I'll leave the Big, Ugly Bill (and other disasters) for others to discuss. I'd like to focus my comments on positive things, although those have been few and far between lately.
The No Kings Day march on June 14 had a lovely turnout in downtown San Diego. I had found the lack of age diversity for the April march, with an estimated crowd size of 3,000, depressing. (I'm 56, and for that march I was one of the youngest marchers I saw all day, but perhaps that was because the local universities were still in session, and they were all having their own marches to protest the suspension of federal science and arts funding.) Initial estimates for the downtown San Diego No Kings Day march were 60,000, later raised to 69,000. And when I was driving home, I passed smaller protests at several major intersections.
A week before that, I had started walking neighborhoods with Alliance San Diego, distributing door hangers in English and Spanish with instructions to follow if law enforcement knocks on the door or enters a workplace. The door hanger includes photos comparing a real warrant (i.e., with a specific name and/or address on it, issued by a court and signed by a judge) against one of the bullshit all-purpose ones often used by I.C.E. — and, for all we know, by masked wannabes from local white supremacist groups.
In the course of those walks, I had an interesting interaction with two retired men, apparently neighbors, who had been having a conversation in a driveway. Instead of passing them to hang a card on the doorknob, of course I asked if they knew anyone who might like information on what to do if law enforcement knocks on their door. One of them said vehemently that illegal aliens should all be deported, so I could take that trash I was distributing and keep right on walking past his property. "Okay, thanks. Have a nice day," I said, and turned away to catch up with my partner on the other side of the street.
But after that man went up the steps into his house, the other one chased after me and asked if I was distributing propaganda telling immigrants to disrespect law enforcement. Glad that my partner was only a few houses away, I remained neutral and courteous and told him no, that the door hangers I was distributing just informed people of rights they might not know they had, because the Constitutional guarantee of due process applies to all people in this country, whether they are here legally or not.
To my surprise, he then confided in a low voice — as if worried that the neighbor he'd just been speaking with might hear him — that although he still loves Trump, he thinks that I.C.E. has gone too far by deporting non-citizens who are quite obviously not dangerous criminals. He said, "These hardworking dishwashers and gardeners we see zip-tied by I.C.E. on t.v. are not the drug dealers, terrorists, and rapists that Trump was talking about deporting. I.C.E. needs to be focusing on the
bad immigrants, not the
good immigrants."
I took a chance and asked, "Is it possible that Trump exaggerated how many millions of immigrants are drug dealers, terrorists, and rapists — and now he can't meet the deportation numbers he promised without rounding up good people, too?" He said, "Bingo!", and then he actually thanked me for sharing information so that "the
good immigrants" will have a better chance of being able to stay here. I couldn't believe it.
Baby steps to common ground. He still seemed afraid of how his fellow Trump supporter might react if his apostasy was overheard, but his conscience had been bothering him enough that he felt the need to trot down the street to tell me about it.
So, there's hope for some MAGA folks. Their conversion may be too little and too late to do much good, especially if it only happens one-on-one, but it's possible to plant a seed here and there.
I found the following five-minute video on how to help people leave Trump's cult helpful. (Apologies if it's not viewable in some countries.)
https://substack.com/inbox/post/167049100
Other bright spots:
San Diego's newly-appointed (last month!) Roman Catholic bishop is a former refugee, having arrived in the U.S. as from Vietnam at age eight. One of the first things he did was to issue a letter speaking out against the arrests of immigrants who have shown up to their hearings as instructed — and who have even had favorable rulings sometimes — only to be snatched by I.C.E. in the hallways and disappeared. The letter asked Catholic clergy to attend immigration court hearings to show solidarity on International Refugee Day (June 20). He and a group of priests were joined by other religious leaders, including a Muslim imam. There was a heartwarming amount of publicity for that, and there's talk of it becoming a more ongoing program instead of just a four-hour photo op on one day.
Yesterday I was heartened to see in the news that local veterans who had served in Afghanistan have also been attending the hearings of translators and others who risked their lives to assist the U.S. military against the Taliban — often only to be snatched in the hallways by I.C.E., regardless of the outcome of the hearing, and deported back to be murdered by the Taliban. The veterans groups are emphatic that their members are doing so regardless of their personal political affiliations, because these deportations are so glaringly immoral.
Keep on trying to make a difference, however small and futile it may seem.