Resistance

I used to teach a segment about activism at different levels.? It was a spectrum that went from writing checks to going to jail to being killed.?Typically, I found that younger activists associated risk with commitment and judged those that didn’t take to the streets.?This is a misnomer and in my own history of activism, I can reflect back and notice there are less paddy wagons in my life.?The danger of violence or arrest (mindful that I never actually got charges, and that is a privilege related to race, gender, class, education access, being an extrovert that is highly verbal, etc.) was replaced by being the number those folks called.? I then moved from the “in case of emergency” call to letter writing and clicking on GoFundMe donation pages.? The consistent undercurrent is organization and resistance.? Remember that it takes all kinds of labor to make change.? Lastly, if you need the TLDR version, resistance is something we need to learn from “them” and we are behind.

?

As soon as the election results were called, I heard several patterns—exhaustion, disappointment, surprise, fear, anger, and the like.?The lack of direction needed (needs) focus and I suggest we understand that organized minority voices need to align around being organized, not their minority status.? This applies to any unpopular mindset or agenda, and politically speaking, the left has a lot to learn from the right, and this has been said for decades.?This is how we got here.

?

A big part of how democracy works is by holding space to swing wildly from extreme to extreme.?I like to think of it not as the common pendulum but as the sides of a bowl – the edges of the container.?Perhaps it is my ceramics background, but when a piece of clay is on a spinning wheel, one point of pressure adjusts the width of a bowl's circumference after one quick rotation.?It takes almost nothing to have a lasting impact on wet clay.?Democracy is wet clay, and intentional (and unintentional) hand or tool pressures shape it.?Too far – collapse.?Too little, the clay can dry out.?Adding water throughout the whole process is the equivalent of the power of our voice – support and dissent.? Please excuse the extended metaphor and let's get back to resistance.

?

I noticed this year Project 2025 was being used as a tool in two very different manners.?The conservatives used it as a plan forward, and the liberals took this plan as a threat.?I don’t believe either response is more right or less wrong.?I watch more progressive journalists signal to the Democratic base the high-level alerts in the document that most align with their political agenda.?My conservative news sources were doing the same, but with wildly different subjects more aligned with their political base.?922 pages and two similar yet radically different responses got my attention post-election while I was (am) trying to figure out what level of checking out I need to do, want to do, get to do, as well as what I am obligated to respond with because I care and can.

?

I decided I needed to read the document and make it more accessible to regular people.? I have the privilege of time as I don’t celebrate the holidays at the year’s end, love research, and it is the inaccessibility of the agenda that I think gave it power to me.?Like not saying Voldemort.?If we say his name – he has less power (this works with everything except Beetlejuice).

?

I found the PDF online. I didn’t want to buy it, and I couldn’t find a copy at the library or on audible.?I set up my phone and computer (thanks Beth Z for your help) to read to me through the accessibility tools so that I could listen and take notes.? I went down rabbit holes, did research on anything I didn’t know about or had questions about, and gathered my notes onto one page.?I posted about this project on my social media platforms and in several of the groups I belong to to solicit volunteers to discuss the reading with me.?One chapter at a time – no expertise required – so that light can be brought to Project 2025’s content to anyone who wants to listen.

?

There are 32 chapters if you count the opening and closing.?Every conversation is saved on a YouTube playlist open to the public.

?

I promised my friends/volunteers that I would do the bulk of the work and they just needed to be a regular person.?Folks often wanted a chapter that interested them (DHHS, Homeland Security, and Education were the most popular), leaving more than 20 that we didn’t even know were included in the document.?I wanted to give each chapter its moment, and what I got is a lesson in organized resistance and just how low that bar is.

?

I have a lot to say and the main thing is – watch or listen the videos.?If you are most interested, the popular chapters will be illuminating so maybe start there.?Truly, I am trying to demystify a hefty-by-design document, and that only works if you listen.?Yes, this is 30-45 minute sessions – and if you are looking for what to do now – that isn’t too much to ask, is it?

?

In 1979 (almost 50 years ago), the Heritage Foundation wrote its first Mandate for Leadership in response to President Carter’s progressive agenda.?Yes, the President Carter that died this month at 100 years of age.?They have been waiting for 50 years yet consistently organizing and resisting any progressive steps democracy has made through Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush 2.0, Obama, Trump, Biden, and now Trump again.?I think you have the ability to learn from what seems to be a very low bar of organization in the Heritage Foundation that has been more effective than I realized while also noticing patterns of resistance that I found a sense of hope.

?

Yes, I said hope.

?

To counter the defensiveness from the left about being called academic condescending elites, let me first start with: Project 2025 is poorly written, documented, cited, or even researched.?Some chapters seemed to not even use spell check, Grammarly, or an editor at best.?Most importantly, the authors don’t seem to have collaborated or even communicated with each other.?It is also the case that one chapter may reference another chapter directly, and then that second chapter doesn’t seem to be aware of the reference.?This is not great literature.?There are almost no?citations and if there are endnotes, they are usually additional materials written by that individual chapter’s author to reinforce their own claims.?The 922 pages come?together like a collection of disjointed essays—sometimes a chapter may only be made up of contradictory essays with no further discussion, summary, or conclusions drawn.?There is yet a consistent thesis, and as promised, there are main themes that do resonate throughout the collection or personal gripes, complaints, and subjective bones to pick.?Can we move on now and get to what the agenda items are and not how they demonstrate them in this collection? ?

?

(We are such elitist pricks – and we are referenced multiple times as leftist extremist Marxist agenda holders – so let's not prove them right in wrong ways)

?

The stated Promises, or as I refer to them, the consistent bass lines in the whole Project, are as follows or based on these priorities, definitions, or agenda perspectives.? You may disagree with them – and honestly, they disagree with themselves too sometimes.? To truly engage with what this document says, it is important to understand their starting assumptions as well as your own.? Ok here goes –?

?

PROMISES In no particular order

?

If you are still reading, go refill your beverage as we are on the home stretch.?Go on but come back.?It is my hope that I have created a sense of urgency to watch or listen and share these conversations as our form of resistance – knowledge, education, reflection, and follow-through are the tools to get past our paralysis and shock or disappointment.?I would add that even for those that are excited for this next administration, there is some explaining to do and much clarity needed that requires your attention too.?Remember we are coexisting already—we are in this together,?not two rival teams.?Go refill and come back.

?

Ok – you are back.? Here is your prize – my scary moments and my hope moments.

?

Let me first manage expectations.?Yes, there were two sentences specifically that keep me up at night.?Out of 922 pages, two sentences is less than I was expecting, but the reality of this fear is real and much bigger than I imagined.?The gems of hope are just that:?like a plastic rhinestone stuck to a grocery cart wheel,?it is still shiny and I will take the hope no matter how small in a sea of darkness.

?

Two scary sentences with three dashes of Scary Spice on top A baker’s dozen barely visible glimmers of hope

?

Overall, “people are policy.”? The closing words onward reemphasize this in the words from the original author.?I couldn’t agree more, and I think we need to function with an understanding of a definition of people and who is and isn’t included in the community that mirrors functional policy.?And this brings me back to resistance.?As people, we are responsible for becoming more conscious of what is going on in the world around us.?We need to do our parts to reflect on working definitions, assumptions, and justified arguments and see where we align and don’t, based on what we prioritize, value, and hold dear.

?

What better way than to question ourselves, disrupt our assumptions, and normalize complexity so that we can really hang in tough conversations because of our faith, beliefs, values, ideas??I am grateful that I have the time, research skills, and vast network of friends so that I can follow through with my big ideas.

?

Signed, your woke nonsense diversicrat extremist leftist Marxist liberal DEI/CRT revolutionist?(there are their words to describe Democrats or those not loyal to the Trump Administration’s agenda – so it could be you too!),

Jess