DO NOT REST!

 Dec. 14, 2025

It’s easy to be lulled into thinking that the end of our national nightmare is in sight: court decisions are curbing some of the administration’s excesses, the Republican-dominated Indiana legislature grew a spine and refused to gerrymander, and even Congressional Republicans appear to want to abandon ship on some issues.

The recent November election indicated America’s swing toward democracy and Democrats. The National Trust is suing Trump for destroying the White House East Wing for his mega-ballroom. By the evidence of his swollen ankles, his frequent falling asleep in meetings, and his bruised and bandaged hands, Trump is failing. He’s saying increasingly crazier things about the economy (it gets a grade of A+++++) and how many dolls and pencils you should buy your kids for Christmas.

But please, let us not be lulled into a false and dangerous optimism.

First of all, enormous damage to our country has occurred and continues to occur. The national government has been gutted for its money and its data; many thousands of government workers with the greatest experience and expertise are gone. War, despite Trump’s Nobel prize aspirations, looms everywhere on the planet. The diplomatic world order and the global economy lie in tatters. Fossil fuels are king, the already nightmarish effects of climate change be damned. If any of these things can be reversed or at least paused, it will take generations.

But second of all: What do you think is going to happen after Trump? Not what we fantasize. There will be no sudden progressive paradise, no sudden restorations of Medicaid, the ACA subsidies, election regulation, climate regulation, AI regulation, government watchdogs restored. President Vance, Stephen Miller, Russell Vought, Pete Hegseth, and the entire herd of Machiavellis will remain in charge, at the very least for three more years. Trump could be gone, but Trumpism won’t. Perhaps most important of all, the Supreme Court with its lifetime appointments will still continue to endorse their actions.

Furthermore, even as Trump is failing, his government continues to pile on the authoritarianism right now. Our essential freedoms are disappearing before our eyes. The assault on freedom of speech began with universities and public schools, and the hamstringing of media and law firms; media takeovers continue to pass major platforms, newspapers, and networks into the hands of a few billionaires.

And now, protest itself, a precious right guaranteed under the constitution as freedoms of assembly and speech, is under attack. Trump and Bondi have called protesters violent insurrectionists, extremists, domestic terrorists; Pam Bondi’s memorandum to the FBI and federal prosecutors calls for the forming of repression squads, and paying snitches to turn dissenters in.

Trump wants to revoke birthright citizenship, a principle burned in to the US constitution, and the Supreme Court will twist itself into a pretzel to figure out how to make that idea look legal. A brand new initiative proposes to revoke the longstanding status of dual citizenship: dual citizens would be required to decide which country to be loyal to and give up the other. Do we understand what this would do to their tax status, their healthcare, their freedom of movement, their families?

If you follow any political writers or elected officials who are crowing that everything is going to be okay--just wait and democracy will be restored, Merry Christmas, keep shopping--please do not rest, do not go passive. Even the national resistance group, Indivisible, seems to be taking time off—while Trump’s wrecking ball never stops--: they’re not scheduling another national protest until the end of March!

We have gathered in Poulsbo almost every Sunday since the beginning of the Trump Administration. We’ve reported to you on the state of the union and the state of Kitsap and Poulsbo. Sometimes our reports have sounded paranoid and alarmist, but we’re sad to say that they have consistently proven true. Folks, things are not going to get better when Trump is gone.

The missing leadership, the missing x factor that will truly make a difference, is us, ordinary Americans, continuing to be loud, continuing to blow whistles and repel ICE in the cities, continuing to march peacefully and wave signs to tourists on Front Street, continuing to fill the streets and public squares everywhere, continuing to resist, continuing to help less fortunate neighbors with food and support, continuing to organize and grow the resistance, and to oblige our local city and county governments to listen and act.

Poulsbo’s City Council meets in City Hall three Wednesdays a month. Their meetings are open to the public. You can go and sit and watch the local process of governance. The mayor and council deliberate and make decisions about Poulsbo’s perennial parking issue, new businesses and the lodging tax, utilities charges, expansions of city departments, new hires, park maintenance, upcoming festivals. In addition, do they talk about the elephant in the room--the national authoritarian regime and its eventual local effects? Nope.

After World War II, after the fall of Nazi Germany, the world said Never Again, never again will we turn our eyes away from massive cruelty and inhumanity, and our implication in that madness. We fear that that lesson is getting lost in the fog of history. Complacency, a willful forgetting, threatens to return.

What can the city of Poulsbo do to resist Trumpism? What kinds of dialogue and action can our city leaders engage in to really protect the vulnerable, what kinds of public forums can it hold to really encourage free speech, what declarations and actions can it take to stand firm against the dictates of a racist and cruel regime? (There are hundreds of models to follow in current proclamations and legislation of cities and towns across the country.) What statement can our city issue to proclaim its principles of diversity and inclusion? How can it invest in “affordability”—for example, affordable housing—in a more deeply and energetically committed way than it has?

Why don’t we go as a group, say, once a month, to observe how city government works? During the council meeting’s public comments period, why don’t we step up to the mic and inspire more conscience, more activism, in our leaders?

We can do plenty with our voices and our bodies in this perilous time. It’s wonderful to have rallies, of course: our rallies show Poulsbo and its visitors that we care and we resist, and also the fact of gathering together in resistance helps our own sanity and lifts our spirits. But we need to do more: we must grow the resistance, we need get people off the couch to come march with us, we have to help fill the food banks and protect our immigrant neighbors, we must boycott the businesses that are helping to sabotage democracy, we have to go to City Hall, we have to continue calling our elected representatives. Because no one is going to lead us back to democracy but us.

We are the leaders.

This is what democracy looks like!