Must-Reads and Some Thoughts on the Consequences of Trying

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Must-Reads

From DOGE’s plan to rewire Social Security to why you need to use Signal’s nickname feature, here are some of the most important articles I’ve read this week.

• DOGE Plans to Rebuild SSA Code Base in Months, Risking Benefits and System Collapse by Makena Kelly. “The so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is starting to put together a team to migrate the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) computer systems entirely off one of its oldest programming languages in a matter of months, potentially putting the integrity of the system—and the benefits on which tens of millions of Americans rely—at risk.”
• 'Fall in Line or Else': Latest Trump Order Seen as Message to Workers by Jon Queally. “President Donald Trump's latest attack on the working class was delivered in the form of an executive order late Thursday that seeks to strip the collective bargaining rights from hundreds of thousands of federal government workers, a move that labor rights advocates said is not only unlawful but once again exposes Trump's deep antagonism toward working people and their families.”
• “You’re Here Because of Your Tattoos” by Noah Lanard and Isabela Dias. “The tattoo on Suárez’s neck is of a colibrí, a hummingbird. His wife said it is meant to symbolize “harmony and good energy.” She said his other tattoos, like a palm tree on his hand—an homage to Suárez’s late mother’s use of a Venezuelan expression about God being greater than a coconut tree—were similarly innocuous. Nevertheless, they may be why Suárez has been effectively disappeared by the US government into a Salvadoran mega-prison.”
• NY Shield Law Stops Texas Judgment From Being Enforced Against Abortion Provider by Zane McNeill. “On Thursday, a New York county clerk refused to file a Texas court judgment of over $100,000 against a New York doctor accused of prescribing abortion pills to a woman near Dallas.”
• Democrats’ “Reshuffling” on Trans Issues Cedes Key Territory to the Far Right by Schuyler Mitchell. “Now is not the time for the left to cede any ground to a movement that wants to see trans people eradicated from public life. We must continue to defend the rights of the trans community, not because it is sometimes popular, but because it is always right.”
• Changes to Opioid Addiction Treatment in Federal Prisons Threaten Peoples’ Lives by Pam Bailey. “Treatment for those struggling with opioid addiction in the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is about to get a lot worse, warn a former BOP case manager and a medical professional who recently left the agency.”
• You Need to Use Signal's Nickname Feature by Joseph Cox. “Presumably National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, who accidentally added Goldberg, added the wrong JG. This is a big, big mistake obviously. But there is a somewhat overlooked setting inside Signal that can ensure you don’t make the same mistake.”
• ‘It Was Revenge for Our Movie’: Oscar Winner Says Soldiers Helped Settlers Attack Him in West Bank by Lorenzo Tondo. “The Oscar-winning Palestinian film director Hamdan Ballal has said that Israeli settlers who attacked him were aided by two Israeli soldiers, who beat him with the butt of their rifles outside his home and threatened to kill him.”
• The Biggest Scandal of the Second Trump Term Isn’t “Signalgate” by Alex Shephard. “The detention and attempted deportation of student activists on spurious grounds—and the use of armed, typically masked agents of the state to do so—perfectly captures the real, menacing story of the second Trump administration.”
• Stories of Resistance: Mothers of Argentina’s 30,000 Disappeared Half-Century Struggle for Justice by Michael Fox. “The Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo have, today, found almost 140 of their grandchildren, and given them back their true identities.”
• The 20 Elections to Watch This April by Daniel Nichanian. “In April, a busy stretch of elections will continue testing how voters are responding to Musk’s parallel efforts to slash the federal government and boost Republican candidates. The billionaire Trump ally is pumping millions into Wisconsin’s high-profile supreme court race, and his super PAC is also spending in a pair of congressional races in Florida.”

ICYMI

This week, I wrote about the Tesla Takedown movement and today’s Global Day of Action. If you want some inspiration, these organizers might help you get fired up.

Organizing Resources

If you want to defend the U.S. Postal Service, support federal workers, and fend off privatization, you may want to check out “Hands Off USPS.” This resource includes a teach-in template and other helpful materials.

You can also support federal workers by signing up here to get notified about protests in your area against cuts that affect public services and workers.

Final Thoughts

I’ve had a number of conversations this week with people about what tactics might prove effective and ineffective in these times. One thing I have tried to emphasize to the folks I have spoken with is that we cannot know with any certainty what will be effective and what won’t. We have to take chances. In the piece I wrote this week about the Tesla Takedown movement, I shared the story of Joel Lava, who made a couple of signs with a friend and headed to a Tesla dealership. The Tesla Takedown movement was not yet in full swing. Lava did not know if anyone else, anywhere in the world, would do what he and his friend were doing. He did not know if anyone would join them. He simply “didn’t want to be alone” with his rage, so he took action. Week after week, more people joined the protest Lava and his friend had begun. Meanwhile, people in other communities were having similar experiences, as small, decentralized actions blossomed, and a larger web of protest was established. Today, I will be attending a protest as part of the Tesla Takedown Global Day of Action. 

My point is that Lava could not have known that his small action would become part of something much larger, but that larger constellation of action would not exist without people like Lava, Lara Starr, and so many others who took action because they believed it was the right thing to do, without knowing what would happen next. Like Lava, we must all opt to take a first step: to choose not to be alone in our anger. We must express our outrage and invite others into action with us. 

Our legal right to publicly express dissent is in jeopardy. On April 20, a report is due from the secretaries of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense that will offer a recommendation about whether or not Donald Trump should invoke the Insurrection Act. That report will almost certainly recommend that the act should be invoked. Personally, I was surprised that the administration did not move more swiftly to invoke the Insurrection Act after Trump took office. If the act is invoked, the right to protest will not immediately vanish. I believe the act will first be used to justify violent crackdowns at the border and to give ICE a freer hand in its attacks on immigrant communities. But a federal crackdown on protest is far from unlikely. To justify such a move, the administration may attempt to infiltrate movements and protests. 

In Chicago, in 2012, two Chicago police officers infiltrated the local protest scene in the run-up to the NATO protests. The pair went so far as to get arrested alongside other protesters, in order to build credibility. Ultimately, the undercovers attached themselves to a small group of anarchists who were visiting Chicago to attend the NATO protests. The pair of cops drank with the young men, talked a big game, and in a swirl of bravado, provoked statements that were twisted into terrorism charges. The whole case was a farce, but the effort served its purpose by creating the specter of black-clad anarchist boogeymen who might throw bombs at upcoming protests. The police, who would violently attack protesters during the NATO protests, were armed with a narrative that there were dangerous people in those crowds. 

Rahm Emanuel was the mayor of Chicago when those events occurred. Emanuel is a vile man, but Trump is worse. I expect this administration to go further than encouraging people to talk a big game over drinks. I expect Kash Patel’s FBI to stage or instigate the events they would like to point to, in order to justify their actions. Patel’s FBI has a long history of violence and instigation to draw on, including COINTELPRO, which included staged “shootouts.”

As I have mentioned, I expected our right to protest to be subverted in the first weeks of this administration. The fact that we still have the right to move freely in the streets means that we should. We should celebrate our values and amplify our narratives. 

Right now, there are students who are being kidnapped and threatened with deportation for acts of dissent and protest—and plans have been announced to deport at least 300 people whose student visas have been revoked due to their participation in the Palestine solidarity movement. We should all understand what this portends for us, and our own rights. 

We must also remember that there are also people languishing in a horrific Salvadoran prison after being falsely accused of gang activity and illegally sent to El Salvador for the purpose of indefinite detention. We should defend these people, both because their humanity demands it and because the violence they are experiencing will spread. Attacking people with controversial politics and people living in the margins, who can be easily stigmatized with claims of criminality—these are norm-shifting moves meant to reshape the scope of what the public expects and will accept. No working-class person will be safe from the evolution of these practices.

Trump has also threatened to send individuals charged with vandalizing Tesla properties to prison in El Salvador, despite a judge’s ruling that the administration could not send the immigrants they had already detained there. We should be advocating for these people as well. Regardless of how you feel about their tactics, they are human beings at the mercy of an inhumane system, and the threats they are facing are unconscionable. Throwing people under the bus won’t save us. In the face of inhumanity, we must defend everyone’s humanity. 

If you feel overwhelmed by what’s at stake, what could happen, or by questions about what will and won’t “work,” I urge you to remember that we never know how things are going to turn out. We learn by doing, rather than merely speculating. Sometimes, we have to push forward, wholly unsure of whether what we are doing will make a difference. We will sometimes make mistakes, in a strategic sense, and in our actions toward each other. In an era when criticism pours like rain in our social media feeds, one can easily feel intimidated.

This week, when discussing the prospect of making mistakes, I shared some words from the In It Together Toolkit with a friend:

At times, we may be afraid of making mistakes, because we are afraid of becoming a target for other people’s anger. In truth, we cannot control what others do or say about us. We can only control our own actions and speech. Criticism, when delivered with care, can be an opportunity for learning, growth and transformation. When criticism is delivered as a form of punishment, we are best equipped to weather the storm when we know we have acted with integrity.

No matter what we do, some will dismiss us. They will say our actions are unstrategic, or insufficient, or that we’re simply not doing what they would prescribe (something that they probably aren’t doing themselves). Some criticisms may be valid, given that we are all learning and we all make mistakes. For example, a protest that is larger than expected is a sign of success, but may also raise logistical concerns a newer organizer has not prepared for. When we move with integrity, we strive to act responsibly toward others and remain open to adjusting our approach as we learn.

Mistakes do not disqualify us. They are simply a consequence of trying. 

Our situation is in flux, and I can’t be sure how long anything I say or suggest will hold true—or what ultimately will. I know I believe that this is a time to act and to connect with one another. Our relationships, solidarity networks, book clubs, and discussion groups are more important than ever. This is a time to form affinity groups. It’s a time to learn about how people have moved in the face of extreme repression. In Let This Radicalize You, Mariame and I wrote about Monica Cosby’s experience organizing for collective survival in prison. We have so much to learn from incarcerated and formerly incarcerated organizers right now, and from people who have survived under authoritarian regimes. 

These are dangerous times, and we must move thoughtfully and strategically, while keeping each other as safe as we can. I encourage everyone to review Vision Change Win’s Get In Formation Toolkit when making safety plans for your protests. 

I know this section has been a bit scattered and unfocused. I have a lot on my mind, and I am struggling to, as the newsletter’s title says, organize my thoughts. I suppose, as I stop typing and head out the door to this protest, I just want you all to know that I believe in you. I believe in us. I believe in our potential and creativity, even in the face of the mess this country has made. I believe we can do better. I see better every day in the decency of people who choose to act, defy authority, and care for each other. I know we can amplify that spirit and create more safety and justice in this world. So, let’s get to it.

I’ll see you in the streets.

Much love,

Kelly

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