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On the one hand, there’s no sugarcoating how progressives feel as President Trump retakes office: rough.

Trump and his allies in Congress are already rolling out plans to cut taxes for billionaires, slash services for the rest of us, pollute the planet, and deport people who’ve lived here their whole lives.

But if you look closely, you’ll see signs people aren’t just going to accept all this. Here are five that caught my eye from this past election year.

1. Populist anger is boiling over. 

Americans have had it with economic elites. Union activity has been on an upswing for a few years running now, with union petition filings in 2024 significantly up over 2023.

Students with protest signs sitting in a hall

On January 22, the Ohio Student Association disrupted Ohio Senator Jerry Cirino’s press conference announcing SB 1, a regurgitated version of the widely unpopular SB 83. OSA members showed up loud and proud on day one at the Ohio Statehouse to defy this attempt to dismantle Ohio’s higher education system. The re-introduced bill aims to centralize control over Ohio’s public higher education system, threatens academic free speech, and the state’s ability to attract and retain top students and educators.

Students gathered in the atrium holding signs and graduation caps reading “Listen to Students” and “R.I.P. my degree” before marching to the hallway outside the Harding Press Room. Students chanted as incoming Chair of the Senate Higher Education Committee, Kristina Roegner, took the stage, her speech overshadowed by the booming chanting of college students: “Higher ed will be dead”. 

And now Trump consciousness purports to claim – or reclaim – control over America: the land of white Christian nationalists and no one else, damnit!

But of course that level of selfishness – mine, mine, mine! – is only possible to maintain with a huge helping of fear alongside it: fear of the enemy. Fear of “them.”

Thus Alexandra Villarreal, writing in the Guardian about Trump 2.0’s first day in office (on Martin Luther King Day), noted: “He immediately involved the military, ordering the armed forces to ‘seal’ the US’s borders ‘by repelling forms of invasion including unlawful mass migration.’

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

White man

Governor Mike DeWine recently appointed his Lt. Governor Jon Husted to fill J.D. Vance’s vacant U.S. Senate seat. Innovation Ohio states: “This decision underscores a continued alignment with corporate price-gougers and further political divisions that threaten the well-being of Ohioans. The appointment raises significant concerns about the direction Senator Husted would take Ohio and our nation.”

“For Americans who may not know Jon Husted, allow an Ohioan to tell you all about him,” said Nick Tuell, Senior Communication Director at Innovation Ohio. “Husted is backed by big businesses that price-gouge us at the supermarket and at the gas pump, while they post record profits. As Ohio House Speaker, Husted eliminated taxes for big corporations at the expense of higher sales taxes on our everyday goods. Jon Husted is a career politician who always backs his big business pals over Ohio working families. He doesn’t care about us, he is only looking out for himself,” wrote an Innovation Ohio press statement.

Details about event

Wednesday, January 22, 2025, 6:00 PM
OHCRN - the Ohio Community Rights Network invites you for a conversation with Susan VonderHaar and Jim Shenk of Cincinnati about creating intentional community. Susan is the Director of the Cincinnati Permaculture Institute and will introduce the practice of Permaculture and present how the ethics and principles of the natural world should inform us how we create human-built systems. Jim is author of "Creating an Urban Ecovillage; a Model for Revitalizing our Cities." He will discuss the interconnectedness of Ecology and Community in their EcoVillage experience.  

Windmills

Among his many actions on Monday in his first day as U.S. president, Donald Trump ordered a “temporary withdrawal” of any new federal leasing of the Outer Continental Shelf for new offshore wind projects.

As Reuters reported, Trump “suspended new federal offshore wind leasing pending an environmental and economic review, saying windmills are ugly, expensive and harm wildlife. ‘We're not going to do the wind thing. Big, ugly windmills. They ruin your neighborhood,’ he said. Without providing evidence, he said offshore wind projects were behind an increase in whale deaths off the U.S. East Coast in recent years.”

New York State and other states have embraced offshore wind. As its governor, Kathy Hochul, declared in her “State of the State” address a week earlier, “We recommitted to reducing carbon emissions with offshore wind off the coast of Long Island.”

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