04/23/2025
Week 12: Okay, let’s DO something!
by Marybeth O’Mara
The next big coordinated set of protests is scheduled for Thursday, May 1. While May Day festivities (celebrating the coming of summer) date back to the Roman Empire, it has long been a date for celebrating nature and the fullness of spring in Europe. Since the late 19th Century and the height of the Industrial Revolution, May Day has also been considered a day of solidarity with workers, and is also known as International Workers Day, and was intended to commemorate the Haymarket Riot, which took place in Chicago in 1886.
This year, organizers are calling for a day of protest and action in support of working people, especially immigrants. Like the April 5 protests, this one is being supported and co-sponsored by many organizations, including Indivisible, 50501, the Chicago Immigrant Action Network, and others.
Chicago’s May Day event will be at Union Park, 1501 W. Randolph, at 11:00-3:00.
Why attend?
Yes, it is a Thursday. However, some cities (including Nashville) have expanded their May Day actions to include Friday and Saturday, giving access to those who cannot make a midday Thursday event. There is always a Tesla Takedown protest each Saturday, if Saturday is the day you devote to protests!
Find something near you, enjoy the Spring weather, and join neighbors who share your concerns. Make a cool poster–and enjoy the clever ones around you. The goal is still to mobilize 3.5% of the population, which is the target set by political scientist Erika Chenowith.
There is certainly a lot going on in the courts right now. When I first discovered and posted the NYT legal tracker against the Trump Administration's actions a month ago, they reported that 129 cases had been filed, and 46 rulings had been issued by lower courts against the administration that included at least some temporary restrictions and restraints while the cases could proceed. As of today, this NYT tracker reports that there are now over 108 rulings against the administration, and over 209 cases filed.
While it is shocking that the admin is not even batting 500, including before judges appointed by Trump in his first term, even his own nominees on the Supreme Court have enjoined him from continuing the midnight deportation flights to El Salvador that have garnered a great deal of legal and public outrage.
Meanwhile, the administration is openly flouting some of those court orders, including failing to provide adequate daily briefings on the status of the administration’s efforts to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Maryland. In the same breath, members of the administration have been quite open that Habeus Corpus rights and proceedings should not apply to all potential deportees because it is too cumbersome on the government. They have also signalled a desire to “deport” “home grown” criminals and terrorists, which is shocking and unprecedented.
Luckily, several senators and representatives have been inspired by Corey Booker’s record-setting Senate speech earlier this month and by Garcia’s Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen’s trip to El Salvador to verify his detention and physical condition for his family back home, and many are visiting both domestic and foreign facilities to check on their own constituents. This feels like a good plan, and is finally seeming to mobilize the dems in a way that “kitchen table issues” have not.
The New York Times centrist columnist David Brooks wrote a banger of a column last week, calling for a “comprehensive national civic uprising.” And I take credit for Sen. Dick’s Durbin’s announcement that he will not seek re-election, opening the door to declarations by younger candidates who have been waiting in the wings for him to decide. (I don’t really take credit, but I DID write him earlier this week that it was time for him to take this action, and I am sure he has been deluged with constituent calls and emails, which created a force he could no longer resist.)
Also, universities have learned from Columbia that capitulation does not seem to get the administration off your back nor does it save you money, so they have begun to resist in organized ways, starting with Harvard. The Big 10 negotiated a NATO-style “defense compact” and schools are starting to more actively resist the changes initiated by Trump’s executive orders and by DOGE incursions into ICE and the Dept of Education.
Why is Trump going after universities, anyway? It is part of the fascist playbook, and I will take a closer look next week.
So, go protest (or make calls, write letters, persuade relatives, or boycott businesses that don’t think like you do). If you are looking for alternatives to Amazon for books, this Saturday is Independent Bookstore Day, so go browse and buy locally!
