federal employees
• Disobeyed multiple court orders to release frozen federal funds (an ongoing violation).
• Granted a corrupt pardon to the Mayor of New York in exchange for his promise to cooperate in Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Can you imagine what the Magas would have done if Barack Obama or Joe Biden had taken even one of those actions?

And those are only the actions Trump has taken that are illegal or unconstitutional. The list doesn’t even touch on the outrageous-but-probably-legal stuff he has done, such as canceling our association with the World Health Organization, weakening our commitment to Ukraine, threatening to take us out of NATO, threatening to take over the Panama Canal and Greenland and even Canada, supporting the far-right governments in Europe… oh, far too much to go into here.

And do not forget Trump’s appointments to important government posts, none of whom are qualified and all of whom were approved by unanimous or near-unanimous Maga vote in the Senate. No need to list them again. Unless you’ve been living in a sealed-off cave you know who they are and what they are doing.

Taken together, those actions compel the conclusion that Trump has not only violated his oath in every conceivable way but that he is actively working to overthrow the Constitution. That is the very definition of a coup.

So yes, the times are painful and ugly. But it is not over. We are not beaten. We have not lost. We are just getting started. And there is much that individuals or small groups can do that is effective – and again, obviously none of us can change the tide, but we can sure make a splash.

I have suggested several possibilities before, but below is a list of 30 “lonely but beautiful” things you can do that are effective and even fun to do. The list was prepared by author and activist Garrett Bucks, and some of the tasks are simple, some complicated, some free, some expensive, and some bizarre-ish.

The folks at GrowPurpose.com, who do everything having to do with this newsletter except write it, included it in “A Few Related Readings” on Feb. 14. I repeat it in full here in case you missed it, and because it is so important that all of us do something. If you are looking for something to do, I hope something here rings a bell for you.

Thirty lonely but beautiful actions you can take right now which probably won’t magically catalyze a mass movement against Trump but that are still wildly important
– Garret Bucks

1. The next time you read an article about how USAID or the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau or the Department of Education is being attacked, remember that no matter how impactful the agency, movements don’t coalesce around acronyms– they are always about empathy for each other. Take a few minutes to research a specific program administered by those agencies that help people, and ring the alarm for everybody you know. Stop saying “Trump and Musk are the worst” and practice saying things like “Trump and Musk are sentencing millions of AIDS patients to death” or “Trump and Musk want credit card companies to rip us off” or “Trump and Musk just cut mental health and math tutoring resources for your kids’ school.”
2. When friends or colleagues or grocery clerks ask you how you’re doing, don’t say, “fine.” Instead, answer with “I’m so mad because dialysis patients aren’t getting treatment and Head Start programs have to close because Trump cut off their funding and he’s lying about it.” It is clunky and silly, yes, but if you are in fact angry, it is also entirely honest. You weren’t really “fine” anyway.
3. Learn to wheatpaste. Print out signs. Make the messages big. “Trump and Musk hate children” or “Trump and Musk are screwing over working people” or “Trump and Musk want sick people to die” Add a QR code and link to articles that reinforce the sentiment. Add a second code that will help passersby take action, or perhaps even offer a date and time for a community meeting that you’re hosting. Hang up the signs across your region— rural areas, cities and suburbs. Go to a small town’s Main Street and put signs on every corner: “Trump and Musk are killing small businesses.” It’s true, by the way, and small businesses should know about it.
4. Print out little stickers. Write a message on them. Put them up on poles, in restrooms, at gas stations. Make them pithy, but focus on the person you might imagine reading it. Don’t lead with “Trump and Musk are fascists” however true that might be. The people for whom that message is appealing are already with us. Instead, say “Trump and Musk don’t care about you.”
5. Buy some chalk. Put it in your bag. Find a good spot and write in big bold letters “Trump and Musk look out for billionaires. Who is looking out for you?”
6. Go to a Federal Building. Go to a Tesla dealership. Stand on a highway overpass. Hold a lonely cardboard sign for an hour. Take a picture. Send it to everybody you know. Post it on social media. Yes, in a try-hard, show-offy, circa-2020 way. You’re not doing it for do-gooder credibility this time around (more on that in a bit). You want others to know that somebody is out there, that you too can be out there. Tell your friends that it felt inconsequential and awkward but that you’ll be back there next week, at the same time, and that you’d love it if they could join you.
7. The bigger protests are likely coming for your region, I promise. In the meantime, if you have the flexibility, find a way to D.C. Be like the woman from Alabama profiled in this lovely, bittersweet essay. Do you know how many protests are happening in Washington right now? So many. Show up at them. Meet the other people going to the protests (it’s still a tinier crowd than it should be). Meet the people organizing the protests. Ask how you can help.
8. Show up for and support other people’s efforts, even when you’re skeptical about them (I bet that you’re skeptical about many of the items on this list! I am too! But we should do some of them regardless!). Here’s another example: There’s currently a social-media driven call for a general strike. I’m nervous that it’s not the best approach, because I believe that successful general strikes require more coordination with labor movements and less with online influencers, but I could be wrong. And even if I’m right, the general strike proclaimers are trying! So I’m going to sign their strike card, and spread the word about what they’re doing. Because I don’t care about being right in this moment. I just want more people giving a damn and trying.
9. Call up the organization closest to you that supports your queer and trans neighbors, your undocumented neighbors, your homeless neighbors, your neighbors seeking abortions. Thank them for their work. Ask what they need right now.
10. If the organization needs volunteers, ask a friend to go with you to volunteer.
11. If the organization needs money, text five friends and say “I’m donating to _____ org and I’d like you to do so as well.” Think about something that brings you joy— baking or making music or writing strident essays on the Internet or dancing. Ask yourself, “could that be a fundraiser?”
12. Make cookies and deliver them to your neighbors. Ask if they’d be up to come to your house for coffee or a happy hour. Have the topic be, “Who in your life are you most worried about right now? What support do they need?” As neighbors, brainstorm what you all can do to care for everybody whose name came up around the circle.
13. Put up a little table outside of a grocery store with a sign that says ,“Have your grocery bills come down? Why not?” When people come to talk to you, give them instructions on how to call their Congresspeople right now. Listen to the voice in your head that says “nobody does that,” and then remember that actually conservatives have long done exactly that, and it’s been a big reason why they won some of their largest victories. You may be asked to leave. Do so politely. Go to another store.
14. Throw the best damn party you can imagine. Make it the party you’d like to attend. Do you like to bowl? Listen to death metal? Knit and sip tea? Dance through the night? Have a few beers at a kid friendly brewery while your offspring run about the place? Then let the party be about the thing, the thing you love. Put the word out so that people who also love that thing find about it. Get to know them. Tell them that the only cost of admission is you want ten minutes to speak about the actions they can take against Trump right now.
15. Speaking of Congress, yes keep calling them. Be nice to their staff, but don’t give a lick that Congressional Democrats are annoyed that constituents are lighting up their lines. If you are represented by a Republican, pick a specific policy that is hurting people in your district and tell them you disagree with their stance on the issue. If you are represented by a Democrat, tell them (politely, for the person who is answering the phone is overworked and underpaid) that they can shut down the government. The current funding deal is set to expire on March 14th. Tell them that they can hold sit-ins, or filibuster on the floor, or run non-stop press conferences with constituents whose services are already at risk. Pick a request and keep asking. Use this template. It’s good.
16. Text a few friends. Ask them, “Can we hold each other accountable to keep calling our reps? I keep forgetting to do it every day.” Make a text chain. Be kind to each other. Laugh a bunch. Celebrate the hell out each day’s Sisyphean-feeling calls. Ask how everybody’s doing, every single day.
17. A few days later, go back to the text chain. Ask, “has there been any movement from those elected officials we’ve been texting? Should we escalate? Should we consider sitting in at their local office? What would we need to know to do so?” Start planning.
18. Reach out to friends with care-giving responsibilities: for kids, for grand-kids, for elders. Ask them, “Hey, if a few of us were to watch your kids or run groceries to your dad tomorrow afternoon, what political action could you take? Would you spend some time researching what’s happening? Would you volunteer? Would you call? Would you hold your lonely sign?” Or alternately, if you’re somebody with care-giving responsibilities, take the risk of asking somebody— perhaps somebody who is a loose connection but that you want to get to know better— for help.
19. Subscribe to a newsletter that will keep the action alerts and the instructions about “what you can do” coming long after you forget about this list. Ignore, for the moment, whether you’re further to the left or further to the center than the list compiler. What matters is that there is always something to do, and blessed people have made it their life’s work to help make it easier for you. Every once in a while, send the action alert compilers a note. Tell them thank you. Ask if they need any help.
20. Recognize that so many of the boycotts whirling around the internet are probably too diffused and unorganized to truly bend the arc of history, but that they do matter, both for keeping the pressure on these cowardly profit-seeking, fascist-knee bending corporations, but also for the way they build intentionality and focus into our lives. Pick a company that’s been hard for you to boycott but that you’ve been tempted to quit– Target perhaps, or Meta, or Amazon. Start listing all the reasons why it’s hard. Text a friend “hey, I’d like to quit _____ but I can’t. Can you help me brainstorm how to make that change?”
21. Research mutual aid efforts in your area. If there isn’t one near you, research how to start one. Start showing up for their meal drop offs or their trash pick-ups or whatever it is that they’re doing. Discover that it’s simpler and more fun than you imagined. When people ask you how you’re doing, say “I’m trying a new thing– I’m getting involved with ______ mutual aid, have you heard of it?”
22. If you’re a parent, send a letter to your kids school. Tell them thanks, and then ask how you can support them.
23. Regardless of whether you’re a parent, go to a school board meeting. During public comment, reiterate how much you value:
    1. The district remaining a safe and welcoming place for queer and trans students.
    2. The school district not cooperating with ICE.
    3. The school continuing to teach accurate representations of U.S. history, multiculturalism and respect for all students’ backgrounds.
24. When you wonder “what right do I have to go to a school board if my topic isn’t on the agenda” remember those Moms For Liberty who caused all of that school board chaos a few summers ago… what right did they have to do so? And yet, there they were, creating a political moment out of nothing. You’re showing up for something real, something that matters. Your school board deserves to hear from you.
25. Remember that fascists hate unions, and one of the reasons why they’re winning is that union density is at an all time low. If your workplace has a union, throw yourself into it. If your workplace doesn’t, there are a whole bunch of people who would like to help you start one. If you don’t have a traditional workplace (like me), you might be surprised that there are unions for us as well. Join. Agitate. Know that we won’t turn the tide if we can’t get union density back in the double digits.
26. If you know and love a federal worker, particularly in a targeted agency, do something kind for them. If you’re a federal worker, particularly in a targeted agency, tell us what you need and how you’re doing.
27. Ask yourself how much of your political engagement is confined to spaces where everybody else is already aware of and angry about the same things that you are. Ask yourself, gently, “Should I just complain to the same friends?” “Do I need to spend all this time on Bluesky?” “Why am I only reading authors who tell me how bad everything is but not what we can do in response?” Instead, consider spending more time with folks who are highlighting everything that’s already being built and reminding us of how much power we actually have. I’m not saying that your time should be spent debating and getting in screaming matches with the most MAGA-loving person in your vicinity. Remember that most of your neighbors aren’t paying attention one way or another. This moment is about spreading the word: people are being hurt, and we should stand in opposition.
28. Again, whatever you do: broadcast it. It doesn’t have to be on social media, but that’s fine, too. Is that performative? Absolutely, but you’re not doing it for yourself. You’re doing it to model it for somebody else. Do you know why human beings attend artistic performances? To understand ourselves better through somebody else “performing” humanity in front of us. First comes the performance, then comes the repetition, then comes the integration into all of our lives.
29. Look back at this list. Think about the idea that you rolled your eyes at the hardest, the one that seemed least applicable or most scary to you. Look at it again. Ask yourself not “why can’t I do that?” but “what support would I need to do it?” Ask who in your life might be able to provide that support. Reach out to that person and say, “I have a crazy idea, but I need your help.”
30. If you don’t have anybody to reach out to, reach out to me. Really. I’m just a stranger on the Internet. I’m busy too. I’m balancing multiple day jobs and a couple kids (it’s a snow day today!) and piles of laundry that never disappear. I may take a while to get back to you. But I will. I won’t have all the perfect answers, but I’ll listen to you. My role, if you need it, isn’t necessarily to solve your problems. It’s to help you practice reaching out to others for support.

*The Maga Party – capital M, lowercase a, g and a — is a name I suggest we use instead of what is now called the Republican Party. Maga is a perfectly good word in several languages, and the posting described why it is a perfect description of Trump’s version. You can read that posting here.