In a matter of a handful of months, President Donald Trump’s executive branch has operated with few congressional reigns. Six decades of thoughtful, informed, bipartisan national and local government solutions to protect our health and environment against threats are now hobbled by the actions of one man’s rapid-fire, authoritarian movement.
The infamously far-right Heritage Foundation think tank and its Project 2025 — which candidate Trump once claimed not to have read and promised not to utilize — took direct aim at “radical climate regulations,” among other things. Trump’s agenda on human rights, the media, education, immigration, and health is mirroring Project 2025. Nearly a fourth of its action items exclusively address massive environmental rollbacks.
Since January, public-interest groups have been tracking the apparent implementation of Project 2025, with 46% already accomplished,
. Notably, 70% of the blueprint document’s environmental agenda has been initiated or completed.
Read that again. Because like a sonic boom, the damage will be on you, Duluth, and on our state and our economy well after the explosion is past.
Overwhelming speed and distraction seem to be at the heart of the playbook of this modern autocratic movement. Impacts not felt immediately are the apparent name of this destructive game.
Back in the laissez-faire 1890s, S.S. McClure, the editor of McClure’s Magazine, stated: “The vitality of democracy depends on ‘popular knowledge’ of complex questions.” Today, little-regulated social media plus a culture of embracing deceptions that comfort misplaced fears has crippled the pathways to the important power of sharing fact-based knowledge. False emotions appearing real is jet fuel for autocratic governing.
A growing need for an informed public is being met by new organizations. Nonpartisan groups like Indivisible (indivisible.org) are inspiring local action and multimedia methods for awakening a public that has turned away from what seems like a hopeless tsunami of unwanted and destructive change. Indivisible organized the June “No Kings” peaceful protests. Behind the mass action were local units of Indivisible in Duluth, Two Harbors, and elsewhere, providing an open door to people wanting to “do something,” people not interested in partisan wrangling or divisive fear-based agendas, and people who want factual information to empower a better future.
At the least, find some way to give yourself grounding in awareness of facts. Find ways to restore this democracy-saving power. Please do what you can. “Be braver than you think you can be,” as the Indivisible handbook states. Take a cue from historic resistance leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Rachel Carson (author of “Silent Spring”), and today’s courageous youth leaders. Communicate across factions.
Know there is a price for inaction. Too many have withdrawn and let helplessness win. Those of us on the couch with the shades drawn need to wake up and realize that inertia is action. By looking the other way, we passively join and empower this blinding autocratic shift.
Instead, bring your unique talents to the problems we confront. Redirect your flagging energy to empower kindness and invest in the future of our children and our democratic goals.
Do something.
Patty M. Burke of Duluth Township is on the policy committee for Indivisible Breakwall, the Two Harbors branch of the national, nonpartisan, nonprofit Indivisible organization (
). The organization was behind the nationwide “No Kings” protests in June and uses peaceful resistance through education and outreach.
