Category Archives: Political

Make 2026 Too Big to Rig!

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Happy Labor Day! Today marks the home stretch of Autumn’s favorite race: The Most Important Election of Our Lives (Truly!). Yes, the 2026 Midterms are almost here. I hope you’re doing something fun with people you really like, because joy and community are what keeps us fortified us as we face the dire moment we’re in under Trump 2.0. I won’t go through the litany of daily horrors–I’m sure you have your own hair-on-fire list. It’s good to know that a lot of us have been doing whatever we can–hanging banners from overpasses, phone banking, protesting, calling our representatives, donating, affixing blame-deflecting decals to our Teslas – so thank you! It’s a reminder that we are not powerless, and that in fact momentum is on our side. That’s why the message I want to share is one of hope and resolve. 

Which is why you need to know about Movement Voter Project, an organization I donate to and volunteer with because MVP works tirelessly and effectively to get our country back on track. With your help, MVP aims to make 2026 too big to rig, win the mid-terms, and prepare to win 2028 and beyond by funding local organizing in every swing state for the biggest blue wave possible. 

In a nutshell, Movement Voter Project is like a mutual fund for political giving. MVP does the research so you don’t have to, identifying and extensively vetting the most effective grassroots organizations around the country. We raise money from donors like you, then channel it where it has the most impact. Bonus: In addition to saving democracy, you get to hit “unsubscribe” and “stop” on all those annoying emails and texts! 

To recap, Movement Voter Project is:

  • A one-stop shop for donors 
  • To support local grassroots organizing
  • In the places that matter most

Right now, flipping the House and – yes, let’s say it! – the Senate is the most immediate and effective way we have of stopping MAGA’s destructive spree. The places that matter most are the bright purple presidential battleground states and flippable congressional seats where we can win power in Washington. MVP is strategically focused on the places where small shifts in voter turnout can dramatically impact the electoral outcome. We’re targeting 44 flippable House seats, and 14 more we need to defend. So long, Mike Johnson! In the Senate, a net gain of four seats means we wrest that gavel from John Thune’s grip and put a halt to a horrendous string of Supreme Court nominees. MVP is targeting 4 Senate seats we need to hold, and 8 that we could possibly flip. 

Movement Voter Project is also focused on winning statewide offices charged with making sure elections are free and fair–secretaries of state, attorneys general, governors, state supreme courts. We all see the outrageous election interference Trump and his minions are trying, which makes it even more important that responsible people win these races, and that 2026 is too big to rig.

How do we do it? Through year-round local organizing, which is a completely different model from the post-Labor Day, candidate-driven scramble we’re used to. Candidate campaigns are important, but they’re built to vanish. They come in with a temporary crew to ask for your vote, and spend most of their money on consultants and ads. Then, win or lose, they disappear after Election Day, like a sandcastle vanishing with the tides. 

MVP offers a radically different model: instead of funding political candidates, we fund a movement of grassroots groups who work all year, every year, listening to and building trust among people who are often the most left behind, and thus the most disaffected and least likely to vote. We operate on the premise that local communities, not MVP, should decide the issues they care about and the candidates who best represent them. Ours is a big tent approach that includes working class voters, young people, people of color, queer voters, and rural voters. 

Here’s why local organizing is the most effective way of creating political and social change from the bottom up:

  • Local organizers know their neighbors. They are trusted messengers in their communities, not out-of-state volunteers parachuting in to knock doors right before an election. 
  • Local Organizers have real conversations where they listen, build trust, and empower everyday people. They understand local issues because those issues affect them too. Local organizers have multiple interactions with potential voters in the course of the year, and excel at bringing people who are irregular or non-voters into the political process by showing how much their voices matter.
  • Plus, local organizers stick around – they remain in their communities building power and relationships, and holding elected officials accountable. 

There is an important difference between simply mobilizing voters right before election day and organizing communities to achieve long-term power. 

A great example of this comes from MVP partner Down Home North Carolina. More than a decade ago, Down Home heard a clear concern from rural communities: hospitals were closing and health care was disappearing. North Carolina Republicans refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

So Down Home organized regular folks to talk to their neighbors, write their representatives, show up at hearings. They even organized the massive delivery of thousands of hand-drawn valentines to all state legislators to drive home the necessity of Medicaid expansion. Finally, seeing the downside of further obstinance, Republican lawmakers found their hearts–or at least the brains to survive politically–and in 2023 joined Democrats to pass Medicaid Expansion. Democratic Governor Roy Cooper signed it into law, with Down Homies proudly by his side.

This made more than 600,000 North Carolinians eligible for healthcare. That’s the power of sustained local organizing. Our dollars helped make that happen. By the way, Governor Cooper is now on his way to becoming Senator Cooper. Your dollars will also help flip that crucial Senate seat.

Impressive, right? Sure, but aren’t there lots of great groups? Yes, and MVP is proud to be part of a growing ecosystem nurturing the progress America needs. But here’s why I especially support Movement Voter Project, and why I hope you’ll join me:

MVP doesn’t just FUND groups; we help BUILD them.

  • The key ingredient in MVP’s secret sauce is our experienced team of state and regional advisors with deep experience in organizing and politics. They live in the places where they work and understand the realities on the ground. In addition to vetting and prioritizing grant requests from the partner groups, MVP advisors offer strategic guidance for engagement and voter turnout, rigorous political analysis, metrics for measuring performance, and tech tools. They help our partners build skills, develop leadership, create coalitions, and scale up their operations to meet the moment. 
  • This moment also requires investment in new media and savvy digital organizing as well as election protection. MVP’s got that covered, too.
  • With a keen eye on changes in the political landscape, MVP is very nimble, moving money quickly where it’s most needed. 
  • Another benefit is that while MVP invests most donations in battleground areas, they fund and advise hundreds of groups in more than 40 states, seeding the ground to grow long-term progressive power throughout the country. After all, Georgia and Arizona didn’t just magically turn from ruby red to purple overnight. It took the investments in and persistence of year-round organizing. That’s the kind of long-term vision and commitment we need to bring about lasting and positive change.

Of course, movements for progress require a movement of donors!

Think of MVP Partner groups as the frontlines, and we the donors as the supply lines. Both are crucial to success. Since its founding in 2016, MVP has moved over $174 million dollars in partisan funds contributed by more than 34,000 donors to over 600 groups in 45 states. 

Luckily, the last key ingredient is right here: people like you and me, everyone who knows that donating is a crucial form of activism. It’s all of us, and together we can make the midterms too big to rig, overcome the current dangerous, corrupt regime, and build a better and lasting future. Here’s how:

  • Give BIG – because the moment demands it! With our democracy and our planet on the line, now is the time to STRETCH! Giving big means something different for everyone. For some of us, giving big might be $100, for others giving big would be $1,000, and for a few of us, giving big might be $10,000 or more. Whatever it means for you to stretch, you’ll know it when you feel it!
  • Give NOW – because it’s crunch time!
  • Give Monthly to sustain this movement – even if we flip the House and/or Senate on November 3, this fight won’t be over in 2026.
    • MVP’s grassroots partners will need our support in 2027 and beyond to continue building power at the grassroots. Your monthly contribution helps create a predictable income stream for this important work.
  • Volunteer – MVP has lots of fun and engaging ways to get involved.
  • Help host a house party – it’s a fun way to bring people together to have fun, learn more, and raise money for MVP.
  • Check out MVP’s website at movement.vote.
  • Spread the word by being a trusted messenger: tell your friends, relatives, neighbors, co-workers, and others in your circle about MVP. It will mean so much more than a random message from a stranger. 

Thank you so much for your support! Let’s enjoy the fruits of our labor, and go win this thing!

Signed, Sealed, and Delivered (at Last!)

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You may have heard something about the California governor’s race, the tedious drama spanning several months during which a state lopsidedly Blue might have no Democratic candidate on the ballot to replace termed-out Governor Newsom come November. That’s because California operates under a top-two primary system in which all wannabes of any party compete on the same ballot to secure one of the coveted slots for the general election. Republicans happened to have only two quasi-serious contenders, while Democrats had eight. When Democratic state party chair Rusty Hicks called for low-polling candidates to drop out, his pleas were met with rage rather than compliance, especially since it just so happened that all of the low-polling contenders were people of color and/or female. Eventually, two Democrats withdrew from the race: frontrunner Eric Swalwell, whose political future evaporated in the heat of credible sexual harassment and assault allegations, and Betty Yee, the former state comptroller with a sterling reputation but without charisma or money. Both their names still appear on the ballot.

So do 59 other names, because California is that big and that stupid, at least in terms of how little it takes to run for governor: minimal paperwork and residency requirements plus less than $5,000 in filing fees OR a minimum of 6,000 verified signatures. A penchant for pranks is optional. One of the candidates is Barack Obama. If only! Unfortunately, it’s not the Barack Obama, who would win in a landslide.

Since political reporting largely consists of covering the horse race instead of issues, Californians desperate to get a feel for the candidates were treated to a series of cage fights debates to help them decide. Perhaps these dismal affairs served some purpose: Widespread exposure to Republican Sheriff Chad Bianco dampened his appeal. In prior polls, Bianco–a fire-breathing MAGA lunatic best known for seizing 650,000 ballots in March in response to yet another fringe allegation of 2020 election fraud–consistently grabbed one of the two top spots alongside Hilton; now he comes in 3rd at best. Still scary, but a big relief to Team Blue.

Speaking of scary, Trump-endorsed Steve Hilton poses an ongoing threat in that he oozes charisma and charm and cloaks his MAGAism well by sounding as reasonable as a Fox News contributor can. Sunnily optimistic and smooth-talking, he reminds me of Reagan, with the added bonus of a British accent. Hilton, a fan of Maggie Thatcher and Brexit, lived in England until 2012 and became a naturalized US citizen in 2021.*

It’s likely that the top Democratic vote-getter—probably former Attorney General and HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra or billionaire Tom Steyer–will square off against Hilton in November. It’s been a season of strange bedfellows: Jodi Hicks, head of California’s Planned Parenthood, quipped on X, “I had a fever dream that in California socialists were supporting a billionaire [Steyer] and MAGA was supporting an immigrant. So weird.” Even in very Blue California, Hilton’s charisma and the fact that solid Democratic control for the past 16 years has not made much of a dent in California’s problems make him a formidable opponent.

That’s why my own strategy has shifted from voting for the top-polling Democrat (usually Becerra) to the second-polling Democrat (usually Steyer). It could be just wishful thinking that Democrats might occupy both top spots, but it’s not impossible. With Bianco’s numbers dropping, it’s been clear for weeks that at least one Democrat will be on the ballot in November.  (Alas, voting for my actual favorite, Katie Porter, feels like a luxury we can’t afford, especially since she’d have a much tougher run as a woman who fairly or unfairly has a reputation for temperament problems against Hilton than either man.)

So, in the end I voted for Tom Steyer, the billionaire who wants to tax the rich.

In 2013, Steyer also founded NextGen America, whose mission is to educate and empower young people to organize, vote, and lead. Steyer’s priorities are affordability, tackling income inequality, fighting climate change, and standing up against Trump/MAGA and the corporate oligarchs warping our democracy and threatening our future.

I had the chance to get to know Steyer earlier and closer up, when the California Donor Table (CDT), a progressive group of donors who seek to elect Californians of color and others from marginalized communities, unanimously endorsed him, then held a Zoom Q&A with Steyer and invited guests. CDT’s mission was to make sure there was a Democrat who aligned with their progressive values in one of the top two slots, and that said person had the resources to withstand the vicious onslaught Republicans would launch. “Tom Steyer wasn’t on any of our Bingo cards,” remarked CDT’s Endorsement Committee chair. But in addition to having sufficient resources, Steyer impressed everyone with his commitment, intelligence, and breadth and depth of his decades-long involvement and success in California politics. This includes closing corporate tax loopholes, saving pro-environment legislation, ensuring children’s well-being, and criminal justice reforms. Steyer is also widely heralded for his coalition-building capabilities and equitable stewardship. I had worried about his sincerity and management skills, but from this meeting and other sources (Rebecca Solnit’s endorsement is especially detailed and compelling), I now have zero qualms. He walks the walk better than most, and has a fine grasp of the complexities of what ails California and how to fix them.

Still, it’s hard to get over the billionaire thing. It’s the most common thing I hear from my friends, even though they share the same values and policy positions Steyer has long promoted. Another Old (68), Rich, White Guy—seriously? is the knee-jerk response. I feel it some myself.

So when Eric Swalwell’s downfall breathed new life into Xavier Becerra’s flagging campaign, I took a more serious look at him. It’s well past time for a Latino governor (who could also juice turnout for down ballot races crucial to winning the US House), and he has a varied and impressive resume. My husband and I even gave him a little money. I really, really wanted to like Becerra, but have found him disappointingly ho-hum. Even so, he’s regularly the leading Democrat in the polls

That’s why I’m casting my vote for Tom Steyer. It wouldn’t take that many votes for him to edge out Hilton, plus I prefer him to Becerra.  I’m proud to vote for the Class Traitor for reasons both strategic and personal.

I would happily change my vote were their poll rankings reversed. What’s most important now is to vote for a viable Democratic candidate by Tuesday (do not trust the mail at this late date—drop box or in-person voting only, please). And then happily vote for whoever advances to November’s general election.

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* These facts are unlikely to matter. Of greater relevance is that both Bianco and Hilton have declared they would extradite to Louisiana doctors who prescribe abortion pills for out-of-state women, thus violating California’s abortion shield law in order to uphold draconian anti-choice laws elsewhere. Whatever you think about abortion, shouldn’t the Governor of California uphold our state law rather than Louisiana’s? Remember this one for the fall persuasion season.

Soul on ICE

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When I first heard of Renee Good’s death, I immediately thought of a conversation I’d had with my brother a couple of months ago. “Stay away from ICE,” he’d warned as we talked about Trump’s escalating war on immigrants. Not because my brother agreed with the crackdown, but because he feared for my safety.

I had been telling him about training as a volunteer legal observer to document ICE activity in my county. Good was also a volunteer legal observer, though she was living in what has become a war zone under siege by Trump’s private paramilitary force while I live in a quiet suburb just north of San Francisco that so far has seen almost no ICE activity.

I identified with Good in another way, too. When I saw the New York Times’s analysis of bystander video that captured the incident, my first thought was that aside from stopping sideways in the middle of the road, Good was carefully maneuvering her car exactly as I do in every busy parking lot I’ve ever been in—slowly inching out, letting people pass, trying hard not to hit anyone, exiting a tight spot as safely as possible.

So much for safety. Now a mother who had only recently dropped her six-year-old off at school, then stopped because her neighbors were in distress, is dead and being demonized by Trump and his enablers despite widespread evidence that Renee Good posed no threat to ICE agents.

My husband’s cousin in Minnesota’s Twin Cities has volunteered for years with refugee resettlement. He reports,

What’s happening here is unbelievable. This is like late 1930s Europe. Immigrants, legal and illegal, are afraid to leave their homes. Restaurants have closed temporarily to discourage ICE raids and to keep customers and employees safe. Some schools have closed temporarily to prevent confrontations with ICE as students are picked up at the end of the school day. People are organizing grocery shopping runs for immigrants who are “sheltering in place.”

The senseless killing of Renee Nicole Good has really solidified the resistance to ICE here. It is truly sad that every day about 60 to 80 people are hauled off to the Minneapolis airport and flown to out-of-state detention centers. My mission is to keep the immigrants who I know off of those planes . . . there is no end in sight to this madness. The number of ICE agents in Minnesota is increasing from 2000 to 3000 so I expect a lot more trouble. It’s like a war between the executive branch of the federal government and one resistant state in the middle of the country that refuses to be bullied.

Refusing to be bullied is the right thing to do, and the best way to put an end to terror. It is also easier said than done, particularly when the bully is not some middle-school kid but the head of a vast and deadly power apparatus with many willing enablers. The cruelty and the chilling effect are the point.

I feel the chill, too. In truth, even though I am not remotely close to any active danger or hotspots, I am scared, and also relieved that I’ve only gotten one text from the Rapid Response Network. I have to fight my impulse to retreat, and strive to channel the spirit of resistance that has only strengthened Minnesotans in the face of real danger. I hope that owning up to my fear and relief paradoxically keeps me in a state of courage, even weak courage.

And so I show up intermittently at local demonstrations, donate money to grassroots organizations, contact my representatives in Congress who already speak out and vote the way I want them to. Standing at intersections with clever signs in the brilliant Californian sunshine while passing motorists honk their approval (except for the woman who yelled “Go Home”) feels mostly like a feel-good exercise of little consequence. But it’s not nothing, and sometimes enlivens my too-numb soul.

The other day I found inspiration in an unlikely place: a letter to the editor of my local paper by a gentleman named Igor Sill. I’ve read a lot of pieces urging hope, persistence, and a Never Give Up bravado. Mostly they make me feel chastised and ashamed of my despair and wish to retreat. Mr. Sill’s letter struck me differently:

As a new year emerges, there is a natural pause — a moment to reflect on what has endured and to look forward with intention. It is a time to measure not only what was gained or lost, but how we carried ourselves through uncertainty. None of us is tasked with fixing the entire world. Our responsibility is more attainable: to mend the portion within our reach. Any small act that helps another — relieving suffering, restoring dignity, steadying fear — matters immediately. In a turbulent world, one of the most powerful choices available to us is to remain present, do the right thing and show our spirit.

This distinction matters as 2026 begins. Optimism is the belief that the future will be better.

Hope is harder: the belief that we have a role in making it so. Optimism waits. Hope acts.

One of hope’s greatest adversaries is cynicism. Cynicism assumes bad faith and inevitable failure. It can feel sophisticated, even protective, but it quietly erodes engagement. A healthier posture is skepticism: the willingness to question without surrendering to despair. Skepticism keeps us alert; cynicism shuts us down.

We were reminded of that truth this past year through widely shared footage from Australia’s Bondi Beach, where a bystander ran toward danger during a violent attack rather than away from it. There was no plan and no guarantee of success — only courage that was improvised and deeply human.

Moments like this clarify something essential: hope does not originate in institutions alone. It emerges when individuals decide that disengagement is not an option their conscience will accept. Acts of unscripted courage are not anomalies. They echo an enduring truth: Meaning survives when people stay engaged. Hope does not deny hardship. It accepts it and insists that effort still matters.

Hope is not the belief that the future will be kinder; it is the decision to remain responsible for it, even when the outcome is uncertain. As a new year begins, that choice to stay engaged may be the most consequential one we make.

Less than three weeks ago, I said good riddance to 2025. The new year feels even worse. The brave people of Minnesota and Mr. Sill’s words help me resolve not to renounce my true feelings of fear, exhaustion, and despair, but to let them accompany me as I decide to remain responsible for the future, even when the outcome is uncertain. Effort still matters. Disengagement is not an option my conscience will accept.

Good Riddance

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Has it been only a year since the Times Square ball last dropped? It feels like a decade, one characterized more by wrecking balls both literal and figurative. To top off a hard year, Tatiana Schlossberg, Caroline Kennedy’s 35-year-old daughter, succumbed to terminal cancer just yesterday, although not without leaving us the gift of her grace and her final essay.

But that heartbreak notwithstanding, at last it’s time to turn the page on 2025.

It’s been quite something perusing the commentary this year. Hope is necessary for carrying on, but it’s sometimes been hard to keep despair at bay. First came gentle encouragement to breathe, step back, take care of yourself, but not give up. Then, with apparently too many people following the first three but not the last pieces of advice, sterner exhortations about the treachery of disengagement emerged. Always, there was the cheer brought by brave resisters, small victories, federal judges not part of the US Supreme Court majority, and the good feelings of solidarity that came with the massive No Kings protests throughout the year. Many times, I found solace in schadenfreude, such as the end of the Trump/Musk bromance and MAGA infighting at this year’s Turning Point conference.

Then, after one too many tacky gilt pieces were affixed to the Oval Office and Trump and his enablers did everything in their power not only to strip healthcare but also food from millions of Americans, solid evidence emerged that the tide was turning. Following a promising string of special-election overperformance, in November, we saw stunning widespread electoral victories for Democrats (apparently still hated, but preferred). Finally, Trump’s “plummeting” poll numbers, which declined in infinitesimally tiny increments for months, fell below 40%. I find it alarming that anyone supports this regime, but still, I’ll take it. Just as I’ll take having complicated instead of merely contemptuous feelings toward Marjorie Taylor Green.

It’s been a hard year to sum up, to assess the damage while still finding reasons for optimism. Mainstream commentators are valiantly trying. Just last week in the New York Times, I read back-to-back opinion pieces. One, by UC Professor David G. Victor, began, “On its face, 2025 looks like a year of relentless backsliding in the fight against climate change.” You don’t say. Through some unconvincing jujitsu, Victor attempts to make a case for optimism. Commenters raked him over the coals, which are at least easier to come by with Trump’s avowed resurrection of the deservedly dying industry.

Nicholas Kristof was more honest in proving that he understood his year-end assignment of offering hope without delusion. In Which I Valiantly Try to Cheer You Up took the long view, acknowledging the massive damage wrought by the first year of Trump 2.0 but urging perspective that in the arc of human history, things aren’t so bad and will likely get better.

All in all, it seems everyone is ready to bid adieu to 2025. Although personally I experienced many joys this year—a new granddaughter, loving and happily married children, several nice trips, and the good fortune not to be in the direct line of fire for any of the atrocities befalling our country, I can’t wait to turn the page. Usually, I like to let the good feelings of the holidays linger after January 1, but this year we hurried to dismantle Christmas.

Into the recycling bin of history you go, 2025. Good riddance.

Onward to 2026!

The Cruelty is the Point

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“The problem,” said my friend, “is that Republicans are willing to let people die, and Democrats are not.”

You might think we had this conversation just a few days ago, after a group of eight Senate moderates brokered a deal with their Republican counterparts to end the government shutdown.

But my friend and I actually discussed this a good fifteen years ago, during another chapter in the long saga of asymmetrical political battle between Democrats, who believe that the purpose of government is to improve people’s lives, versus Republicans, who want to shrink government down small enough so it can be drowned in the bathtub, as anti-tax Republican Grover Norquist famously put it.

Here we are again. This time, starving government isn’t enough. Trump and his GOP enablers have literally been starving people, depriving 42 million of SNAP benefits. Trump wasted no time in exploiting the shutdown to further the rampage he’s enthusiastically executed from the jump of his second term, vowing to use it to “get rid of a lot of the things we didn’t want,” targeting, of course, “Democrat things.”

Apparently, one of those Democrat things is food.

Turns out, plenty of non-Democrats also need food. Who knew?

Unmoved by this reality, Trump refused to utilize an emergency fund expressly meant to feed people during crises, defied federal courts ordering him to do so, appealed their attempts to make him comply with the law not once but twice to the Supreme Court, and threatened to punish states who had made alternative arrangements to keep their residents from going hungry. As a New York Times reader commented, “The past few weeks have been eye-opening. I have never seen anyone work so hard to deny food to those who need help getting it. That will not be forgotten.”

The cruelty is the point. Whatever your feelings about how a few Democrats helped end the shutdown with a whimper instead of a bang, this essential truth remains.  Trump, showman that he is, has merely escalated a long-standing GOP tendency to hurt vulnerable people with his brazen relish for causing harm.

Before Trump was even re-elected, Russ Vought, the Project 2025 architect whom Trump pretended not to know, said about federal workers, “We want to put them in trauma.” Right after the election, Trump rewarded Vought with the powerful directorship of the Office of Management and Budget. Many consider Vought, along with fellow-sadist Stephen Miller, to actually be calling the shots in Washington.

In February, DOGE head Elon Musk wielded a chainsaw signaling the destruction in store for federal workers soon after bragging about “feeding USAID through the woodchipper.” A recent New Yorker article cites a respected estimate that 600,000 people—two-thirds of them children—have already died since the demise of USAID.

For months, Trump and his cronies have been firing federal workers, terrorizing immigrant communities, slashing funding for programs that help ordinary people so billionaires can have bigger tax cuts, and blowing people to bits in international waters, apparently just to get their manly rocks off. But these guys aren’t just dicking around. They’re gleefully taking a wrecking ball to the economy, the rule of law, and, in the metaphor of the century, the East Wing of the White House:

Busy destroying things, blaming others, filing appeals, increasing and decreasing tariffs on a whim, and feasting on the empty praise of world leaders, Trump naturally couldn’t be expected to sit down with congressional leaders to address problems behind the shutdown, like hunger and skyrocketing healthcare costs. He did, however, find the time to brag about his new marble bathroom and 90,000 square-foot gilded ballroom, and to host a Great-Gatsby-themed party at Mar-a-Lago:

The grotesque optics only magnify the callous cruelty. Melania’s jacket from Trump 1.0 (at the top of this post) says it all: They really don’t care who gets hurt.

That’s the very problem my friend pointed out so long ago. Ezra Klein, commenting on what led Democrats to end the shutdown, said the same thing, but more nicely:

Trump himself has shown no interest in a deal. Rather than negotiating over health care spending, Trump has been ratcheting up the pain the shutdown is causing . . . More than anything else, this is what led some Senate Democrats to cut a deal: Trump’s willingness to hurt people exceeds their willingness to see people get hurt.

Democrats did not succeed in getting Republicans to extend healthcare premium subsidies as a condition for ending the shutdown (if they had, as Ezra Klein and others have pointed out, they would have saved Republicans from themselves and taken Democrats’ best electoral issue off the table for the mid-terms). But they did succeed in elevating to prolonged national attention the fact that Republicans could care less about the well-being of ordinary Americans and are responsible for skyrocketing healthcare premiums. There’s a whole lot more that can and should be hung around Republicans’ necks, but this was the ticket, and it worked surprisingly well and quite probably for as long as it could. Republicans were never going to capitulate, and had the shutdown and the increasing suffering it caused continued, public opinion on who’s to blame would have switched on a dime from Republicans to Democrats. As it stands, Republicans own the shutdown, the escalating cost of living, the chaos, greed, and indifference to suffering. They own the cruelty.

That’s a message we can and should take all the way to the mid-terms. It’s time for Democrats to step away from the circular firing squad and get to work. We have lots more elections to win.

Signs of Solidarity

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There are so many horrors perpetrated by the Trump Administration, it can be difficult to choose which to focus on. Right now the hair-on-fire moment is Trump’s and his minions’ weaponization of government against everyone they dislike, including rich and powerful people like Jimmy Kimmel and James Comey. This is indeed an alarming escalation.

But the assault on the most vulnerable people also continues; the reign of terror visited upon immigrants may have dropped from the headlines, but not from reality. We’ve witnessed masked agents abducting brown people off the streets and sending them to foreign gulags, gardeners who have lived here for over 20 years chased down, citizens and legal residents detained, American-born children terrified they’ll come home to vanished parents after a day at school. The Guardian reports that immigrants with no criminal record are now the largest group in ICE detention. So much for prioritizing deporting “the worst of the worst.”

That’s why I’ve joined Signs of Solidarity (SoS), a campaign devised by Indivisible to help immigrants feel safe and welcome in our communities, to educate workers and their employers about their rights, and most importantly to communicate that we see and condemn what’s going on. As an SoS volunteer, I’ve been going around to local businesses offering free, public-facing signs in support of immigrants as well as signs designating a private space that ICE and other immigration enforcement can’t legally enter without a signed judicial warrant:

The response has been overwhelmingly positive. Even when someone doesn’t want a sign because of a blanket policy against posting anything in their windows, they almost always appreciate the cause. One restaurant manager in a shopping center that doesn’t allow posting proudly put up a big flyer by the front door anyway. His neighbor, born in America but raised in Iran until the war there caused his parents to send him back to the US alone at the age of 14, was nervous about crossing his landlord, but prominently displayed a flyer on the inside counter. Customers standing in line while the cashier explained to me that she’d need to run it by the owners called out, “Thank you so much for what you’re doing.” One customer coming in for her treatment at a high-end beauty salon asked for signs to post in her own business a few towns over. A pizzeria owner, taping a sign to her window, handed me her staple gun saying, “Here, you’ll need this to make sure your other sign is secure on the outside bulletin board.”

I should say that my small town has not been a hotbed of immigration enforcement. I live in an affluent, mostly white community in one of the deepest blue counties in the country. Signs proclaiming “No Human is Illegal” bloom in people’s yards. The warm reception I’ve encountered is hardly surprising here. Possibly it would be different in a more conservative part of the country, particularly if business owners feared antagonizing a broader swath of their customer base than is likely here. There’s a natural tendency to not want to stick your neck out in dangerous times.

But if I, a mild-mannered, 70-year-old white citizen not the least bit in the direct line of fire when it comes to the more sadistic oppressions of the current administration, is unwilling to do something simple to stand up to the abuses of power all around us, then what hope do we have? We’ve seen how corporate leaders, media, universities, and law firms who capitulate to Trump only embolden him further.

I’ve been heartened by the conversations I’ve had, cheered by the growing number of signs popping up in windows downtown.

They help people feel less alone, less hopeless. They give people courage. The more we stand in solidarity, the sooner we can bring this nightmare to an end.

Fight Fire with Fire

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Full disclosure: I’m the type of person who would bring an NPR bookbag to a gunfight. Actually, I wouldn’t knowingly go anywhere featuring guns, so most likely I’d just stay home and read a book.

But suppose somebody burst into my house, threatening everything and everyone I hold dear, while I sat reading? I’d fight back however I could. An attack on my house calls for self-defense.

That’s what’s happening now with a literal attack on the House of Representatives. Republicans know that they are likely to lose control of the US House in the 2026 midterms. That’s why Donald Trump and his enablers, in an unprecedented power grab, have redrawn Congressional district maps in Texas to try to snatch five more House seats from Democrats in the 2026 mid-terms.

To counter Texas, California is fighting fire with fire with the Election Rigging Response Act, aka Proposition 50, a thoughtful counter to the Republicans’ bad-faith maneuvers. It asks voters to allow temporarily replacing maps approved by the independent Citizens Redistricting Commission with new maps favoring Democrats, reverting back to CRC-drawn maps following the 2030 census. Additionally, the temporary maps would only take effect if and only if a Republican-led state redraws their maps first.

That’s the trigger Texas just pulled, with other red states soon to follow.

So it’s time to put down that NPR bookbag and fight back by voting for and spreading the word about Proposition 50, on the ballot in California’s special election on November 4. It’s the best way to stop the steal of the US House in the 2026 midterms.

Yet there’s well-funded opposition to Proposition 50: Before the ink was even dry on the state legislature’s approval for placing it on the ballot, I received three glossy mailers warning against it as a dire threat to democracy. Opponents misleadingly gave the impression that the widely respected League of Women Voters opposes this bill by quoting the League’s California President out of context. Her remarks against mid-cycle redistricting and for independent commissions were made in response to Texas’s plans to redraw their maps. In fact, California’s LVW has forcefully repudiated the unauthorized misuse of their President’s words, and has made clear that they are not taking a position on Proposition 50 in keeping with their non-partisan stance.

Californians are rightly proud of their independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (whose maps will be temporarily replaced if Proposition 50 passes). It pains many of us that the scorched-earth fanaticism and/or cowardice of today’s Republican Party has led to this point. Yet here we are.

In discussing this with friends, most see a “Yes” vote as a no-brainer. But not all (I know a lot of people with NPR bookbags). I’ve heard worries about hypocrisy, “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” and other slippery-slope concerns. Some are mad at Democrats for not doing enough to fight Trump, and now appear equally mad that the party of extremely limited power is exercising one of the few options of power they actually possess. One friend is mulling over the choice between “pragmatism vs. principle,” and is leaning toward principle. I understand all of these impulses.

But there is nothing principled about letting the unpopular, destructive, and often lawless policies of the current administration continue when we have the power to thwart it. We did not ask for this fight, but since it’s been foisted upon us, we have two choices: Do nothing and let Republicans continue their assault on America, or stand up and fight.

Vote YES on Proposition 50 in the special election on November 4.

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Make sure you are registered to vote (and tell your friends and family, too)!

Want to volunteer to help pass Proposition 50?

–Bay Area Coalition is my home base, and we’ve been movers and shakers in key elections nationwide for many years

–Stop Election Rigging

-Most importantly, talk up the importance of voting in this and other elections among your friends, neighbors, co-workers, and everybody you can think of.

Mayday, May Day

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What we’re experiencing under Trump 2.0 certainly qualifies for the universally recognized signal for distress. The first day of May is also International Worker’s Day, so what better time for a robust rally? My husband Jonathan and I happen to be retired, so we took our non-working selves up California’s North Coast for a few days of R&R, where we were lucky enough to join the tiny town of Fort Bragg’s May Day protest. My unofficial count was that well over 200 people lined Main Street, with almost all passing cars honking in loud support. Not bad for a population of 6,919, especially when you consider that the economically decimated white working class town is ripe for MAGA’s siren call.

Luckily, I had packed my portable sign, which matches my mood most days:

Several people nodded approvingly. One man told me The Scream was being used in protests all over the world. A woman remarked, “I finally understand what that painting means.” The meaning of the May Day protests–several hundred thousand participants in over 1,000 American cities and towns, large and small–is clear: People are fed up with Trump and his GOP enablers’ War on America, and the discontent is growing.

This sign was my favorite:

Happy to oblige!

National Park Love

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On this day in 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act, making Yellowstone the nation’s first national park. Recently my husband and I visited the far younger and less visited Big Bend National Park, in Texas, so I thought I’d give a shout-out to our national parks at a time when they and so much else are being assaulted instead of protected. Call it a trip report with politics (you know I can’t help myself).

Why Texas, you may ask? Quite simply, we wanted a winter hiking destination, and more northerly and high-elevation parks are under snow. The other place we considered was in and around the northeast part of Los Angeles, where our daughter lives, but it’s just as well we chose Big Bend, given that a lot of the trails we wanted to explore are now charred ruins (our daughter is fine).

Speaking of charred ruins, there is a lot of post-apocalyptic terrain to traverse in order to get to Big Bend National Park. We’re (somewhat ambivalent) fans of the streaming series Landman, which mostly takes place in Midland, where we flew into to start the four-hour drive to Big Bend.

The Midland of Landman seemed like one of the least appealing places on the planet, but it turns out the show features the golden-tinged, Vaseline-on-the-camera-lens gauzy version. IRL, we drove through miles and miles of flat, drought-scorched desert littered with metal warehouses, rusty machinery, and trash. The giraffe-like bobbing oil derricks added a touch of mechanized whimsy to the hellscape. At least there was no traffic. And the Border Patrol officers at a checkpoint an hour and a half north of the border were very polite.

Big Bend, thankfully, was prettier. At least we hoped it was, since it was well past dark when we checked into the Chisos Mountain Lodge, the only place in the park to stay that isn’t a campground (it’s about to close for a 2-year renovation). Luckily, it’s in the heart of the most beautiful part of the park–the photo above was taken from the parking lot, and most of the trails we hiked started from the lodge.

Two weeks before we got to Big Bend, there was a cold snap, with temperatures as low as 15 degrees. During our time, the highs were mostly in the mid-80s, and in the high 90s in the river and desert portions of the park. Luckily, we’re early risers who hit the trails by 7:30 every day, allowing us to sit on the lodge’s shady patio and read in the afternoons. The patio and the visitor center were the only places with wi-fi, and there was zero cell coverage, so our news intake was blessedly limited.

We loved the Lost Mine Trail so much that we did it twice:

There we met Tom, a lovely volunteer ranger who hails from Vermont and waxed enthusiastically about everything Big Bend: the geology, the birds, the tight-knit group of rangers and volunteers who spend a lot of time carrying extra water on the trails for unprepared tourists. I wonder how Tom and his merry band are faring now that the Trump/Musk wrecking ball has hit the national parks with frozen funds and massive layoffs. Maybe the birds will still be fine, even though this roadrunner was on the soon-to-be-demolished patio, mostly admiring his reflection in the glass.

But we were there in the relatively innocent days of unfit cabinet nominees being rubberstamped by spineless Republicans; the annihilation of USAID was just over the horizon, and sparse wi-fi preserved our sanity. So let us resume our carefree, if hot, hiking of the Pinnacles, South Rim, and Laguna Meadows trails:

If you’re noticing a lot of brown leaves, that’s because there’s been a two-year drought in southwest Texas. Another ranger told us that nature could withstand another year without permanent major damage. It remains to be seen how much more damage we can sustain.

Sparse water meant the Rio Grande wasn’t all that grand, but nonetheless, Santa Elena Canyon was one of our favorite places, a narrow chasm with Mexico on one side, the US on the other, and a slim ribbon of water running down the middle, the clarity and stillness of the river creating the cliffs’ mirrored doubles. Our two countries, so close and yet so far, seemingly one and the same place and people. If only. I thought of the beautiful book by Francisco Cantu, The River Becomes a Line: Dispatches from the Border.

We did not go to the Rio Grande Village, a legal point of entry where people wade across the river between Mexico and the US. A ranger advised us to get there by 7:30 am, since it would be 97 degrees there. She also recounted her trek on a completely exposed trail through prickly pear cactus on a mission to rescue tourists suffering from heatstroke, and how she hadn’t wanted to go back since. Not having packed our passports anyway, we took her advice, and stayed in the mountains. We wonder if this nice ranger still has her job. Or maybe she, Tom, and the rest of them are part of the Deep State?

There was one more trail to do from the Lodge, and aside from the fact that the Window Trail descends, forcing you to ascend when the cool of the morning is past, it’s a beauty, especially with a scramble up to the top of the Oak Springs Trail:

It was a short jaunt from our room to the Window Viewpoint, a lovely sunset ritual:

And my favorite view of all, flying home to the bejeweled Bay Area on the approach to SFO. Home, sweet, home!

Happy Belated Groundhog Day: Horror Replaces Rom-Com

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Groundhog

Note: I was on vacation on the real Groundhog Day, but worked diligently before leaving to write and schedule my annual GHD post. Alas, it never appeared, apparently falling victim to the Trump-Musk DOGE infiltration of WordPress, intent on eliminating all criticisms of the new regime and mistaking non-white-male images as DEI subversion. Now I am back, and, like my fellow Democrats, stand ready to fight back as I shake off my “Why bother?” torpor. So here you go, in case you’d like to turn back the clock and relive the last 3+ weeks.

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Like a lot of my favorite things–sleeping well, democracy, following politics–Groundhog Day has been turned on its head.

True, there’s still a resemblance to the 1993 film, in which Bill Murray hits the alarm each morning only to find he is trapped in the same day. I feel trapped, too.

Only my day begins with hair-on-fire head exploding as the radio blares the latest atrocities of Trump 2.0. Unlike Bill Murray, whose do-overs present an opportunity for tiny adjustments that make things better, Trump’s do-over is an opportunity for vengeance and making everything worse. Guided by his less lazy and smarter Project 2025 Overlords, he’s doing a bang-up job. At least I feel pretty banged up, and except for being female and from a Blue state, I’m not even a target! The dreary, gentle tedium depicted in the film has been supplanted by a fast-track descent into ever more horrifying levels of hell.

So if I were a groundhog these days, I’d be tempted to go back in my tunnel and never come out. At least not until the mid-terms.

But then I realize it’s Bite or Flight.

I’m rooting for Bite.