The Hands Off demonstrations are different. They are an early warning signal that, as one pundit put it, “Americans have freedom in our DNA” and they are proving it by taking to the streets with their homemade signs.
As a long-time demonstrator from the 1960s to today, I believe these homegrown demonstrations are responding to a multiplicity of issues from diverse civic nonprofits. If you haven’t yet attended one of these events, I encourage you to go, if only to browse and read the remarkable variety of signs expressing the heartfelt concerns of ordinary Americans who are fed up with the endless threats and orders “flooding the zone” to bully and intimidate immigrants, government workers, federal agencies, veterans, unions, teachers, university researchers, gender minorities, environmentalists, even the investor classes confounded by the thoughtless Tariff “policies,” and really, anyone who disagrees with Trump’s personal agenda (and that includes banning low flow shower heads :)
Full disclosure: I am a retired educator with, among other specializations, a masters degree in teaching social studies. I confess I was surprised and delighted to witness such a bottom up groundswell of defenders of democracy and vocal resistance to authoritarian dictates from Trump. Add billionaire extraordinaire Elon Musk and the Big Tech broligarchy and suddenly the power imbalance and wealth inequality are drawn in sharp relief, even in the corporate media.
I think what is really happening is the beginning of a cultural shift that can not only end the current end game of the GOP’s long history of opposing government programs in favor of private sector contracting, but has the potential to spearhead the transition away from our unsustainable neoliberal economics and undemocratic political status quo to a more ecological economic and democratic political system.
Here are seven talking points that support such an optimistic scenario.
1) Trump is a one-off. As Thom Hartmann observes, there is no one who can replace Trump.
2) Fusion Politics. Rev. Dr. William Barber II coined this term for movements that connect across silos and build coalitions at the national, state, and local levels. Indivisible, 50501, Public Citizen, and many other citizen led nonprofits have cross promoted the Hands Off demonstrations and the result has been a seamless, seemingly spontaneous uprising in all 50 states with as many as 1400 local events that collectively engaged around 5 million people.
3) Not Left, Not Right. The Hands Off movement is “center out” and rejects the either/or polarization of government service (bad) versus private sector services (good). Our U.S. constitutional democracy with checks and balances between three branches of government is the key to resisting the executive dominance over the legislative and judicial branches.
4) Global Village. For all the negative aspects of commercial radio and tv and algorithmic manipulations of social media, the end result is now a widespread awareness that we all live in a global village, and for all our ethnic diversity, there is only one race of human beings.
5) Transition to a Planetary Society. Yes, many white folks are still “pigmentally” challenged, so to speak, but transitioning to a diverse planetary society is a big ask and it will take time to overcome our tribal habits of fearing the “others.”
6) Ecological Values. The cultural shift to institutional norms and national and international governmental structures that support a planetary civilization cannot succeed without a corresponding shift to an ecological understanding of nature. Social and environmental justice organizations now share a common “ecosystemic” approach rooted in ecological values.
7) Transition to Ecological Cultures. Already the Hands Off demonstrations have spread abroad as Trump 2.0 has disrupted the unsustainable global economy and the emerging multipolar world of nuclear armed great powers. Between the Scylla and Charibdis of global warming caused by the fossil fuel powered global consumer economy and threats of nuclear warfare between regional economic rivals vying for control of their spheres of influence, a habitable earth now hangs in the balance. Either we transition to ecological cultures, or our young species will not become successful ancestors.
Might the millions of pro-democracy demonstrators resisting the rise of authoritarian rule catalyze the emergence of planetary wide ecological culture? We are living the question. Our modern understanding of Evolution offers a framework for how bottom up change emerges. Not the jungle of competition among the strongest, but chaos theory and self organizing systems — embedded with the intelligence of natural systems — symbiotically creating the emergence of new systems to supplant the old. This new understanding of evolution operates at all levels, from cell biology and the formation of multicellular animals to cultural evolution and the rise and fall of civilizations.
Today, we know what’s coming down, and as we move into the Sixth Great Extinction of life on earth, the stakes are high to transition to a livable, ecological culture that supplants the current unsustainable neoliberal economic and neoconservative foreign policies.
Evolution does not stop so we must now use our awareness to ask what is emerging to supplant this old order that is failing. Here are just a few on the leading edge of systemic change.
> Modern Monetary Theory and Funding of the Progressive Agenda
> Public Banking and Local Investment Strategies
> Community Solar (Institute for Local Self Reliance)
> Regenerative Farming and Permaculture Design
> Rights of Nature (Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund)
> Organic Food Movement (Organic Consumers Association)
> Electrification of Transit (Solutionary Rail)
> Project Drawdown to Reverse Global Warming (Paul Hawken)
> Transition Town Movement (Rob Hopkins)
> EcoChallenge.Org and Earth Institute Discussion Courses
> Nonviolent Communications (NVC, Marshall Rosenberg)
> Waking Up (Mindfulness and Sam Harris)
> Alternative Medicine and Health (Dr. Zach Bush)
> Entheogenic Plants/Mushrooms (Paul Stamets)
> Parapsychology Research (Institute for Noetic Sciences)
> Fusion Politics (Rev. Dr. William Barber)
> Move To Amend (Constitutional Amendment to get money out of politics)
> Democracy Movement (David Orr)
All of us who collectively engage in these movements are co-creating the future from the bottom up. Find your passion and join us.
For more detail on how we might make this transition, see my longer article on Medium, The Path to an Ecological Future for Humanity.
