Left Populism and Democratic Socialism

 

Much national attention has been given to the victory of Zohran Mamdani in the mayoral election in New York City. But in Seattle and King County Washington there were equally astonishing local election outcomes in the races for mayor of Seattle and the King County executive.

In the County executive race Girmay Zahilay won. He is 38 years old of Ethiopian descent. He was born in a refugee camp in Sudan to parents fleeing civil war in their home country. Ivy League educated, he first made waves by defeating Larry Gossett for a seat on the King County Council in 2019. Gossett, a former Black Panther and president of the Washington State Rainbow Coalition, had served since 1993. In a hotly contested county executive election Zahilay bested Claudia Balducci, a multi-term county councilwoman from the center-left with demonstrated ability to get things done.

Simultaneously, Katie Wilson, aged 43 defeated the Afro-Japanese incumbent Bruce Harrell by less than a one percent margin. Wilson dropped out of Oxford University within a semester of graduating with honors in physics and philosophy. She describes herself as a socialist but is not a member of any socialist organization and the Democratic Socialist of America chapter in Seattle did not endorse her.

Seattle/King County is home to Microsoft and Amazon. As a center of the tech boom the region has witnessed extreme polarization of wealth and has a large, unhoused population. Even more than is true elsewhere affordability is a hotbed issue. After the murder of George Floyd Seattle saw one of the more explosive “defund the police” movements. It featured the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) where activist took over a city park causing the city to abandon the police precinct across the street. The fallout from the city’s handling of the movement would see the police chief resign and a mayor who had been the darling of the city’s elite decide not to run for re-election.[1]

In these posts I focus on the role of race in distinguishing between left and right populism. But I also highlight the way that populism pushes the political mainstreams on each side toward new objectives. Today I want to tease out the way that left populist economic thinking is pushing mainstream liberalism toward either an explicit advancement of social liberalism or possibly democratic socialism (See Figure 1).

The Political Careers of Zahilay and Mamdani

                                                                 Girmay Zahilay                            

                                                                                    Katie Wilson

Like Zohran Mamdani, Zahilay and Wilson are left-wing populist. As someone who had resided in public housing as a youth Zahilay campaigned on the expansion of public housing and opposition to traditional juvenile detention methods.[2]  In a city that fell behind in mass transit as it grew with the tech boom, Wilson co-founded The Seattle Transit Riders Union in 2011.

Both candidates represent a younger generation that is concerned about social justice and affordability. As a county councilman Zahilay secured funding for a community center in the underserved neighborhood that he grew up in. And he was behind the building of tiny homes to get people off the streets.

Under Wilson’s leadership the Transit Riders Union has lobbied for the entire range of issues affecting transit riders: ‘a mission that encompasses everything from bus fares to affordable housing to preventing sweeps of homeless encampments.’[3] In 2020, Wilson successfully advocated for the creation of Seattle's JumpStart tax, which taxes private employers to fund affordable housing.  During her campaign Wilson criticized Mayor Harrell for proposing to take funds from JumpStart funds to balance the city budget.  

Both of these young public servants are clearly progressive. I could not find any statements on Zahilay’s political views, but he identifies as a Democrat. As mentioned above Wilson identifies as a socialist ideologically but she also stood for office as a Democrat.

Democratic Socialism and Social Liberalism

The establishment gets itself into a tither over the intrusion of socialism into our national political discourse as a legitimate worldview. Because this ‘s’ word has been off limits in this land of quintessential capitalism, we don’t teach the broad body of socialist ideas in our schools. Moreover, socialism isn’t talked about in day-to-day conversations by anyone who isn’t far to the left of center in national politics.

But that is starting to change! The problem of affordability in contemporary society is a crisis of capitalism. Socialism broadly is belief in any set of policies that tax or regulate the private sector of the economy in the name of collective well-being. Most Americans equate socialism with communism of the kind witnessed in Eastern bloc countries and China during the Cold War. That state socialism eliminated the private sector of the economy and market competition. But in Scandinavia (and to a lesser extent much of Western Europe) we see democratic socialism which permits capitalism to function, but imposes higher taxes to pay for health care, education and other social services. Read that as capitalism as a principle of wealth creation and socialism as a principle for the redistribution of wealth and opportunity.

Capitalism grows out of another great philosophical tradition ... liberalism. Liberalism is the belief in individual liberty, equality before the law and the protection of property rights. Economic liberalism emphasizes property rights and a fee market economy. Across the 19th century the polarization of wealth created by industrial capitalism saw the emergence of social liberalism as a doctrine foregrounding equality, not just before the law, but of opportunities to pursue ‘life, liberty and happiness.’

Equality in the realm of opportunity required government intervention into the economy to ameliorate the inequality produced by capitalism. That also meant higher taxes to pay for health care, education and other social services ... Sounds a lot like socialism!

Therein lies the conundrum for the Democratic Party and the way it handles candidates like Zahilay, Wilson and Mamdani. Zahilay identifies as a Democrat and his political positions place him squarely in the left-populist wing of the party. He’s not saying, perhaps because he’s savvy enough not to, but I would categorize him as a social liberal. As I’ve shown that’s not much different than democratic socialism.

Bernie Sanders’ unflinching presentation of himself as a democratic socialist since his 2016 presidential run, coming as it did in the wake of the Great Recession, has done much to popularize socialism in recent times among the young. Also, a lot of us have been socialist-oriented or open to socialistic policies since the 1960s. The FBI Counterintelligence Program repressed much of the extreme left, but many of the rest of us put our heads down, immersed ourselves in civil society and kept our views to ourselves.

Sanders’ popularity and the emergence of young charismatic socialists like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Mamdani have served to make the word more palatable in mainstream political discourse for young and old alike.  The Democratic establishment is thrilled that affordability was embraced by center-left candidates like Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia as well as Mamdani in New York City. But while the two governors elect stop with groceries and gasolene, Mamdani’s platform includes housing, healthcare and transportation.

Zahilay the social liberal and Wilson, the democratic socialist share those policy agendas as well. They speak to the concerns and real human needs of working and middle-class people in an economy that makes the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness out of reach for more and more people.

The late African revolutionary Amilcar Cabral puts it best.

Always bear in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas, ... They are fighting to win

material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the

future of their children.[4]

So, Democrats can try to pigeonhole the Wilsons and the Zahilays of the world into abstract ideas, or they can embrace them because they are fighting for to win better material benefits for their families and communities in the future.

 

Figure 1. Progressivism and Ideology

                                                                Liberalism                              Populism (Sanders)

Economic Policy Orientation

social welfarist capitalism

social welfarist capitalism,         democratic socialism

 

 

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[1]Brad Holden, Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) or Organized Protest (CHOP) (Seattle),

Posted 12/30/2023, https://www.historylink.org/File/22870

 

[2] Smith, Rich (June 7, 2019). "Larry Gossett Faces His First Serious Challenger in Girmay Zahilay". The Stranger.

[3] Erica C. Barnett, October 18, 2018, Seattle Magazine, https://seattlemag.com/features/seattles-most-influential-people-2018-transit-riders-union-general-secretary/

 

[4] Amilcar Cabral, ‘Tell No Lies,! Claim No Easy Victories! Revolution in Guinea. Mothly Review Press, 1969, p. 86.

Do Not Lose Faith in Our Own Strength or Our Own Future

 

                     Do Not Lose Faith in Our Own Strength or Our Own Future 

My debt to the analytical framework of Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony is well-known to those of you who follow my posts. I have been particularly interested in his concept of the “war of position”: the cultural and political contestation within the institutions of state and civil society. A la Gramsci, I believe that contention over the values society should be organized around occur at a myriad of micro-sites in the labyrinthine institutional systems of modern capitalism.  

In July 2023 I remarked on the massive street protests that had occurred on the left during movements from civil rights in the 1950s and 60s to BLM in the 2010s and 2020. Those episodes rocked the political establishment to its foundations. We won some incremental victories and we imagined that we had taken the first steps to setting the social order on a fundamentally new course. In the institutional setting it was akin to “a fierce artillery attack (that) seemed to have destroyed the enemy’s entire defensive system.”[1] But as Gramsci points out, in modern industrial societies like the US “the superstructures (or institutions) of civil society are like the trench systems of modern warfare.” Actually our street protests and eloquent pleas in the media, etc., “had only destroyed the outer perimeter, and our valient comrades found “ themselves confronted by a line of defence which was still effective,” because “the defenders (of the system) are not demoralized, nor do they abandon their positions, even among the ruins, nor do they lose faith in their own strength or their own future.”[2]

Corporate America, the Federalist Society, White Christian nationalists ... these are the bastions of the “system” which have withstood massive assaults over the generations, have not lost faith in their own strength of their own futures. They are still there and show no signs of going away.

In the traumatizing wake of Trump’s return to office many of us have been in a quandary as to what to do to stop his regime’s massive assault on progressivism. I am among many who have advised us not to obey in advance, and to defend institutions.[3] In my posts I have done my best to chronicle those who have done those two things.  

As I digest the outcomes of local and state elections across the country this week it occurs to me that after Trumps frontal assault on agencies, bureaucracies, cities and entire states we in Blue America have been reeling. But from the beginning there have been some naysayers willing to stick their necks out in defiance, including, let me just once again acknowledge, several federal court judges in this regard.

Recent cracks in Trumps edifice include:

·       Farmers, many of whom voted for Trump, are starting to have buyer’s remorse as China begins to import from elsewhere  in response to Trump’s tariffs.

·       When ABC late night host Jimmy Kimmel suggested that the alleged killer of Charlie Kirk was a MAGA person, ABC suspended his show. ABC is a Disney company. Consumers demonstrated their power by dropping their subscriptions from Hulu and other Disney + streaming services. Disney + services lost nearly 3 million subscribers in September. Kimmel was quickly put back on the air. [4]

·       In October a number of renowned artists and cultural organizations announced a series of events they’re calling “Fall of Freedom” to oppose the “authoritarian overreach by the Trump administration” in the world of the arts and cultural production. Scheduled for November 21, “Fall for Freedom” will involve filmmakers Ava DuVernay and Michael Moore, and leading institutions such as the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art (New York) Institute of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles) and the Woolly Mammoth Theater (Washington, D.C.). It’s billed as parallel to the “No Kings Movement” orchestrated by Indivisible.[5]

And on November 4th is their first opportunity to be heard since last November voters nationwide delivered strong rebukes to the direction the country is going under Trump 2.0. The sweeping victories of Abigail Spanberger for governor of Virginia and Mikie Sherrill for governor of New Jersey defied pundits seeing races they thought were tightening in recent weeks. The victory of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, who ran as a Democrat, in the New York City mayoral election was also important for those opposing Trump, but for different reasons. Add to these the overwhelming approval of Proposition 50 in California, which counters Texas’s mid-decade pro-Republican gerrymandering of Congressional seats with the same tactics for California, and one sees many reasons to hope that we can sustain our multiracial democracy.

New Jersey and Virginia are different than New York City. Sherrill and Spanberger ran as centrist while Mamdani represents the progressive wing of the party. But they all ran on bread-and-butter issues of affordability and inflation in the costs of groceries, gasolene and in Mamdani’s case housing. These were all things Trump and MAGA were supposed to fix, yet inflation in these areas and more continues apace fueled by Trump’s tariffs. The pushback from private places in civil society and the expression of anti-MAGA sentiments in the political sphere suggest that after being back on our heels the broad left has steadied itself and is pushing back.

So now I want to flip the script. I have suggested in earlier posts that we must defend Blue spaces against the Trumpian onslaught. The results from this week’s elections suggest that Red America behind Trump is being confronted by a line of defence which was still effective,” that WE  “are not demoralized.” WE have not “ abandoned our positions, ... nor (lost) faith in (our) own strength or (our) future.”[6] Rather, WE are fighting the war of position in the trenches of civil society and the state. Hitch up your seatbelts. That struggle is far from over.

 

 

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1 Hoare, Q., & Smith, G.N. (Eds.). (1971). Selections from (Gramsci) the prison notebooks. New York: International Publishers. (p. 235)

 

2 Ibid.

 

[3] Most prominently, Timothy Snyder in On Tyranny,

[4] It should be noted that Kimmel’s program is still scheduled for cancellation when his contract expires next year. See https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/disney-lost-nearly-3-million-subscribers-after-jimmy-kimmel-suspension-report/ar-AA1OV7V4

 

[5] Small, Z. Artist Plan to Unite in Defiance,” New York Times, Octber 15, 2025, p. C5.

[6] Hoare and Smith, p. 235.

We Are the Blue American Nation

 

We Are the Blue American Nation!

Speech delivered at No Kings Rally, Bellingham Washington, October 18, 2025

Vernon Damani Johnson

l. We believe in Democracy! In fact, we believe in Multiracial Democracy!

a.Trump’s nation, the Red Nation, has abandoned democracy.  It’s architects, the authors of Project 2025, have espoused belief in “the constitutional republic.” This is basically two things: First, that the authority to rule should not be hereditary. That authority should emanate from the people, not family lineage. Secondly, though authority to rule comes from the people, it need not necessarily be democratic. That is to say that a constitutional republic does not need to be based on the will of the majority.

b. The founding fathers were not democrats. They were indeed constitutional republicans. We can’t forget that none of the original 13 states allowed all adults over the age of 18 to vote ... We can’t forget that the Electoral College was created as a check on majority rule.

ll. The founders were afraid of you, the demos. They feared democracy. But once the genie of government by the people, and for the people was let out of the bottle, the trajectory of American history took on a life of its own.

a.The Red Nation wants to destroy the democracy that popular movements fought so hard to build across the 20^th century.

lll.

a. The Red Nation opposes reproductive freedom for women and women’s equality in general.

b. The Red Nation Objects to LGBTQI rights and gender affirming care for trans and queer people.

c. The Red Nation is against the right of workers to unionize and bargain with the bosses over the conditions of work.

d. They deny climate change. Trump has already gutted the staffing of the Enviro-metal Protection Agency. He has halted the disbursement of funds allocated to implement the Inflation Reduction Act, which has significant monies in it to move us toward a Green economy ...

e. His policies have the potential to do great harm to the impact of Washington’s Climate Commitment Act; the most comprehensive state level environmental legislation in the country.

lV. In essence, the Red Nation represents most of the values our Blue Nation opposes ... But its bedrock, the principle that excites its base the most and leaves them salivating, is white nationalism ... White supremacy!

a. This Red nationalism, the traditional American nation, is built upon the dispossession of the indigenous people and Black slavery.

b. The largest percentage of the Latino population are of Mexican descent. They are mestizo, part European, but the other part is indigenous. They also were dispossessed in the Mexican War (1846-48).

c. When Trump rode down the escalator in 2016, he led with “build the border wall” and stricter immigration policies. His crackdown in major cities as I speak today, and in the places where Latino immigrants work shows his continuing focus on curtailing the browning of America.

d. Trump has tapped into a deep vein in the White American psyche ... the concern by many White people that a country founded by them and only for them will be irretrievable if something drastic doesn’t happen.

e. Christian nationalist, anti-gun control fanatics, libertarians, and avowed racists have forged a coalition intent on terminating the conversation about what it means to be American.

f. They know they are a minority of the population. That’s why they are so excited by Trump. He is blatantly subverting longstanding democratic processes.  His disciples in Congress and on the Supreme Court remain silent ignoring the checks on executive power at the core of the Constitution.

g. So as much as they talk about returning to the traditions of the founding era, it is they, of the Red American nation who hate the seminal principle underlying the American idea --- government authority emanates from the people, and that therefore, there can be no one-person rule! There can be no dictator! There must be No Kings! (Chant! NO KINGS! NO KINGS! NO KINGS!)

h. We are believers in the grand American traditions of democratic conversation and checks on personalistic forms of rule.

V. We must not just talk about defending the values of our Blue Nation, but we must stand up for those values in all the institutional spaces where we can still prevail ... This will not be easy, and many people will be hurt as a result (but folks being hurt already; so we might as well push back and go down swinging!)

a. But I’m not talking about us going down and out! I’m talking about push back from our institutional spaces.

Heroes for the Day

-         All of the universities thus far have refused to sign Trump’s Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. Google it. It would end academic freedom and free speech on university campuses (signees supposedly would receive preferential funding from federal government.

-         Governor Gavin Newsome of California, who recently said that any public universities in California who signed the compact, lose their state funding.

-         Costco Corporation who basically told Trump they value diversity and an inclusive environment in the workplace, saying it was good for business.

-         Washington D.C. football team and Cleveland baseball team who were pressured by Trump to change their mascots back to the offensive Native ones ... Neither have budged! The Cleveland Guardians ... announced that they have engaged with their community and invested a lot of effort into the name change discussion, and they’re not going back!

-         To a regional school superintendent here in Washington who I heard say on a panel that “call it what you want! But I don’t know how an educator cannot recognize that a student body is diverse, that the school culture must therefore be inclusive, and giving each student a fair opportunity to learn requires equity ...

-         To all the federal judges below the Supreme Court level who have rendered rulings finding the administration’s action illegal, and even unconstitutional.

c. These are examples. But look around you! They are not as strong as they look. If all of us who oppose them push back in big ways in corporate and nonprofit settings, and in any number of small ways in our daily lives I believe that Trump 2.0 and Red Nationalism won’t hold up.

d. Since the soldiers in Blue marched to victory in the battle to end slavery, our Blue nation has invested over 150 years into making good on one other foundational American idea ... that all of us are equal before the law. And that in the end must include even those would be King!

(Chant!) NO KINGS! NO KINGS! NO KINGS!

Robert Sarazin Blake and Charlie Maliszewski ... Come on up!

Join in leading the singing of one of the great songs of the labor movement and the civil rights, “We Shall Not Be Moved!

We shall not, We shall not be moved! We shall not, We shall not be moved!

Just like a tree that’s planted in the water, We shall not be moved!

-         With voices raised together ... We shall not be moved! (3 times, repeat 3^rd)

-         We’re Standing up for Justice      “     “     “

-         Honor the Indigenous                    “      “    “

-         Standing with Farmworkers         “     “     “

-         We Honor the Constitution         “      “     “

-         We’re Fighting against Fascism   “     “     “

-         We’re Fighting for our Future     “     “     “

Thank you! Now check out the tabling organizations to see how you can get actively involved.

How Trumpian Fascism Looks from Europe

 

Back from my travels in Ireland and Scotland with some observations about the impact of Trumpism 2.0 on Europe. Landing in Dublin on August 27^th I was surprised (though I shouldn’t have been) on the ride from the airport to our hotel by how much the suburbs of the city with steel and glass office complexes resembled an American city. But when we arrived at our hotel in the “Temple Bar“ neighborhood of Dublin, we were in the old section of the city humming with tourists.

The Republic of Ireland offers a distinct reality from the rest of Western Europe. Born in the crucible of the struggle against British imperialism in the 1920s, it was an ally to the movements to end European colonialism in Africa and Asia after World War Two. As soon as we arrived, we saw graffiti saying “Free Palestine” and posters with the Irish and Palestinian flag side by side. Ireland is a White country that can empathize with the historic yearning for Palestinian self-determination.

Ireland had already recognized a Palestinian state in May and Great Britain and France joined 155 other UN member states in recognizing Palestinian statehood at the General Assembly meeting last month. The former Middle Eastern imperialists, Britain and France are late to the dance but add to the growing isolation of Israel and the US on this issue. Ireland and Spain are also, thus far, the only European states to go as far as declaring the Israeli military campaign in Gaza a genocide. Of course, none of that matters much if the US continues to supply Israel with weapons.

As a participant in the movement to end apartheid in South Africa I’ll remind you that the roots of that movement go back to 1958, when the All-African People’s Conference in Accra, Ghana called for a boycott of South African products. It was taken up by British anti-colonial activists the following year. That launched a campaign to “boycott, divest and sanction” South Africa that culminated in diplomatic isolation of the country and global economic sanctions against it in 1986.[1]

It is no accident that today’s global movement to similarly isolate Israel is called BDS: Boycott, Divest and Sanction! It is unfortunate that Trump is US president as genocide is unfolding in Gaza. There may be no human life left to extend self-determination to, before the Israelis have completed their mission there.

In another sign of growing US isolation European NATO defense ministers met in Brussels in late August to declare efforts to buttress their collective support for Ukraine. Stocks in European defense industries are trending upward in anticipation of increased production in those sectors.[2] 

Topping off this specter of US global isolation was the Shanghai Cooperation summit of ten Eurasian countries that took place August 31-September 1. The organization was formed around Russia and China in 2001 to oppose Western global hegemony and now includes Iran, India and Pakistan.[3]

The outcomes of talks were not publicized. But in his speech Chinese president Xi Jinping observed that “a new phase of turbulence” in global affairs existed and called upon member states to collaborate to erect a “more just and balanced international governance framework.” The proceedings portended “a closer relationship among its members at a time when the world has been roiled by U.S. trade policies and tariffs.”[4] A few weeks later Trump addressed the UN General Assembly in a rambling speech littered with false claims and insults to the international community.[5]

In July I wrote that the US is exhausted by the challenges of global leadership as norms demanding a wide range of human rights have broadened. It is abdicating that leadership at a time when China is stepping up its campaign to mobilize support for its illiberal path to economic and social development.

Who will defend “liberal democracy” and the idea of relatively open societies? The US may be distancing itself from the entire world in many ways, but it shares one glaring problem with Europe. They all support stricter immigration policies in order to keep their countries White! Great Britain, France and Germany, the other great powers of the White world, are presently governed by centrist parties or coalitions, which endorsed the neoliberal decline of their working classes over the last generation and opening their borders to accommodate refugees from the Middle East and Africa.

The particulars of anti-immigrant politics differ in each country (perhaps a topic for another post). Where I traveled in Great Britain there was the “Unite the Kingdom” rally on September 13^th. It drew over 100,000 people to central London. Leader Tommy Robinson declared that the march was for “free speech, British heritage and culture” claiming that asylum seekers and other immigrants had more rights than the “British public, the people that built this nation.”[6]

Robinson’s movement is farther to the right than Nigel Farage’s Reform Party. It was Reform that fueled the vote for Britian to leave the European Union that was successful in 2016. Opposition to White immigration from low-income countries in the EU was central to that campaign. Britain has not fared so well economically since BREXIT. But after some time in the wilderness, Reform is back. It currently leads Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party in national polling. And though Britain doesn’t have to have elections until 2029, Starmer’s lack of “vision” and recent cabinet shakeups have left his government weakened.

Farage has pledged to deport hundreds of thousands of “irregular migrants” and not comply with the European Convention on Human Rights for a trial period of five years. If Farage is skillful, Reform will capture the Unite the Kingdom vote whenever Britain next holds elections.

Elon Musk was among speakers from far right parties from France and Germany at the Unite the Kingdom rally. Trump can thus, be seen as the leader of the neo-fascist movement across the Western democratic world and even in places like Brazil and Argentina. Against that back drop I ask again “who will defend democracy?”

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[1] Johnson and Dickinson, “International Norms and the End of Apartheid in South Africa,”  Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17533171.2015.1054224

[2] “European defense pledge pressure to end the war after Russian strike on Kyiv,” AP World News. https://apnews.com/article/europe-ukraine-defense-ca215008a9b7120399dffb1cfc48bd08; European defense stocks rise, Grieg Cameron and David Leask, “Battle Stations,” Sunday Times. September 7, 2025, p. 17.

[3] It also includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus.

[4] Anniek Bao, SCO summit 2025: Key takeaways from Beijing’s push to reshape global order, CNBC. September 2, 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/02/sco-summit-2025-key-takeaways.html

 

[5]“7 key moments from Trump’s U.N. speech,” PBS News. September 23, 2025. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/7-key-moments-from-trumps-u-n-speech

[6] Clashes in London as 110,000 join far-right rally against immigration, ALJAZEERA, September 13, 2025.

  https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/13/over-100000-attend-london-rally-led-by-far-right-activist-tommy-robinson

 

Defending Blue Locations

 

Defending Blue Locations

The Blue Nation is rallying itself. Like a prizefighter staggered by an initial barrage of blows to the body, which left us staggered, our peeps are finding their legs and pushing back. A few examples are instructive and offer us models for our behavior in every nook and cranny of the country.

I heard a CEO of a major nonprofit organization speaking recently.[1] Her organization practices DEI in its institutional operations. It receives very little in the way of federal government funding. She declared that if anyone asked her if she was worried about federal retribution for the organization clinging to DEI practices. Her retort: ‘I tell people that we refuse to take federal money because WE object to its White supremacist values that would take our country back to the 19^th century.’

On a recent family visit to Florida, we visited a local museum of African American history. We were fortunate to meet the woman who had been a driving force in the museum’s founding. It was part of an interpretive history tour one could take to witness sites of the rich history of the battles against Jim Crow in this corner of the South. They had some federal support via the Smithsonian Institute but are largely funded through private donors. However, she declared that the museum would not be scrubbing its website nor the message one received while visiting.

And just yesterday I had lunch with a former student of mine who works for a big tech company. They had previously openly declared their implementation of DEI policies. They no longer do that but continue to operate ‘in he same way as they did’ before Trump got re-elected. She is one of two White people in a regional work group of eight that includes six brown people from around Latin America.  

These are heartening examples of Blue locations where our nationals are refusing to obey in advance to Red nation demands that multiracialism be erased from our national psyche. There must be many more examples near where you live. When you hear about them, support them with your time, money, and physical presence!

 

 

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[1] I’m choosing not to name the individuals or institutions involved here to protect them from targeting by Red Nation enemies.