Power Up: Resources for the Road Ahead

This week, instead of posting a must-reads list, I am sharing some resources that might be helpful right now. If you are still processing this week’s events, please honor your emotional needs. When you’re ready, these books, articles and resources might help you find your way.

Get A Free Let This Radicalize You Ebook

When Mariame Kaba and I wrote Let This Radicalize You, we knew we were creating a resource for organizers in catastrophic times. As I often tell young people, all of my best advice can be found in this book. In the wake of Trump’s reelection, Haymarket Books is allowing readers to download the ebook of Let This Radicalize You free of charge. From navigating burnout and repression to holding hope and grief simultaneously, this book includes insights from some of the best organizers I know about how to engage in justice work meaningfully, while also caring for yourself and your community. The book is geared toward new organizers, but many longtime organizers have told us that they have found it extremely beneficial as well. If you would like to check out an excerpt of the book, you can find one here. If you would like to listen to or read a conversation between me and Mariame about the book, you can find that here.

More Free Ebooks

• In addition to Let This Radicalize You, Haymarket Books is offering nine other ebooks for free, right now. These titles include Unbuild Walls by Silky Shah, Elite Capture by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, and Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit. You can download the full bundle of ten books here.
• AK Press is also offering a selection of free ebooks to aid your political education efforts. These books include No Pasarán! Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis (a great book that includes a conversation between me and Shane Burley) and Practicing New Worlds by Andrea Ritchie. You can find those free ebooks here.

Orienting Ourselves

• This piece by Margaret Killjoy offers sound advice and some much-needed perspective. “Things don’t get done unless you organize to get them done.”
• If you haven’t checked out my piece, Beyond the Blame: Fighting for Each Other in the Face of Fascism, I recommend doing so.
• Daniel Hunter’s piece, 10 ways to be prepared and grounded now that Trump has won has been a huge help to a lot of people this week. If you haven’t checked it out, you may want to do so. I will also be publishing a conversation with Daniel soon.

Trans Issues

In this article, Lewis Raven Wallace outlines what trans people will be up against during a second Trump administration. It’s a difficult but important read.

Resources on Abortion (Including Abortion Outside the Law)

• I highly recommend Robin Marty’s book, The New Handbook for a Post-Roe America, which includes a wealth of practical information. 
• For a historical perspective on abortion outside the law, check out Deep Care: The Radical Activists Who Provided Abortions, Defied the Law, and Fought to Keep Clinics Open by Angela Hume. (You can also listen to or read my conversation with Angela about these histories here.)
• In 2022, I wrote about a piece called Learning to Self-Manage Abortions Is Key in a Post-“Roe” Society. In the article, I argued that we need to make the facts about self-managed abortion common knowledge. That objective is now more crucial than ever, given that sharing this information online could soon be banned under a second Trump administration. Please preserve this information offline, learn it, and share it. 
• If you’re looking for a ready-made zine to share, check out Abortion Pill Zine: A Community Guide to Misoprostol and Mifepristone by Isabella Rotman, Sage Coffey & Marnie Galloway.
• This is a great time to support abortion funds. If you would like to gather with like-minded people to talk about how you can support abortion access together, consider throwing a house party to raise money for an abortion fund. You can find a guide on how to do that here. If you’re not sure which fund to support, check out The National Network of Abortion Funds’ Find a Fund page.

Facilitation Toolkit

"Worth Fighting For" Community Gatherings Facilitator's Toolkit is a post-election resource from the Working Families Party that “offers a structure for how to hold a space for yourself and fellow activists to process, strengthen community, and begin to ready ourselves for the future.”

Stuff About How We Got Here

• If you are still trying to get your head around how we got here, I recommend reading Sarah Kendzior’s work. She has compiled a list of ten past articles that explain the 2024 election here.
• This piece by William C. Anderson includes some really great analysis of this country’s overall rightward shift.
• If you’re ready for a breakdown of how the Harris campaign “stretched her coalition into incoherence,” this piece from Gabriel Winant is quite solid.

Palestine

I know many people are consumed by thoughts about the election and what it means for us, but it is crucial that we not take our eyes off Gaza, and that we continue to advocate for a free Palestine. This piece from Sharon Zhang offers disturbing updates about the state of the genocide. It is crucial that we reject the scapegoating of our Palestinian comrades and neighbors during this time of political tumult. Palestinians did not cost Harris this election. For reflections on what did, please check out the articles in the Stuff About How We Got Here section. We must reject any effort to cast blame on people who have already suffered unthinkable losses, and who will be targeted even more severely under the new administration.

Secure Your Information

When January 6 rioters are pardoned next year, right-wing vigilantes will be emboldened. They will correctly understand their role as agents of white supremacist violence in the service of the administration, and they will see Trump as their protector, insulating them from all consequences. This means we need to do a lot of safety planning and community defense work. A simple place to begin is securing your information. I use a service called DeleteMe to continuously remove my private information from the web. If you can’t afford a paid service, check out DeleteMe’s DIY resources. 

Fuck X

If you want to escape Elon Musk’s social media platform, or at least spend less time there, I would love to see you on Bluesky. You can use starter packs (like these ones) to generate an interesting follow list quickly. (You can find my starter pack here). You can also find some great tips on how to make the most of the platform in this thread. 

Final Thoughts

I have spent the past couple of days in the company of committed abolitionist organizers. We have talked about our frustrations, our grief, our worries, and what we can do to strengthen our movements at this time. On Thursday, I co-facilitated a threat modeling exercise. I did not enjoy rehashing the horrid policies that Trump has vowed to enact, but I was grateful for the opportunity to discuss these threats with caring and constructive people. Whatever our enemies throw at us, I know that we will work in concert to oppose them. We will find strength in each other, and endeavor to live our values, and people will be helped by this.

“Purpose preempts despair” has become one of my personal mantras. It’s not a universal truth, but it’s often true for me. Focusing on what I can do, and endeavoring to live my values is my greatest comfort right now. I hope we can all seek that comfort together in the difficult days ahead. 

I will have more to say soon about how we can prepare and what principled solidarity, action, and conflict look like in these times, but for now, I am exhausted. I will say that I am reflecting on the words of Stuart Hall (quoted at length in Gabriel Winant’s recent piece), who said, “Without the deepening of popular participation in national-cultural life, ordinary people don’t have any experience of actually running anything. We need to re-acquire the notion that politics is about expanding popular capacities, the capacities of ordinary people.”

I have another day of facilitation and discussion ahead of me, and a whole lot of writing and organizing to do in the coming weeks. I suppose we all have a lot of work to do in these times. If you are determined to fight the good fight, and to find the alignment we need to make it count, I am grateful for you. Please take care of yourselves. This is going to be a long fight.

Much love,

Kelly

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