If Trump and his cronies want to rule the world forever, they made one fatal mistake
They gave us something to do
I should make this clear from the jump. I don’t believe in “silver linings” when human beings are under attack. There is no “bright side” to families staring at a bare cupboard and a busted SNAP card. There is no “but on the other hand” when our neighbors are being disappeared off the street. There is no “have you considered, though?” when boats are bombed and sabers are rattled.
What I do believe in, quite a lot actually, is movements. I believe in them in more outwardly placid times, but especially in dire ones. The greatest tragedy isn’t just a despot’s cruelty. It’s when the worst of humanity is allowed to metastasize because, in our fear and exhaustion, the rest of us forget what makes us human in the first place. That’s what social movements are for, at their core. A sacred counterpoint. A mass of people— none of whom have any experience changing the course of history— so filled with love, rage, hope, heartbreak and magical thinking that they do so anyway.
I often mock myself, in essays like this, for being a hope-monger. I suppose that’s my way of pre-apologizing for all the ways that my worldview might seem too sunshiny and saccharine for this moment. And sure, I’ll never be your best source for acid-tongued takedowns or ragey invectives. We all have our lanes. But I promise that I’ll never preach hope in moments that don’t warrant it.
And honestly? This has been a year of loaded guns and empty cupboards. If our hearts did not explode at the enormity of it all, then what are hearts for anyway? I am frequently heartbroken, as are we all. But I am also filled, at this moment, with a profound, grounded hope. I think we’re building something, you all. And equally importantly, I think the despots and strongmen are unintentionally making it easier for us to do so.
I can explain, but to do so I need to tell you about a sixty-year-old study of homeowner behavior in Northern California. It was conducted by Jonathan Freedman and Scott C Fraser in 1966 and originally published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. It has since been replicated multiple times, in a number of cultural contexts, with similar results. I can’t shut up about it, both because it’s fascinating and because it’s a minor tragedy that its findings have, up to this point, influenced more marketers and salespeople than organizers.
In short, Freedman and Fraser’s team canvassed a suburban neighborhood in Palo Alto, claiming to be representatives of a safe streets nonprofit. When a resident answered their door, the researchers asked if they’d be willing to place a gaudy, “poorly lettered” billboard about traffic safety in their yards1. The vast majority didn’t, for obvious reasons (although much respect to the 17% who said yes). That was the control group.
A short time later (before any signs were placed on lawns), the researchers went around to a separate randomly selected group on the same blocks. This time, they asked if residents would be willing to place a tasteful three inch sticker about traffic safety in their front window. Not surprisingly, this request was significantly more successful, with the vast majority of households agreeing to display the stickers. That’s not the interesting part.
A few weeks later, a different group of researchers came back to the households with the stickers in their windows. At this point, no signs had been placed around the neighborhood, just the stickers. Also, remember that the only thing that differentiated the sticker displayers from the control group (the ones who had overwhelmingly rejected the billboards) was that they had previously acquiesed to a more modest request. But this time, when the researchers hawked their big old billboards, 76% of the sticker affixers enthusiastically agreed.2
From 17% to 76%. That’s a miraculous swing, particularly given the ask (“make your lawn ugly”) and the audience (well-heeled mid-century Californians, which is to say “people who care about their lawns”). But again, what a shame that the legacy of what Freedman and Fraser termed their “foot in the door” study lives almost soley in the world of marketing. You can blame it, at least in part, for gimmicks like “free trial” offers. That’s how these things go, but it’s especially unfortunate in this case, since the Palo Alto homeowners weren’t actually being sold anything. They were being implored to care about an issue, and to take gradually larger and larger actions as a result of that care. When asked why they were willing to put up the huge signs in their yard, multiple respondents (who, once again, had no previous history of safe street advocacy) stated that it was an easy decision. After all, since placing the sticker in their window, they now considered themselves to be traffic safety activists, so why wouldn’t take the next logical step in proclaiming that identity?
When I tell people about Freedman and Fraser’s study, I don’t use the phrase “foot in the door.” Instead I talk about human beings as objects in motion. I talk about another favorite topic, the old mantra from the anti-apartheid solidarity campaigns that “movements need something to do.” I talk about how, if you trace the life stories of the Freedom Riders, you’ll find that while the rides themselves offered many of the participants their entry point into activism, almost all of them stayed committed to left-wing organizing well into their golden years. I talk about how both the American abolitionist and progressive movements owe a large chunk of their success to the ‘48ers, German immigrants who, suddenly radicalized by the failed 1848 rebellions in their home country, arrived in a new land and literally could not stop raising hell and building visionary institutions (are you a fan of universal kindergarten and public pension systems? thank the ‘48ers).3
It’s true. Movements need something to do. And they wither when participants aren’t given the opportunity to take meaningful action together. Movements grow when our bodies stay in motion, when we are mobilized not merely to attend a single protest, or complain to our friends, or post something snarky and self-righteous on social media. Those are all temporary release valves, but they can be undertaken in a vacuum. What mattered, in Freedman and Fraser’s study, was one request after another. A sequence of work (in their case, low-stakes performative work, but all the better when it’s real and meaningful) that keeps people engaged and transforms us from passive observers to agents of action.
So here’s why I’m hopeful right now. The Trump administration’s current attacks aren’t rhetorical, which means that they can’t be countered with one-off ceremonial acts of “resistance.” America’s despots are deploying actual troops to our cities. They are snatching human beings from the street. They are using mass starvation as a bargaining chip. All of which, of course, is morally abhorrent. But if their goal is to tamp down a movement, it’s also incredibly misguided.
By increasing the intimacy of their attacks, Trump and his cronies aren’t merely tanking their own approval ratings (my wellspring of hope, it should be noted, never comes from polls). They’re creating a growing network of activists across the country that aren’t just angrier, but more active. They’re spurring PTAs to morph, on a dime, into anti-ICE organizing hubs. They’re transforming the act of donating to a food bank from an expression of charity to one of community protection. They’re spurring a new breed of multi-hyphenate do-gooders (for example: mom/organizer/political candidate/one woman food distribution hub). They’re inspiring people to knock on their neighbors’ doors and invite them to join text threads and Signal chats, not merely because it’s a pleasant idea, but because we are realizing the urgent need know and care for the people most proximate to us.
Trump is giving us something to do. And we, increasingly, are responding in kind. So when you notice more people in your life talking about community, or attending ICE watch trainings, or sharing food and funds with hungry neighbors, recognize them for what they are. Decent folks, for sure. Real mensches. But also building blocks of a movement.
Again, I wish that we didn’t wait for crises to build movements like this. And I will always celebrate campaigns and initiatives that invite people not merely to defend and deflect but to proactively build (today, New Yorkers will, I hope, elect a mayor whose campaign is often mischaracterized as being driven by viral videos when it’s actually a master class in the power of giving people something to do). But our job is not to bemoan all the ways that our current environment doesn’t offer an ideal organizing terrain. It’s to do the work that’s required of us. And right now, as the autocrats grow more desperate every day, that work is becoming clearer every day. Notice who is under attack. Do something that helps them. Welcome others to join you.
I can’t predict where all this is leading. I can’t reassure you, without a shadow of a doubt, that it’ll be enough. But I can offer you, as I so often do, a choice. In the days, months, and years to come, you can either allow the assaults to come at you like waves, one inevitable lash after another. Or you can look around you, notice who is hauling the figurative sandbags, and join them in fortifying the barricades. The first option offers the false promise of temporary detachment, but at the risk of a near-inevitable drowning. The other feels riskier, but once you start, you can’t stop. That’s the only secret behind movements. It feels better to try, and to feel like all your trying matters, than to give up.
I wish that Trump and the cretins that make up his administration weren’t piling so much care and protection work on our plates. I truly do. But what would truly break my heart is if all that were true and we didn’t follow our hearts in the only logical direction. Here we are, with something to do. Will that be enough to sustain a movement? That choice, blessedly, isn’t in Trump’s hands. It’s in ours.
End notes (a bunch, I know, but they’re especially neat this week!)
Speaking of people in motion, do you remember how at the bottom of last week’s essay, I asked people to join me in a White Pages community effort to support our local food pantries? Well, with just a little link at the bottom of a newsletter (and a modest $500 matching offer from me), you all contributed over $28,000 to food banks in 30 states. That’s more dollars to food banks than there are subscribers to this newsletter (25,000). You all!!!
If you’re the kind of person who reads these emails and are like “well that’s very cute, Garrett, but HOW do I actually build something in my community,” I’m offering free, virtual Barnraisers classes on that exact topic as we speak. Read all about them here and enroll here.
So yes, I always make a little pitch about how I’m a working dad and that writing this newsletter (and running those trainings) is my day job and that I can only keep it all together thanks to those of you who say yes to a paid subscription. Right now, though, we’re in one of those moments when new subscriptions would be particularly meaningful. Fun fact- one of the least sustainable moments for a newsletter is the one year anniversary of when you got a new influx of readers. Why? Because a lot of people who opt into an annual subscription once aren’t able to continue (understandably!) Last year, a lot of you came my way around Election Day (oh, for no particular reason, I’m sure). That means that some portion of the November 2024 crew is pausing their subscriptions and looking to pass the baton to new White Pages supporters. Would you mind picking it up?
As you probably also know by now, I’m not above expressing my appreciation for your support via gifts. I’ve still got some “love harder than the fascists can hate” shirts and POTLUCKS! hats (or both if you’re a pledge drive level subscriber). Just email me (garrett at barnraisersproject.org) after making your contribution and I’ll add you to the next batch. Plus, I haven’t even bragged about our truly wonderful weekly community discussions yet. There was so much amazing advice on our “ask each other anything” thread last week (plus for now that’s the only place where I’ve shared my thoughts on inside baseball newsletter stuff like what I think about writers moving from Substack to Patreon; that answer’s in the comments, by the way; a reader asked, so I answered). Ok, I’m done pitching. Thanks for considering. Back to other announcements…
Listen, I too am tired of this particular picture of me leaning awkwardly and pointing at my head, but you all are you aware of how hard it is to take a picture of your ball cap and shirt at the sam time? It IS Election Day (in many places, but since I referenced it earlier in the essay, here’s a few words on New York): You all, I am currently wearing a homemade “loft tenants for Zohran” sent to me by a beloved Barnraisers project pal. Why do these shirts exist? Because like millions of New Yorkers, the Mamdani campaign gave my friend’s artist loft collective a shared purposes. They’ve been organizing together, so it only followed that they also screen-printed together. That should tell you something about why I, somebody who is decidedly not New York-centric in his politics, believes that election offers such powerful lessons for all of us. Also, yesterday, I read two “final pitch” essays that I really appreciated. The first, by Bess Kalb is a gorgeous and thoughtful take on this election from a Jewish perspective. The second, from Sarah Thankam Mathews (author of one of the best books ever written about my town4) traces the direct line between Zohran and Milwaukee’s Sewer Socialists (fun fact: are you wondering if they too were direct descendants of the ‘48ers? I mean, do you even need to ask).
Speaking of high stakes mayoral elections, I’m also going to be watching the results in my beloved Minneapolis closely. Long time readers know that it’s one of my favorite organizing cities, so if you have a second, please read this list from one of that town’s most incredible organizers, my friend Elianna Lippold-Johnson, on why you shouldn’t rank Jacob Frey for Mayor.
There are, in fact, tons of local elections happening across the country, and I know many of you have been actively involved, as either volunteers, staff or candidates. THANK YOU! I’d be remiss, though, if I didn’t shout out longtime White Pages reader Betsy Craske, who is running for City Council in my hometown of Missoula, Montana and is a wonderful model for how to be a good neighbor first, and a candidate second.
I announced this last week, but THIS AFTERNOON, at 1:00 Central Time, I will be joining the indomitable Lisa Sibbett for a Substack Live about a topic that I care a ton about (public schools, how to talk about them, and how to relate to people we love and respect who’ve chosen private schools). Where? In the Substack app (I’m sorry for the app haters amongst you; I get it).
Why do I love public schools so much? Well, my This Week in Breeders co-host Sarah Wheeler put it better than I ever could in this show-stopper of an essay (also, check out our podcast; we are fun to listen to and also interesting I promise).
The “poorly lettered” description is an exact quote from Freedman and Fraser and it’s such a hilarious detail. Were I a member of the research team, I would have absolutely crushed the “really muck up the sign” assignment.
It’s worth a note that there were other interesting layers in the research, too, including that other “first step” actions (such as signing a petition) also resulted in an increase in eventual yes’s to billboards, and there were also folks who said no to the sticker but yes to the billboard (an indication that even making the first ask matters), but the highest increase was in the sticker group.
If it sounds like I probably have more to say about the ‘48ers, the answer is yes, I do. Oh buddy, I can’t shut up about them. More writing on this crew coming in the future (and if I speak to your group in the next year or so, you’ve been forewarned that there will probably be at least some passing mention of my favorite radical German emigres.
Take that, Pynchon! [I joke! Shadow Ticket might be great; I just haven’t read it yet].
Thank you for this. Thank you.
Biggest sociological learning from the study was to make the first ask something very small while connecting the volunteer to community. Then recognize with gratitude the contribution b4 a bigger ask. Keep growing the commitment in small increments and you're creating real engagement.