What if my telling you there's still time to save democracy keeps you from thinking you need to act now?
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Read the post that inspired this episode: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/mind-the-gap
Watch this episode: https://youtu.be/YYqsM-LoYlM
This week's "Next Comes What" focuses on the difference between staying on top of the administration's attacks on democracy and actually doing something to save democracy. Nearly a year into the podcast, Andrea Pitzer outlines the ways that Trump continues to overreach, even as he grows more and more unpopular. The federal government is in the process of hiring people who seem willing to assault Americans (documented and not) on the streets. Yet it doesn't have enough of them to silence the majority of Americans who oppose Trump. Now is the time to act. But Andrea wonders whether constantly telling listeners that there are still actions they can take is too reassuring. Do people get lulled into thinking things will just be fine, and they don't need to stand up?
In the last week, a Congressional candidate, a Chicago pastor, and elected officials have faced attack or arrest by law enforcement agents ostensibly carrying out immigration operations. But what most of us need to do in our communities is nothing nearly that heroic. Andrea looks at rising food insecurity and ways we can tackle the effects of immigration detention and tariffs close to home. She closes with a look at a study by university researchers who suggest that most U-turns—even those that radically reorient a country toward authoritarianism—wind up leading to greater democracy in the end. Authoritarian U-turns are often followed by counter-shifts that reverse the harms and result in the growth of democratic rights and institutions. But one key to these reversals is that they need to happen quickly. It's up to us to go to work in our communities today checking Trump's power and rebuilding our freedoms.