BRIEF: The resistance’s trust problem
Big thought, small step, deep breath — for April 9, 2025
BIG THOUGHT
Trust building — that’s the assignment
Our conversation with journalist Joy Reid yesterday hit on so many of the challenges facing Americans right now, but one point she made crystallized the reasons why the resistance to Donald Trump and the recent “Hands off!” protests did not attract as many Black Americans as some hoped. The problem, Reid told us, is a lack of trust.
The diversity has been reduced because of this sense of betrayal that Black people feel, that we keep trying to lead this country toward a more perfect union.
And white people keep saying no. They keep saying we want the devil, because the devil will protect our supremacy. And our supremacy matters to us much more than even our own economic survival. Our supremacy is so central to who we are as Americans. We need to be the central characters in the American story. We need to be the main character. And we want that so badly that we're willing to punch ourselves in the face economically… We're willing to lose our livelihoods, our jobs, our businesses, our farms, our whole lives — and including maybe our physical lives — to protect our supremacy.
…I think there is a genuine inflection point that's happened. But Black folks at the moment are in self-protection mode. We've got to protect our treasures. We've got to protect because we can't trust y'all. We can't trust the federal government to not sell the Birmingham bus station, to not sell Medgar and Myrlie’s home, to not sell off everything inside the Blacksonian, the Smithsonian Museum where the Black stuff is. We don't trust y'all to not elect the guy his own VP called “maybe Hitler.” If y'all are going to elect “maybe Hitler,” we don't trust you. And so we're going to let you do the protesting and we're going to brunch.
Reid was laying out an additional — and perhaps primary — assignment for the nascent resistance movement: rebuilding trust with Black Americans. Removing Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and the MAGA movement from power is the end goal, but putting together the necessarily multiracial coalition required to do that is a prerequisite.
In case you missed it, watch the video below for more.
SMALL STEP
Reject SAVE; save voting rights
The House plans to vote this week on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act (H.R. 22/S.128), a measure that would enshrine in law Donald Trump’s executive order on voting integrity, purportedly to combat non-citizen voting (something that rarely happens and is already illegal). The act actually aims at suppressing voter participation overall by requiring proof of citizenship in person to register to vote. That might sound simple on its face, but in practice, it would upend everything Americans take for granted about the voter registration process:
Because documentation would need to be presented in person, the legislation would, in practice, prevent Americans from being able to register to vote by mail; end voter registration drives nationwide; and eliminate online voter registration overnight—a service 42 states rely on. Americans would need to appear in person, with original documentation, to even simply update their voter registration information for a change of address or change in party affiliation. These impacts alone would set voter registration sophistication and technology back by decades and would be unworkable for millions of Americans, including more than 60 million people who live in rural areas. Additionally, driver’s licenses—including REAL IDs—as well as military or tribal IDs would not be sufficient forms of documentation to prove citizenship under the legislation.
Making matters worse, since proving citizenship typically requires matching names and the act proposes no clear process by which those who’ve changed their names might provide that proof, it threatens to disenfranchise the 69 million American women who’ve taken their spouses’ names. It’s an anti-democratic response to the imaginary problem of voter fraud.
Yes, it’s an uphill battle, but call your representatives and senators, no matter where you live or who they are. Demand they vote no, and at least deny it even a single Democratic vote. 5calls has everything you need to get started.
DEEP BREATH
Space is still the place
Bolivian experimental vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti and American jazz drummer Frank Rosaly are Mestizx, a duo exploring the heavy grooves of electronic dance music and contemporary Latin pop, the outer limits of jazz improvisation, and the emotional depths of folksong. They’re joined here by James McClure on trumpet, Ben Boye on synthesizer, and Uldis Vitols on bass for an hour-long set at Amsterdam’s Bimhuis. It’s a trip worth taking — at once an escape from earthly limits and an expression of the deep connections across cultures that, in the end, outweigh the divisions between us.
A programming note: More Live conversation!
Join us again tomorrow, Thursday, April 10, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, we’re speaking with the philosopher and author Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò. We hope to see you there!
To join and watch, download the Substack app (click on the button below) and turn on notifications — you’ll get an alert that we’re live, and you can watch from your iOS or Android mobile device. And if you haven’t already, subscribe to The Ink to access full videos of past conversations and to join the chat during our live events.
Thank you, Anand and to Joy Reid too for this.
I’m a 72 year old white guy and man, that is some hard truth.
I have been blessed mostly due to the life paths that my children have followed to be learning for many years now of the exceptionalism, entitlement and elitism that the color of my skin just had me feeling was a living assumption that I’ve had rights that many others do not enjoy.
Well, one thing I WILL say for the Trump/Project2025 regime is that those ‘assumptions’ are actually called into question, and if I thought I’d learned something from my children and what is now an extended and diverse family, THIS stuff today and every day is like a graduate course. It just reinforces on a daily basis the insidiously cruel absurdity of walking through life thinking you are all that because of what you look like and what you have-much of which is because-I will say it again-you look like what you look like.
So here we ALL we are-up against it and many of us have screwed ourselves in ways we’re still struggling to comprehend.
The very thing Ms. Reid speaks of and calls out is the very stuff of recognition and call to action that this regime is trying to silence.
I appreciate your eloquence, candor and your thoughtful selection of people who are not only speaking truth to the blatant misuse of power but also to the insidious and long standing misuse of ‘assumed’ power that’s the toxic underpinning of the very thing that’s threatening this country and the world right now.
This is humbling to hear and read, but it is SO crucial.
There’s going to brunch and there is going to brunch.
Free brunch, for much of our culture, is OVER.
Keep teaching, please….
Peace….
As always, Joy Reid is a truth teller unafraid to to confront us with our shortcomings. Such a pity that we aren't kneeling en masse before the experiences of people of color in dealing with the white ruling class & their wannabees throughout the entire history of "America." I mean, they know the drill as well as the tricks of the trade. And if you want a concrete example of how our future multiracial coalition might work, start following Bishop Barber of NC. He knows how that's done.