We did it! On May Day, people in 5,000 places across the U.S.A. shut down business as usual, costing Trump and his billionaire backers over $2,000,000 in lost income. We shut down every school in North Carolina, the NY Stock Exchange and the San Francisco airport. We were everywhere.
That is what it takes to stop Trump’s self-coup. It always takes such large-scale economic disruption to stop an authoritarian power grab.
We have to convince Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of Trump’s elite to withdraw their support of his takeover. They are in it, as always, for the money. We have to shut off the flow of funds—and raise the prospect of further cutoffs to get their attention. It is the only thing they understand.
The next step is an even bigger shutdown in November— when Trump follows through with his promises to cancel or subvert the midterm.
That cancellation is well underway with the elimination by MAGA of all Black Members of Congress in the South. His executive orders seek to end the mail-in by balloting which enables working people to vote for Democrats without missing work. His so-called SAVE bill would prevent lower income people from voting Democratic without paying a new form of poll tax, this time to get an ID. He has created a new national list of Trump-approved voters. We fully expect ICE and the military outside polling places across the country to discourage non-MAGA voters.
An historic coalition has come together to call for exactly the shutdown that is needed–if, when, he does try to cancel the election. MayDayStrong.org, has 600 labor unions and community groups. Nine cities representing 30% of the economy have already committed to disrupt their economies for two weeks in case he does try to cancel the elections, so called “Tier 1” cities. Some of us in Tucson seek to make us a “Tier 2” city, as part of the national Shutdown, to disrupt our local economy as much as possible, at or above the scale of January 30th, for as long as we can.
Those of us who organized the shutdowns in January and May met in St. Louis, May 28-29 to plan our next steps to deal with this threat. In January, in Tucson, in response to the chilling moment in Minneapolis, we shut down 20 schools and 50 businesses. Thousands more stopped shopping that day, especially online. Students joined 15,000 of us shutting down the city.
This summer is crucial for the fall shutdown. Hundreds of us are planning for the November shutdown now, doing nonviolence, leadership and solidarity training.
Of course, it is also crucial that we donate to anti-Trump candidates, that we register new voters and get every voter to the polls.
However, we know from 2000 that Trump will not accept the results of any election he loses. Vote counting will be stopped if the exit polls are unfavorable. Negative results will not be certified. And winning candidates will not be seated.
At the same time, we are working to win elections, we must be ready to defend the results. Already, we deployed dozens of Independent Poll Monitors here in Tucson and across the state to spot any MAGA tricks in the July 21 Primary, as a dry run for November. We had “Defender” teams of four ready to respond to reports of such tricks in Pima County–or disruptions by ICE or other Trump operatives. In November, we will have a larger “flying squad” of nonviolent activists ready to deploy to Trump’s points of subversion. And, of course, we must be ready with our ultimate nonviolent tactic if he cancels the elections—the shutdown.
So, please look around. We are everywhere in and around Tucson. Please sign our pledge for “No work. no school. No shopping! If he cancels the elections.” Please commit to join our daily demonstrations if he crosses that red line. Please get trained to block the streets if needed. This may well be our last chance to defend what we still have left of our democracy.