Wondering what to do? Show up on Labor Day

We all want to live in a country where we will be free from fear. We are now in the stage of what scholars of tyranny call “authoritarian breakthrough.” This is when the autocrat holds just about all the levers of power — the legislature, the courts, his party, Big Law, the military, education, Big Business, et al. We have a limited window to thwart this.

There are two things people ask me over and over: “But what can I do?” and, “When are we going to have a national strike?” So ask yourself, if there was something to do, would you do it? If you want to know what you would have done in 1930s Germany, this is your chance to find out.

The organization Indivisible (Indivisible.org) and other organizations have been doing great work ushering us along this journey, with huge rallies, networking, education and thinking and planning. Indivisible is one of the few national organizations with members throughout the country actually working on this crisis, not just asking for funding (though there’s an important place for those organizations as well).

Indivisible, like the rest of us, know rallies are necessary but not sufficient. So, how do we put sand in the gears of the regime, and what can we do to weaken its underpinnings, bring along public opinion and build enough public support, enough people willing to make sacrifices to reverse this slide into fascism? Enough people to make a national strike and other forms of strategic noncooperation effective.

Among the most egregious offenses of the Trump administration, and one of the least popular, is its handling of our immigrant population, epitomized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Trump’s essentially private militia, and the concentration camps being built all around the country that we know will one day hold more populations than “only” immigrants and the unhoused.

There will be rallies all over the country on Labor Day, but the rally in Santa Fe will be different. Indivisible Santa Fe, along with GET Indivisible, Indivisible SOS, NOW Santa Fe Chapter, Veterans for Peace Santa Fe Chapter, Third Act New Mexico, DSA Santa Fe, Santa Fe Better Together and the Democratic

Party of Santa Fe County, have a plan to engage all of us in a concrete collective action on behalf of the workers most vulnerable to Trump’s assault on labor.

This action will ask the business community to show how much ICE is not welcome here, and to protect immigrant workers, workers of color, and Spanish-speaking workers and their customers from ICE raids. Strategic noncooperation in action.

Please come to the Roundhouse on Monday, Labor Day, for our Rally for Collective Action. From 10 to 11:30 a.m. you will hear a short program from organizers, labor and legal scholars. This will be a chance for all of us to “do something,” and to start building the resistance muscles and the community we will all need during this troubled time. There will be clear handouts and action items so you no longer will have to ask “What can I do?” and only, “What am I willing to do?”

If you just can’t get to the Roundhouse at that time, check out Indivisible Santa Fe or any of the other sponsoring organizations for ongoing work to stop this takeover before it’s too late.

Remember: Labor Day, 10 a.m. at the Roundhouse. See you there.

Leslie Lakind is a retired dentist in Santa Fe and a member of Indivisible.