Fabulously Fighting Fascism
A Summer of Solidarity
America will celebrate her 249th birthday this week, but she is in distress. The June 14th No Kings Day rallies were the largest single-day protests in US history. Trump’s military birthday parade on the same day was pathetic and paled in comparison to the over 2000 joy filled, peaceful protests that filled city streets and small town squares across the country. However, the past few weeks since the rallies have been disastrous for our country.
Did You Know:
A wannabe king threw a global temper tantrum because the universe rained on his parade thus threatening world-wide security and inflicting suffering on innocent people. Trump’s un-authorized war on Iran and reckless bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites have threatened the lives of everyday people here at home and abroad. Americans overwhelmingly oppose this war, but aspiring kings don’t listen to the people.
The Big Ugly Bill disguised in propaganda doublespeak is winding its way through Congress. If passed, this bill will devastate American families, take food away from innocent children, undermine our freedoms, strip healthcare from millions of families and threaten our futures. The bill gives tax cuts to billionaires and will add an estimated $4.5 trillion to the national debt, money that will be paid back by all of us, not the billionaires.
The ugly budget bill adds $170 billion into immigration enforcement. This includes creating internment camps for our neighbors who are abducted off the streets or seized as they responsibly report to immigration courtrooms. On Tuesday, Trump toured one such camp located in the Florida Everglades that is being dubbed as Alligator Alcatraz. The location of this internment camp is intentionally located in the swampy Everglades so that if anyone successfully escapes the razor wire and cages, alligators will attack them. Most people being abducted have not committed a crime other than being undocumented, which is a civil offense—not criminal!
The Roberts Court has spent years paving the way for a MAGA dictatorship, and their latest rulings – most recently in the birthright citizenship case – show they will stop at nothing to take away our freedoms and rule for their billionaire backers. With their decision against Planned Parenthood on June 26, 2025, the MAGA Justices on the Supreme Court took away our freedom to decide what happens to and how we care for our own bodies, taking away the only affordable healthcare many of us can access.
Why It Matters:
Our country is in an authoritarian freefall. On the anniversary of our nation’s founding, we find ourselves under the oppressive, corrupt and violent reign of a wannabe king. Trump is being aided and abetted by a corrupt and recklessly unqualified Cabinet, a corrupt Roberts Court and a Congress that is impotent and ineffective. Senator Lisa Murkowski, Alaska (R) admitted last April that she was afraid, and that she is not alone. She stated that many senators are afraid of retaliation if they speak up against Trump. On Tuesday, all but three GOP senators voted to approve the senate version of the budget bill, including Lisa Murkowski. A ‘no’ vote from her would have killed the bill.
Senator Murkowski’s cowardice and submission to the threats are not unfounded. In the early morning of June 14, the same day as the No Kings protests and Trump’s military birthday parade, Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were assassinated by a gunman. The murders are considered to be politically motivated. Trump has refused to call the Governor of Minnesota to express condolences nor did he attend their funerals or comfort their grieving families. The MAGA regime sanctions violence against their political opponents. This is not what most Americans want, but this is what America has become.
What We Can Do:
We have to build a people-powered, non-violent movement if we are to survive this fascist takeover of our country. When we use the term ‘fascism’ we are not talking in hyperbole or calling anyone nasty names.
Fascism is an authoritarian form of governance that demands allegiance to a sole leader and has no tolerance for political rivals. Fascists govern by censorship, propaganda, state sanctioned violence and intimidation or elimination of opposition parties, unions and dissenters. Fascists glorify military strength and use force to pursue national goals, and reject democracy and liberal policies, pluralism and civil liberties. A fascist leader is often portrayed as a heroic figure, messianic or sent by God.
Trump is an authoritarian fascist. Our state has been a laboratory for authoritarianism for over a decade and our state government is brimming with white Christian nationalists who support Trump and his agenda. Our state legislature passed many of its own big ugly bills this 2025 session, including a big ugly budget that strips food and health care from our most vulnerable, suppresses academic freedom in our public universities and is on the path to privatizing our public schools.
H4D has teamed up with other values aligned, grass roots organizations to launch a Summer of Solidarity campaign. We are using sunflowers as a symbol of unity and resistance, and the flag as a symbol of freedom and patriotism. We have developed several resources to support Hoosiers across the state to help grow the movement, one person at a time. None of us can do everything, but all of us can do something.
Here are a few Summer of Solidarity fun things to do:
Use sidewalk chalk to draw sunflowers on your sidewalk. Share the link to the SOS2025 campaign with friends and neighbors and invite them to decorate their sidewalks too.
Take selfies with sunflowers you ‘find in the wild’, they are everywhere. Post to your social media platforms using #SOS 2025.
Paint barns, garages, fences and tool sheds with sunflowers as a symbols of solidarity and social proof there is a movement underfoot!
Host book clubs that invite conversations about threats to democracy. 1984 by George Orwell or Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury would make great summer reading as cautionary tales.
Show the movie Bad Faith in your places of worship, civic groups or community centers.
Talk with friends and neighbors who may be ‘waking up’ to the threats to their freedoms. Download our resource guide for an easy reference about how to connect with anyone across the continuum of political engagement.
Grow sunflowers in your garden, and fill your house with their sunny faces. Bring joy into this work. Joy and beauty are acts of resistance.
Hold a mini-rally at a set time and place every week. Be a sign of hope and resistance one neighborhood at a time. These folks in NY gather every Thursday, from 7-7:30 pm to be the face of solidarity and a beacon of light in response to Trump’s tyranny.
Watch for Good Trouble Lives On protests on July 17, the anniversary of the passing of Congressman John Lewis.
Despair is bad for democracy. The litany of bad news included in this post sounds like it came out of a dystopian novel, but it is all too real. Of course we will have moments of despair.
But we have one another, and if we make enough ‘good trouble’ and grow the movement, we will prevail.
Fabulously Fighting Fascism Together,
Your H4D team
Thank you for all you do. Looking forward to seeing sunflowers everywhere this summer! As for the $4.5 trillion added to the national debt by the Big Ugly Bill, PLEASE add “The Deficit Myth” by Stephanie Kelton, Ph.D., to your summer reading list. This book demonstrates that the “national debt” is not a debt like household debt, because the Federal government is the currency issuer. The rest of us (states, companies, households) are currency users. For far too long, we’ve been told we can’t afford nice things like Medicare for All because of the national debt. This book makes clear that we CAN “afford” these things, and the reason we don’t have them is a policy choice. Let’s work together to get educated about how our money system actually works!