Where do we go from here?
Take a few days or weeks to grieve, but the resistance needs you
“Nice people made the best Nazis. My mom grew up next to them. They got along, refused to make waves, looked the other way when things got ugly and focused on happier things than ‘politics.’ They were lovely people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away. You know who weren’t nice people? Resisters.” ― Naomi Shulman
Okay, let’s take a few weeks to grieve the election of a fascist as U.S. president. I don’t need to tell anyone why grief and fear are appropriate and sensible responses to Tuesday’s election returns. A majority of those voting this week endorsed the most racist and violent candidate ever to seek the presidency.
Any decent person should be outraged about this.
We’ll save why so many voted for Donald Trump for another time. Today, I want to suggest how we might respond in the short term.
Take time to grieve. It’s perfectly fine to be sad, worried, or angry. Don’t feel obliged to bury those feelings.
And don’t feel guilty for all the ways you can distract yourself from those feelings, if only for a few hours.
My wife and I watched two episodes of a new BBC crime series on Wednesday night. We enjoyed it thoroughly. It was good to lose myself in something other than stewing over what a second Trump presidency means for American democracy.
A good friend responded differently. “I’m done crying,” she texted me on Wednesday. “I am going to make something for someone and give it to them. It’s the only thing I have any control over.”
Look out for each other. We all have friends struggling with the election’s outcome and what it will mean for them and their families. Or they may be sad about what it means for the country or what it says about it.
Reach out to these people. Comfort them however you can, but don’t tell them their fears aren’t valid. In most cases, they are. But what most of your terrified or mourning friends or family members need right now is someone to listen and share in their grief.
And if you know anyone from a vulnerable minority group, they also need to know you’re their ally. Let them know they can count on your support.
For now, focus on where you can make a difference. We all need a win right now, so give yourself one by getting involved in something that makes your community kinder or a little more just.
A wise person once said, “Everyone wants to change the world, but no one wants to help with the dishes.” What are the dishes that need washing in your immediate vicinity? Find them and get to work.
Not only is this kind of activism low-hanging fruit, reminding you that progress and justice are still possible, but it will also keep your activism muscles in shape for the next statewide or national election.
We need a dose of hope. Please give it to yourself by finding someone to help or something you can change for the better.
Re-think your media diet and expenditures. I’ve deleted my Twitter account. Twitter became an online Nazi rally, and I have no interest in attending Nazi rallies. I’ve also canceled my Washington Post subscription. That’s not so much because it doesn’t do good journalism but because I think my limited media budget is no longer needed by an organization owned by a billionaire Trump acolyte.
I’ll support The Guardian and ProPublica instead because they are more likely to hold Trump accountable than the Post or even the New York Times.
As for social media, I’m now at BlueSky, which has been a delightful experience. You’ll find me at @bobmann.bsky.social.
Focus on state politics for a while. In Louisiana, you can start by working to stop Gov. Jeff Landry’s regressive tax proposals, currently before lawmakers in a special session. His plan would hurt low-income taxpayers while generating a windfall for his wealthy friends. Tell your senators and representatives why you oppose Landry’s plan.
You can find out more about it at this link.
Recall that securing justice and restoring democracy is not easy or accomplished overnight. Anyone involved in the civil rights movement can tell you that America was not a democracy for almost its first 200 years. It’s never been a complete democracy, as the Supreme Court’s destruction of the Voting Rights Act proves.
The process of perfecting our Union is slow and frustrating. Two steps forward, one step back. Sometimes, three steps back.
But we should take some inspiration from the soldiers of the civil rights movement and other American human rights causes who, despite all the scorn and oppression heaped upon them, never stopped working to make this a better country. And they did it — they still do it — because they love the United States. They want it to realize its potential. Many cared so much that they were willing to give their lives for it on the battlefield and in the streets.
If a Black, Hispanic, or other oppressed people can show courageous, patient, steadfast hope in our country, I can, too.
We should also draw inspiration from the brave democracy activists in Russia, Turkey, Hungary, and elsewhere who inspire us and can teach us a great deal about how activism in the face of autocracy should look like.
Join or support organizations that are organizing the resistance. On his Substack, Jason Sattler has an excellent list of organizations we should consider supporting. He wrote:
I’ll start with what we do next. We carry on and do everything we can to lift ourselves and those doing the work that must be done. As Elad Nehorai’s therapist told him, “…there will be a future. No matter what.”
Americans, from the groups that will suffer most under Trump, have suffered worse, with worse odds. And they have overcome, at least temporarily! We can, too.
Here is an excellent list of human rights champions we can follow and support that is cribbed from Kate Elliott on Bluesky, where the future we want will be built:
Electorally, groups that are building essential movements against fascism include:
Start thinking creatively about how you will resist when the time comes. We each need a plan for how we will respond when, for example, Trump begins separating families, rounding up immigrants from your community, and shipping them off to the camps.
I hope that my church and others will be inspired by the example of First Grace in New Orleans, a United Methodist congregation that declared itself a sanctuary church in 2017. Let’s start having those conversations in our churches and beyond sooner than later.
What will you do when the day comes? Will you comply? Will you get creative in your opposition and non-violent resistance? Whatever the case, the time to start thinking about that is now.
Don’t lose hope. For the past 24 hours, I’ve taken inspiration from a dear friend from church, a generous and wise woman in her 80s, who sent me the following message on Wednesday morning:
I am just back from my two-hour walk. At first I heard no birds singing and saw no sunshine. Before long, the birds were singing and the sun was shining. My heart is so heavy, but knowing God is still on His throne makes all well. Things did not turn out the way we had prayed for, but we can’t lose hope. We will stay true to our beliefs.
Whether you are a person of faith or not, please don’t lose hope. Trump and his allies are praying that we will surrender to them. They expect that most of us will begin obeying in advance and censoring or stifling our dissent.
Trump and his friends are counting on our despair to do half their work.
Don’t surrender to despair. Stay connected to people who can help you find useful work, who inspire you to care more deeply, and who will never let you lose hope for a more perfect union.
Take inspiration from Vice President Kamala Harris, who said in her concession speech on Wednesday:
The fight for our freedom will take hard work. But like I always say, we like hard work. Hard work is good work. Hard work can be joyful work, and the fight for our country is always worth it. It is always worth it. To the young people who are watching, it is, I love you. To the young people who are watching it is okay to feel sad and disappointed, but please know it’s going to be okay.
On the campaign, I would often say when we fight, we win. But here’s the thing, here’s the thing. Sometimes the fight takes a while. That doesn’t mean we won’t win. That doesn’t mean we won’t win. The important thing is don’t ever give up, don’t ever give up, don’t ever stop trying to make the world a better place. You have power. You have power and don’t you ever listen when anyone tells you something is impossible because it has never been done before. You have the capacity to do extraordinary good in the world.
And so to everyone who is watching, do not despair. This is not a time to throw up our hands. This is a time to roll up our sleeves. This is a time to organize, to mobilize, and to stay engaged for the sake of freedom and justice and the future that we all know we can build together.
Look many of you know, I started out as a prosecutor, and throughout my career I saw people at some of the worst times in their lives, people who had suffered great harm and great pain and yet found within themselves the strength and the courage and the resolve to take the stand, to take a stand, to fight for justice, to fight for themselves, to fight for others. So let their courage be our inspiration. Let their determination be our charge.
A little about my new book
LSU Press will publish my new book in February. In You Are My Sunshine: Jimmie Davis and the Biography of a Song, I weave together the birth of country music, Louisiana political history, World War II, and the American civil rights movement to produce a biography of one of the world’s most popular musical compositions.
The song’s journey to global fame began in 1939, when two obscure “hillbilly” groups recorded it. By the century’s end, it was a cultural phenomenon covered by hundreds of artists spanning every genre. It entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry in 2012.
At the center of this story is Jimmie Davis, who capitalized on his country music stardom to win two terms as Louisiana’s governor. In 1940, Davis became the third artist to record “Sunshine,” after he bought it and claimed it as his composition.
The song became his anthem and a staple of his political rallies, radiating warmth and wholesomeness. Its sunny tune encouraged listeners to forget Davis’s earlier recording career, marked by risqué blues recordings that clashed with the upright, gospel-singing image he later cultivated. As “You Are My Sunshine” grew in popularity, so did its link to Louisiana’s “singing governor.” In 1977, the Louisiana Legislature made it a state song.
In this biography, equal parts the story of Davis and the odyssey of his song, we discover that “Sunshine” shaped the early rise of country music but became tangled in Davis’s pro-segregation policies, briefly overshadowing its legacy. You Are My Sunshine explores the song’s contested origins, its rise to legendary status, and its ongoing resonance with millions.
You can pre-order a signed, personalized copy at my website: RobertMannBooks.com.
Great remedial comments and quest for hope, until you had to mention, you are my Sunshine, and the loss of my favorite cat(Sunshine) who loved me more than anyone, tears flowed, I am thankful I can still cry! I have a copy of a book signed by Jimmie Davis, to my Momma and Daddy. Let me know if you need it. I am a writer, and I write for relief, and release, which means I admire authors, and reading tom aswell!!
To continue, WAPO is getting stale although I discovered interesting stuff on the climate page. My wife pointed out that in the next four years, the interesting stuff will be on the financial pages. Tariffs are a death knell for Louisiana ports. Stay tuned.