I know how upset you are about what Trump is doing to our nation and the hardship he’s bringing to millions of innocent people, every day.
As outrage mixes with sadness, we feel the magnitude of our loss. Several of you weep at what’s happening. I have wept too.
But I urge you not to dwell solely on the loss. We have much to do.
Our first responsibility is to help protect the people in our communities who are most vulnerable to this regime. ICE is now arresting, abducting, and deporting some of our neighbors and friends. It is ignoring their rights to due process. It is spreading fear among international students. (The FBI even arrested a Milwaukee Circuit Court judge who tried to protect an undocumented immigrant in her courtroom.)
We can help ensure they know their rights by getting them red cards in their own languages. We can help prevent local law enforcement from cooperating with ICE (especially in access to schools, hospitals, courts, and other necessary facilities) by getting our mayors and city councilors to join us. We can give vulnerable people in our communities our moral — and, if possible, financial — support.
A second responsibility is to give courage to the leaders of our communities, universities, libraries, law firms, local media, museums, and other civic institutions. They need to be fortified to stand up to the Trump regime. Organize and mobilize your colleagues and community members to support courageous leadership.
Third, if and when we hear anyone repeat Trump’s lies — especially his hateful lies about immigrants, transgender people, LGBTQ+ people, women, Black people, or Latinos — correct them with the truth, and explain to them how dangerous, hurtful, and divisive such lies can be.
Fourth, we can help public servants who have lost their jobs find new ones. Many need access to job training, assistance with job searches, and jobs in local or state government that draw on their experience.
Fifth, help lay the groundwork for the midterm elections on November 3, 2026 (and any other elections between now and then) by making sure good people run for office, and you and your compatriots are organized to get out the vote.
Finally, continue to demonstrate loudly and boldly against the regime, so others gain the courage to join us and speak up for decency and democracy.
To paraphrase Thomas Paine in 1776, these are the times that try people’s souls. As Paine also wrote:
When a people agree to form themselves into a republic … it is understood that they mutually resolve and pledge themselves to each other, rich and poor alike, to support this rule of equal justice among them … (and) they renounce as detestable, the power of exercising, at any future time any species of despotism over each other, or of doing a thing not right in itself, because a majority of them may have the strength of numbers sufficient to accomplish it.
Keep the faith, my friends. We will get through this.
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Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/