Organizing How-Tos (and How Not-Tos) in this Whirlwind Moment

While federal workers and Latino community groups are organizing frontline opposition, hashtag phenoms like #50501 and #TeslaTakedown are filling the political vacuum--with mixed results.

National Park Service workers hung a distress signal at the top of Yosemite’s Half Dome

First, some good news:

1. Trump’s cuts and chaos are running into a buzz-saw of determined opposition from federal workers, the first people directly affected by his insanity to have the ability to take collective action together. In addition to a slew of lawsuits powered by their unions and allies, federal workers have been throwing sand in the gears with AI-generated videos mocking Trump and Musk that played inside government buildings, jeering at Musk’s ridiculous email demands; collecting and amplifying their stories via a new website they launched called We are the Builders, and running daily job fairs to support people who have been abruptly laid off—in short they are organizing!

2. While ICE patrols have fanned out across the country, harassing people simply for “looking Spanish” and threatening American citizens even after they show their passports (as just happened here in Westchester County, NY), people are also learning how to interfere with and disrupt this. In Alhambra, CA (a sanctuary city), Union de Barrio, a longstanding community group, got wind of an ICE/FBI raid getting staged in a Target parking lot and arrived en masse with megaphones to shout them off. The agents left. Here’s more on Union de Barrio’s work in Los Angeles.

3. Though most national Democratic leaders are still stuck in the mindset of “we are in the minority so there’s nothing more we can do,” Senator Bernie Sanders used last week’s congressional recess to start barnstorming swing House districts in Omaha and Iowa City on a “tour to fight oligarchy.” This is what Sanders is very good at, and he’s drawing big crowds that can only help goose local organizing work. However, as far as I know, no one has yet decided to fire up the Democratic party’s campaigning infrastructure to engage voters on the phones and doors, a suggestion I made a week ago here.

4. Protests at Tesla showrooms are proliferating. According to Alex Winter, who heard about the idea on February 10 on BlueSky when Joan Donovan suggested it and who then built the TeslaTakedown site to help people organize or find protests near them, “there have now been protests outside of Tesla locations in over 100 cities, and the movement is picking up speed and going global.” Tesla stock closed at $302 today, down from a peak of $421 less than a month ago.

5. A new national poll from the Pew Research Center finds that Americans consider “the role of money in politics” the top issue on a list of national concerns, with 72% saying it is “a very big problem” and another 21% saying it is “a moderately big problem.” This is ahead of health care affordability, inflation, the budget deficit, the ability of Democrats and Republicans to work together and poverty—all of which also rank high. Money in politics is a perennial concern but I’ve never seen it poll so high. Pew’s survey was in the field from January 27-February 2; now what could have been on people’s minds during doge days? Pro tip: talk about “Bullying Billionaires” taking over our government!

Politics Abhors a Vacuum

Barely a month ago, as the first wave of Trump’s “shock and awe” campaign shocked the country, something new calling itself the 50501 movement sprang onto our screens with a simple call to action: “Fifty Protests, Fifty States, One Day.” According to the Crowd Counting Consortium, which tracks public protests and verifies them using reputable local media reports, on February 5 there were 50501-styled rallies in 41 states, most in state capitols. Less than two weeks later, on what some started calling “Not My Presidents Day,” there was a second round of 50501-inspired protests, with as many as 10,000 people gathering in New York’s Union Square. Even if many people attended these demonstrations because they were already in motion under some other group’s banner, credit has to be given to 50501 and a few even lesser-known entities associated with it (No Voice Unheard, Build the Resistance, Voices of Florida and Political Revolution) for calling for visible action on that day, well before any of the larger, better funded and more experienced progressive groups that had been coordinating anti-Trump organizing since Election Day—Indivisible, the Working Families Party, MoveOn and some national unions like the AFT—had deemed it time to go to the streets.

50501 struck a nerve. But who were these people? Could they be trusted? Those were questions that swirled throughout organizing circles the last few weeks, as more established groups in different parts of the country pondered if they should endorse the Presidents Day rallies. It didn’t help that none of the 50501 organizers were using their full names. Even veterans of civil disobedience efforts told me they didn’t know who was doing this. At least they weren’t the Code Pink/ANSWER/People’s Forum crowd, who usually jump to the forefront of protest moments, but who are all probably struggling to figure out the correct line, now that Trump is agreeing with them that Ukraine is to blame for Russia’s invasion and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is calling for annual cuts in the Pentagon’s budget.

So it was with some anticipation that I got on 50501’s “Mass Training” Zoom last Thursday night, along with several thousand other people, hoping both to learn more about this new group and hear what its putative leaders wanted to offer as guidance. Unfortunately, not unlike many other mass Zooms I’ve been on lately, what unfolded was more of a pep rally than a training. Five new faces popped up (actually one didn’t even show his face), each just using their first names and identifying themselves with 50501 or one of its allied organizations, along with several well-known figures from the radical edge of the progressive left like Linda Sarsour, a prominent NYC-based Arab-American activist, and former Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri. Only Leah Greenberg, the co-founder of Indivisible, who was a third named speaker, offered the audience anything approaching a theory of change or a plan for local organizing.

Everyone else said things that were either movement pablum or admissions of weakness. If you were someone who simply needed to see that other people were also angry and in motion, the “Mass Training” call did no harm—it is always good for people in moments like this one to know they aren’t alone. But if you were someone who went to a local 50501 rally or even found yourself organizing one, this was not a place where anyone offered anything like helpful advice about how to build a local group and hold it together for the rough times we are in. (More on that topic below.)

Instead, former Rep. Bush said stuff like, “We can lead ourselves, like we don't have to look for other people to do anything for us. You know what? We'll do it ourselves. And right now, in this moment, that's what you all have stepped up to do. That's what you are doing….I'm saying to all of you, go figure out that thing. What is that thing that I have? What do I possess? What's on the inside of me that other people may not have? Because there's things on the inside of them that I don't have. And when we put all of that together, we become like Voltron. You know, that's what we need to do. In this moment, we need to be like Voltron, bring all of our gifts and talents together….We're going to look at who am I and what do I bring? Who am I for this moment? And then we're going to push that forward.” Know what to do now? Yes, this is one of the progressive left’s rock stars, folks, who just got herself a monthly YouTube show with Zeteo with my former representative Jamaal Bowman, another genius at local organizing.

Bush’s vacuousness was mirrored by Linda Sarsour, who told the audience, “I'm going to share some of the truths about organizing, especially people who are maybe coming to this new or people who haven't been as consistent in their organizing over the years. This is not always inspiring. It's not always fun. It's not always joyful, as we build with friends and comrades and neighbors, and I think once we understand the reality of organizing, I think it helps us build the kind of stamina and perspective and really the expectations as we move forward.” Did Sarsour offer any training? Well, she used the word in a sentence, saying, “I just think that it's critical and important to have a political home, a group of people that you surround yourself with, a place where you can have access to trainings and resources on a very local level, and people that you can count on that you can deepen your relationships with as time goes by. So find yourself a political home. I also will say to people that we often put a lot of power in government, and I tell people, the most important power that we have is each other.” Put that on a Hallmark card! She also told the audience to get to know their neighbors.

If anything became clearer after 90 minutes of this pep rally, it was this: At most, 50501 is a hashtag movement that has invented a new symbol and has the wherewithal to do a few things like aggregate reports of protests on a common page (which is still under construction). It’s not the unified, muscular opposition movement people have been looking for; it’s a feed. Several of the people who spoke on the call emphasized, as Sarah, the executive director of Voices of Florida, that “this is a decentralized, leaderless movement.” Or as Glo, the co-founder of Political Revolution, a PAC made up of former Sanders organizers that raised $1400 in 2024, put it, one of “the shared values” they have with 50501 is “flat hierarchy and decentralized structure.” Sarsour endorsed this too, saying “I am very keen on this idea of decentralized organizing.” (Very ahistorically, some of these folks simultaneously claimed the civil rights movement as their “playbook,” not knowing that it was very hierarchic and patriarchal in its structure.)

Let’s get something straight in case it needs to be said again. Movements without leaders, structure and clear processes for making decisions do not last. Also, if you don’t have a formal structure because you dislike hierarchy, you are just hiding from view who has power. Go read Jo Freeman’s essay “The Tyranny of Structurelessness,” which was first written in 1970 about power imbalances inside the women’s liberation movement. As she wrote then, “Contrary to what we would like to believe, there is no such thing as a structureless group. Any group of people of whatever nature that comes together for any length of time for any purpose will inevitably structure itself in some fashion. The structure may be flexible; it may vary over time; it may evenly or unevenly distribute tasks, power and resources over the members of the group. But it will be formed regardless of the abilities, personalities, or intentions of the people involved. The very fact that we are individuals, with different talents, predispositions, and backgrounds makes this inevitable. Only if we refused to relate or interact on any basis whatsoever could we approximate structurelessness -- and that is not the nature of a human group.”

--Bonus link: Back in 2013, I helped edit a special section of the Journal of Sociology on lessons of the Occupy movement (with William Gamson) and was thrilled with an essay we included by Darcy Leach titled “Culture and the Structure of Tyrannylessness.” In it, she draws on examples from radical movements in Germany that have figured out a form of collectivist democratic practice that avoids rigid hierarchy but also embraces various kinds of structure for making decisions and apportioning responsibility for leadership. It’s a great companion to Freeman’s original work.

--P.S.: Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum, so until more established opposition groups decide to organize bigger protests, people are going to throw ideas out there. That includes well-intentioned projects like 50501 and things that look and feel like weird grifts, like “TheOneCalledJai” who is collecting money on GoFundMe for his People’s Union USA. Caveat emptor. (By contrast, I’m watching Get Free’s emerging organizing effort with great interest.)

Some Training Pointers for Newcomers

While someone who went to 50501’s mass training may have found themselves still hungry for actual training details a half hour after they finished the call, the good news is there are a few groups that have put together solid guides for anyone getting started building a local group. I recommend going to Indivisible’s Group Support Hub and in particular working through their step-by-step guide, which includes how to start with a great leadership team, how to structure your group, recruiting and onboarding new members, running your first meeting, how to run an online meeting, how to build strong relationships with one-on-one meetings, and some pointers to useful tech tools like Mobilize, EveryAction, Ballot Ready and Empower. Truth be told, I didn’t find that many other great guides for local group organizing (here’s a nice new one from Dave Fleischer on how to start a small team focused on the upcoming Medicaid vote). It’s far easier to find helpful guides to knowing your rights and safety tips on attending protests from experts like the ACLU and the Sierra Club. Though here’s a useful guide to starting a mutual aid group, from the American Friends Service Committee.

Here are a few things I’ve learned from years of writing about, reporting on and being involved in political organizing:

• We are in what veteran organizers call a “whirlwind moment.” That’s when external events shock lots of previously passive people into motion. If you are starting a new group or stewarding one that has been around for a while, be prepared: a lot of new people are going to come to your meetings right now. This is a great but challenging problem to have! People new (or returning) to activism often have tremendous energy and lots of fresh ideas. They also often have unrealistic or conflicting ideas about politics. This is an ongoing condition that you will have to work through.

• All people have different levels of capacity. Some have the time and desire to work full-time on organizing; others just want to be given useful things to do. Inevitably your group will stratify because not everyone wants to put in the same amount of time. This is not a bad thing. But it’s important to create different levels of participation and recognize that volunteers will oscillate among them. But try to spread responsibility and agency around—you can’t do everything yourself, and people step up when offered meaningful roles.

• If your meetings aren’t engaging and fun, people won’t come back. It’s relatively easy to get people to come to their first meeting. Getting them to come back is harder—if you don’t pay attention to that problem, your group won’t grow. Too often progressives treat newcomers as strangers to be tested rather than converts to be welcomed. And they give people onerous things to do rather than making activism fun, another great way to stay small.

• Do your best to write down a mission statement, your group’s core values, and an agreed-upon way of making decisions together. Even if all those things are obvious to everyone else from the start, putting them in writing will help your group a lot when it inevitably faces questions about what to prioritize or how to address internal tensions.

• Recognize that diversity and inclusion do not happen naturally. We generally live in places segregated by race and class, so local groups often reflect those cleavages. It’s especially hard to change the make-up of a group once it’s gotten going (and no one likes being invited to a meal after the first courses have already be served.) It’s also hard to build and sustain a group that includes all ages; older people (retirees and empty-nesters) tend to have more free time than parents with children; younger singles may also prefer to be with other like them not just because Boomers are fogies but because a real motivation for joining a group is to make friends or find life partners. Again, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing—if your group is mainly made up of, say, older white people then reach out to other groups that are more representative of other communities and ask them how you can help them!

• Use different tools for communication depending on the level of involvement expected. ActionNetwork is great for maintaining your email list. An email list-serv or private Facebook group may be the right tool for enabling members of your group to chatter with each other about whatever they want, though you’ll need community rules and moderators to make sure conversations stay civil. A Slack or Discord community may be the right tool for your core group of doers to share information about ongoing work. And Signal or WhatsApp are more secure systems for creating secure group chats (Signal being far more trustworthy given who owns WhatsApp).

• Collect money at every meeting. You’ll need it for infrastructure like tech tools (Zoom, ActionNetwork aren’t expensive but do cost something); meeting materials (buttons, name tags, poster board, banners); food; and to provide mutual aid to those nearby in greatest need. You don’t need a bank account if someone in your core group is well trusted to hold the cash, and frankly if you don’t raise or spend more than a few thousand dollars a year you’re below the radar of most states’ political reporting requirements.

--Bonus link: If you are in Washington DC, Rising Organizers and Free DC are offering a free training on March 3 on “People Power 101: Getting Started with Organizing Relationships.” A virtual version is expected to follow.

Go Deep:

Take some time and listen to Marshall Ganz, Erica Chenoweth, Steven Levitsky and Cornell Brooks talk about “Organizing and Mobilization During Democratic Backsliding,” a conversation sponsored by Harvard’s Ash Center from a few days ago. Marshall’s excellent new book People Power Change is also worth a close reading.

End Times

What we’re in the middle of.