Find Your People and go Forward Together

As I wrote last week, I was invited to two new local Trump/GOP opposition groups that have formed in my (very) red county. Both groups hold meetings on Thursdays, which meant I had one in the morning and one in the evening.

Prior to the meetings I saw myself as a kind of an emissary from the county Democrats, but that changed when I met with the groups and started listening to them – more and more I’m convinced we need a mass, face to face public movement of liberals to counter fascism and that is going to include a lot of people who don’t consider themselves Democrats.

Morning meeting:

This meeting was held in a room at the public library in the largest town in the county (population- 7000), where I live and is women-only. There were ten attendees, eleven if you include the tattooed library employee who was clearly a fellow traveler and sympathetic to the cause. We always get the librarians - and happy to have them!

This group is college educated, classic midwestern “wine moms” – not a derogatory term, my youngest son and his friends call me a wine mom. Their big issues seem to be foreign policy: Ukraine, NATO, the US threatening Mexico and Canada and Denmark and Greenland and US Republicans kissing Putin’s ass. They also travel and they were very concerned with Donald Trump’s ICE thugs searching and detaining travelers for the offense of opposing Trump politically.

They decided they needed a name and came up with a list (the librarian contributed to this). The choices were Liberty Forum, Better Together, Progressive Alliance, Forward Together or Peoples Voice. They voted and Forward Together won. They next decided to protest outside a GOP fundraiser that will be held close to here on April 16:  

I asked this group if they wanted me to post info about the group on the Facebook page of the county Democratic Party and they declined. I joined anyway.

Evening Meeting

This group assembles in the firehouse meeting room of a village on the NW edge of the county, lower income but very Right wing. I have canvassed there in years past and Democrats are a tough sell, let me tell you.

This group, called “Find Your People”, was much bigger, thirty or more, included two men and was much more economically diverse than the AM group, probably a majority of non college, much rowdier and more fun, frankly.

 “Find Your People” are concerned with Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, the US Department of Education and funding for disabled kids, and LBGT rights. This group were also much more outspokenly negative on the Democratic Party than the morning wine moms.

They talked about how they can’t discuss these issues at work because they are surrounded by Right wingers but how they argue with local Trumpsters on Facebook. One Hispanic attendee told us about how her brother is a Trump supporter and she tells him “we’re Mexican! He hates us!” to no avail.

“Find Your People” want to take part in the national day of action on April 5^th and also plan to attend the Ramaswamy fundraiser and picket. I also joined this group. All and all a very hopeful day of on the ground opposition “green shoots” poking up as spring arrives in a very Trumpy part of the country.