Thirty lonely but beautiful actions you can take right now which probably won't magically catalyze a mass movement against Trump but that are still wildly important
Why? Because others will see you do them, and it will make it easier for them to take their own (slightly less lonely but equally beautiful) action by your side
A preface: I wrote this for people who, like me, have spent much of the past few weeks hoping that somebody else would do something bolder in this political movement. We are downtrodden because we’re full of rage and heartbreak, but the polls tell us that our neighbors don’t share those feelings. We realize we’re seeing something that so many aren’t, but we’re not sure how to bridge the gap. We have wished (appropriately) for bravery from our media, from elected Democrats, from public officials in general. However fair those wishes are, they come with a risk: that we miss the opportunity to be the lonely voice for justice in our own community, the person who makes it a little easier for a second and third and fourth lonely voice to start perking up by our side.
I don’t pretend that all it takes for a social movement to succeed is a bunch of individuals throwing the activist equivalent of spaghetti at so many isolated walls. Nothing I offer here will be enough. And yet, so many of us are waiting for something we can join, which presents a true opportunity to be the first person in your circle welcoming fellow travelers into halting, shaky, earnest action.
Finally, I’m certain that not all of these ideas are applicable to your situation. You’re tired. You’re busy. You’re sick. You don’t have a robust social network. You have anxiety about putting yourself out there. Those are all real. And also, my hope isn’t that every one of these is for you, but that a few might be. And if none fit the bill, what an opportunity: I’d love to hear your idea for what you and others could do.
Enough scene-setting. Here are some ideas. In list form, but there’s a narrative if you’re looking for it. They’re all offered with love:
The next time you read an article about how USAID or the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau or the Department of Education is being attacked, remember that no matter how impactful the agency, movements don’t coalesce around acronyms– they are always about empathy for each other. Take a few minutes to research a specific program administered by those agencies that help people, and ring the alarm for everybody you know. Stop saying “Trump and Musk are the worst” and practice saying things like “Trump and Musk are sentencing millions of AIDS patients to death” or “Trump and Musk want credit card companies to rip us off” or “Trump and Musk just cut mental health and math tutoring resources for your kids’ school.”
When friends or colleagues or grocery clerks ask you how you’re doing, don’t say, “fine.” Instead, answer with “I’m so mad because dialysis patients aren’t getting treatment and Head Start programs have to close because Trump cut off their funding and he’s lying about it.” It is clunky and silly, yes, but if you are in fact angry, it is also entirely honest. You weren’t really “fine” anyway.
Learn to wheatpaste. Print out signs. Make the messages big. “Trump and Musk hate children” or “Trump and Musk are screwing over working people” or “Trump and Musk want sick people to die” Add a QR code and link to articles that reinforce the sentiment. Add a second code that will help passersby take action, or perhaps even offer a date and time for a community meeting that you’re hosting. Hang up the signs across your region— rural areas, cities and suburbs. Go to a small town’s Main Street and put signs on every corner: “Trump and Musk are killing small businesses.” It’s true, by the way, and small businesses should know about it.
Print out little stickers. Write a message on them. Put them up on poles, in restrooms, at gas stations. Make them pithy, but focus on the person you might imagine reading it. Don’t lead with “Trump and Musk are fascists” however true that might be. The people for whom that message is appealing are already with us. Instead, say “Trump and Musk don’t care about you.”
Buy some chalk. Put it in your bag. Find a good spot and write in big bold letters “Trump and Musk look out for billionaires. Who is looking out for you?”
Go to a Federal Building. Go to a Tesla dealership. Stand on a highway overpass. Hold a lonely cardboard sign for an hour. Take a picture. Send it to everybody you know. Post it on social media. Yes, in a try-hard, show-offy, circa-2020 way. You’re not doing it for do-gooder credibility this time around (more on that in a bit). You want others to know that somebody is out there, that you too can be out there. Tell your friends that it felt inconsequential and awkward but that you’ll be back there next week, at the same time, and that you’d love it if they could join you.
The bigger protests are likely coming for your region, I promise. In the meantime, if you have the flexibility, find a way to D.C. Be like the woman from Alabama profiled in this lovely, bittersweet essay. Do you know how many protests are happening in Washington right now? So many. Show up at them. Meet the other people going to the protests (it’s still a tinier crowd than it should be). Meet the people organizing the protests. Ask how you can help.
Show up for and support other people’s efforts, even when you’re skeptical about them (I bet that you’re skeptical about many of the items on this list! I am too! But we should do some of them regardless!). Here’s another example: There’s currently a social-media driven call for a general strike. I’m nervous that it’s not the best approach, because I believe that successful general strikes require more coordination with labor movements and less with online influencers, but I could be wrong. And even if I’m right, the general strike proclaimers are trying! So I’m going to sign their strike card, and spread the word about what they’re doing. Because I don’t care about being right in this moment. I just want more people giving a damn and trying.
Call up the organization closest to you that supports your queer and trans neighbors, your undocumented neighbors, your homeless neighbors, your neighbors seeking abortions. Thank them for their work. Ask what they need right now.
If the organization needs volunteers, ask a friend to go with you to volunteer.
If the organization needs money, text five friends and say “I’m donating to _____ org and I’d like you to do so as well.” Think about something that brings you joy— baking or making music or writing strident essays on the Internet or dancing. Ask yourself, “could that be a fundraiser?”
Make cookies and deliver them to your neighbors. Ask if they’d like to come to your house for coffee or a happy hour. Have the topic be, “Who in your life are you most worried about right now? What support do they need?” As neighbors, brainstorm what you all can do to care for everybody whose name came up around the circle.
Put up a little table outside of a grocery store with a sign that says, “Have your grocery bills come down? Why not?” When people come to talk to you, give them instructions on how to call their Congresspeople right now. Listen to the voice in your head that says “nobody does that,” and then remember that actually conservatives have long done exactly that, and it’s been a big reason why they won some of their largest victories. You may be asked to leave. Do so politely. Go to another store.
Throw the best damn party you can imagine. Make it the party you’d like to attend. Do you like to bowl? Listen to death metal? Knit and sip tea? Dance through the night? Have a few beers at a kid friendly brewery while your children run about the place? Then let the party be about that thing, the thing you love. Put the word out so that people who also love that thing find about it. Get to know them. Tell them that the only cost of admission is you want ten minutes to speak about a few ways we can love and resist and build right now.
Speaking of Congress, yes keep calling them. Be nice to their staff, but don’t give a lick that Congressional Democrats are annoyed that constituents are lighting up their lines. If you are represented by a Republican, pick a specific policy that is hurting people in your district and tell them you disagree with their stance on the issue. If you are represented by a Democrat, tell them (politely, for the person who is answering the phone is overworked and underpaid) that they can shut down the government. The current funding deal is set to expire on March 14th. Tell them that they can hold sit-ins, or filibuster on the floor, or run non-stop press conferences with constituents whose services are already at risk. Pick a request and keep asking. Use this template. It’s good.
Text a few friends. Ask them, “Can we hold each other accountable to keep calling our reps? I keep forgetting to do it every day.” Make a text chain. Be kind to each other. Laugh a bunch. Celebrate the hell out each day’s Sisyphean-feeling calls. Ask how everybody’s doing, every single day.
A few days later, go back to the text chain. Ask, “has there been any movement from those elected officials we’ve been texting? Should we escalate? Should we consider sitting in at their local office? What would we need to know to do so?” Start planning.
Reach out to friends with care-giving responsibilities: for kids, for grand-kids, for elders. Ask them, “Hey, if a few of us were to watch your kids or run groceries to your dad tomorrow afternoon, what political action could you take? Would you spend some time researching what’s happening? Would you volunteer? Would you call? Would you hold your lonely sign?” Or alternately, if you’re somebody with care-giving responsibilities, take the risk of asking somebody— perhaps somebody who is a loose connection but that you want to get to know better— for help.
Subscribe to a newsletter that will keep the action alerts and the instructions about “what you can do” coming long after you forget about this list. Ignore, for the moment, whether you’re further to the left or further to the center than the list compiler. What matters is that there is always something to do, and blessed people have made it their life’s work to help make it easier for you. Every once in a while, send the action alert compilers a note. Tell them thank you. Ask if they need any help.
Recognize that so many of the boycotts whirling around the internet are probably too diffused and unorganized to truly bend the arc of history, but that they do matter, both for keeping the pressure on these cowardly profit-seeking, fascist-knee bending corporations, but also for the way they build intentionality and focus into our lives. Pick a company that’s been hard for you to boycott but that you’ve been tempted to quit– Target perhaps, or Meta, or Amazon. Start listing all the reasons why it’s hard. Text a friend “hey, I’d like to quit _____ but I can’t. Can you help me brainstorm how to make that change?”
Research mutual aid efforts in your area. If there isn’t one near you, research how to start one. Start showing up for their meal drop offs or their trash pick-ups or whatever it is that they’re doing. Discover that it’s simpler and more fun than you imagined. When people ask you how you’re doing, say “I’m trying a new thing– I’m getting involved with ______ mutual aid, have you heard of it?”
If you’re a parent, send a letter to your kids school. Tell them thanks, and then ask how you can support them.
Regardless of whether you’re a parent, go to a school board meeting. During public comment, reiterate how much you value:
The district remaining a safe and welcoming place for queer and trans students.
The school district not cooperating with ICE.
The school continuing to teach accurate representations of U.S. history, multiculturalism and respect for all students’ backgrounds.
When you wonder “what right do I have to go to a school board if my topic isn’t on the agenda” remember those Moms For Liberty who caused all of that school board chaos a few summers ago… what right did they have to do so? And yet, there they were, creating a political moment out of nothing. You’re showing up for something real, something that matters. Your school board deserves to hear from you.
Remember that fascists hate unions, and one of the reasons why they’re winning is that union density is at an all time low. If your workplace has a union, throw yourself into it. If your workplace doesn’t, there are a whole bunch of people who would like to help you start one. If you don’t have a traditional workplace (like me), you might be surprised that there are unions for us as well. Join. Agitate. Know that we won’t turn the tide if we can’t get union density back in the double digits.
If you know and love a federal worker, particularly in a targeted agency, do something kind for them. If you’re a federal worker, particularly in a targeted agency, tell us what you need and how you’re doing.
Ask yourself how much of your political engagement is confined to spaces where everybody else is already aware of and angry about the same things that you are. Ask yourself, gently, “Should I just complain to the same friends?” “Do I need to spend all this time on Bluesky?” “Why am I only reading authors who tell me how bad everything is but not what we can do in response?” Instead, consider spending more time with folks who are highlighting everything that’s already being built and reminding us of how much power we actually have. I’m not saying that your time should be spent debating and getting in screaming matches with the most MAGA-loving person in your vicinity. Remember that most of your neighbors aren’t paying attention one way or another. This moment is about spreading the word: people are being hurt, and we should stand in opposition.
Again, whatever you do: broadcast it. It doesn’t have to be on social media, but that’s fine, too. Is that performative? Absolutely, but you’re not doing it for yourself. You’re doing it to model it for somebody else. Do you know why human beings attend artistic performances? To understand ourselves better through somebody else “performing” humanity in front of us. First comes the performance, then comes the repetition, then comes the integration into all of our lives.
Look back at this list. Think about the idea that you rolled your eyes at the hardest, the one that seemed least applicable or most scary to you. Look at it again. Ask yourself not “why can’t I do that?” but “what support would I need to do it?” Ask who in your life might be able to provide that support. Reach out to that person and say, “I have a crazy idea, but I need your help.”
If you don’t have anybody to reach out to, reach out to me. Really. I’m just a stranger on the Internet. I’m busy too. I’m balancing multiple day jobs and a couple kids and piles of laundry that never disappear. I may take a while to get back to you. But I will. I won’t have all the perfect answers, but I’ll listen to you. My role, if you need it, isn’t necessarily to solve your problems. It’s to help you practice reaching out to others for support.
One more thing you can do: Attend a training about how you can build and sustain activist communities. As luck would have it, I’m hosting those trainings and they’ve been so much fun. I call it the Barnraisers Project. There are five more coming up: free and virtual and (I am assured) a very good time. More info here and registration here.
If you appreciated this list (or the trainings, or my other essays) the biggest way you can help out is by sharing, spreading the word and subscribing (especially a paid subscription). This is my day job, and I’m doing my best to build a useful space for big-hearted but weary dreamers in this moment. Thanks for considering.
Comments are for paid subscribers (it helps keep things a little more vulnerable and community-oriented and a little less like, well, the Internet) but I’m very generous with comping, just ask. And per my offer to talk up above, I’m garrett at barnraisersproject.org
I shared this song with paid subscribers a bit ago, but haven’t shared it publicly. I’ve been listening to it on repeat for a couple months, for reasons that should be self-evident. It’s about a specific set of activists in a specific city, but it’s not just about them.
I was at the airport this weekend and someone had put two yellow post-its on the inside of the door of each stall (I checked four stalls, but I assume all of them had notes). The first one said "Musk has your bank account information" and the second one listed the Congress switchboard number. Simple. Effective. I made the call before I caught my flight.
I made a very good-faith effort to cut out Amazon in early 2020 and then, well, we know what happened. A step I took today towards making a sustainable break was to make a list of all of my subscribe & save items so that I can start chipping away at buying them elsewhere. Another thing I'm trying to do (which I think is important in general) is to try to batch my online shopping to 1) reduce impulse buys and 2) break my dependence on next-day shipping. If I really need it and haven't been able to find it elsewhere, it will still be in my cart at the end of the week.