BRIEF: People power
Big thought, small step, deep breath — for April 7, 2025
BIG THOUGHT
What does it take to stop all of this?
Let them eat cookies, the Interior Secretary says. Or, rather, let them make me cookies.
According to four sources who spoke to The Atlantic, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s office had asked his political appointees to learn how to bake chocolate chip cookies, act as servers during a multi-course meal with guests, and dispatch a U.S. Park Police helicopter when he was running late to a flight with President Donald Trump.
It gets worse. As the global economy teetered, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent refused to entertain the possibility of a recession, reassuring Meet the Press with some reflections on how the trading mechanisms of Wall Street were up to the increased volume of investors headed for the exits. And something about animals.
Look, the – Kristen, markets are organic. They’re animals. I mean, you never know what the reaction is going to be. One thing that I can tell you, as the Treasury secretary, what I've been very impressed with is the market infrastructure, that we had record volume on Friday and everything is working very smoothly. So, the American people – they can be very – take great comfort in that.
And as millions of Americans faced the prospect of seeing their retirement savings and college funds drain away, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick helpfully offered a vision for the future — sweatshop labor. Or at least a future of occasional gigs, paving the way for robot sweatshop labor — it wasn’t really that clear.
The army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little screws to make iPhones—that kind of thing will come back to the America, it's going to be automated, and great Americans, the tradecraft of America, is going to fix them, is going to work on them.
The president, of course, avoided the issues entirely and decamped to Mar-a-Lago for the weekend, where he hosted Saudi dignitaries for a golf tournament and threw a million-dollar-a-plate fundraiser.
Decadence, they might call that. Taken together, it’s a portrait of an elite class as out of touch with the American people as any far-right think tank could cook up (each accusation a confession, of course). One wonders who they think they’re addressing.
It certainly isn’t the American people, because on Saturday, millions of people (a whole lot of Ink readers among them) skipped the warm cookies and got out to one of the more than 1,200 Hands Off! demonstrations across all 50 states. Significantly, there weren’t just crowds in New York City, Boston, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles, but in Topeka, Asheville, Columbus, and Salt Lake City — and in hundreds of small towns in deep red districts and deep blue districts alike. And that says something about the depth and breadth of just how fed up the people are with the Trump-Musk regime, fed up with the chaos, with the cuts, and with the tariffs that are threatening to tank the economy.
We’ve talked a lot about the American experience of civil disobedience, of campus protest. The closest the U.S. has gotten to realizing the promise of a multiracial democracy — mass mobilizations did that. And the current crackdown — kidnappings, renditions, deportations — against those who protested against the war in Gaza makes crystal clear just how much American elites fear mass movements and what they might achieve.
Can they stop a state that’s lost touch with its people?
As the Eastern Bloc began to collapse at the end of the 1980s, regular, peaceful Monday demonstrations were instrumental in bringing about the end of the East German state. At first, the meetings drew thousands. They grew to include tens of thousands, and by 1991, hundreds of thousands of protesters, until the power of the people could not be denied, and the pressure became so great that the authoritarian government of East Germany saw no alternative but to dissolve, setting the stage for reunification.
That’s the power of the people. The momentum’s building, even as the White House threatens lives and livelihoods. Political scientist Erica Chenoweth suggests that mobilizing 3.5 percent of a country’s population is enough to pressure a government for real change, to stop the chaos. Now that’s not a rule, and every place is different, but this weekend already brought out close to 1 percent of the American people, and we’re only a couple of months into Trump 2.0. The opposition is here, it’s us, and it’s just getting started.
SMALL STEP
Kill the cuts
As Cory Booker put it last week, “the power of the people is greater than the people in power,” and as we were just discussing, that power is all the greater when applied regularly. Clearly, it’s time to keep the pressure on the Trump-Musk regime, and whether you’re an old hand at this or you’ve just gotten a taste of what days of action are all about, this week offers a chance to renew the call to reverse Trump’s disastrous cuts to funding for scientific and medical research and education. Tomorrow, Tuesday, April 8, there’s a day of action planned to demand the restoration of that money — our money — to the critical projects that benefit not just all Americans, but all humankind. Find a rally near you at Kill the Cuts, and keep on making your voices heard — together.
DEEP BREATH
Songs of resistance
April is poetry month, so it’s a great time to reflect on how we get at essential truths through language, especially as we face so much abuse of language now from those who’d seek to convince us they’re entitled to rule the world even as they rob the country blind. Poetry gives shape to thought, and all the more so in a crisis. Back during the first Trump presidency, the Poetry Foundation put together a great collection of poems of protest, resistance, and empowerment, and while the poetry of this era is as yet unwritten, it’s very much worth a look back.
The Indiscriminate Citizenry of Earth
are out to arrest my sense of being a misfit.
“Open up!” they bellow,
hands quiet before my door
that’s only wind and juniper needles, anyway.
You can’t do it, I squeak from inside.
You can’t make me feel at home here
in this time of siege for me and mine, mi raza.
Legalized suspicion of my legitimacy
is now a permanent resident in my gut.
— Maria Melendez Kelson, “ICE Agents Storm My Porch”
A programming note: More Live conversations next week!
Today — Monday, April 7, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern — we’ll be speaking with author and organizer Astra Taylor and journalist Liz Plank. Tuesday, April 8, at 11:00 a.m. Eastern, we’ll talk to the author, documentarian, and political commentator Joy-Ann Reid. And on Thursday, April 10, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, the philosopher and author Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò will join us. We hope you can make it for all three conversations — we’d love to see you all 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.
This is a song of resistance I wrote recently
Living Free
There's a group of people making money selling stress
They are trying to make the world a mess
They can't scare us off with their tactics and their lies
Waiting for the others to see through their disguise
We're living free, living free
Some people think they have to yell and shout their views
they think that's the way to get their message through
But I ain't going to sign on to their message filled with hate
Even if they say it's from the holy pearly gates
We're living free, living free
People everywhere they want to be free
Why don't you leave and let the people be
Some say I'm lazy cause I sit beneath a tree
But I don't bother no one and I like to let things be
Maybe you should find a tree and find a place to sit
Cause you know buddy this nonsense has to quit
We're living free, living free
You can pass rules but it's time that you see
You can't stop the people being free
We're living free, living free
Living free, living free, living free
by Steve K
I watched the first hour of Morning Joe. While I realize the stock market and the extreme weather causing deaths are most noteworthy not a mention of the mass Hands Off protests over the weekend. So at 7am I tuned into CNN. Same thing. Not so much as a mention. How can they justify ignoring our movement?