Good Trouble: March, March, Sons Of The Ice!

Happily, May Day saw many thousands unite: You have nothing to lose but the wreckage, shackles and stench of an odious regime. For now it persists, its ghouls ravaging systems, rights, many lives, but myriad small good things continue to seek to stop it: Court rulings block the mayhem and now the Alien Enemies Act, rowdy "empty chair" town halls name the complicit, MAGA thugs are charged, POTUS portraits are unveiled, tech intersections are hacked (Elon: "Please be my friend") and the penguins are revolting.

"Only 1,361 Days To Go," reads The Economist's blistering headline marking Trump's first 100 days of chaos, accompanied by a bloodied, bandaged eagle representing "the lasting harm" done by "a vindictive, vituperative lord of misrule, vacant, spiteful, and cruel." There have been the (way more than) 100 lies in 100 days, the economy he's crashed - which has "NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS," is Biden's fault, and okay so you only get two dolls - the millions he will ultimately condemn to needless death from HIV/AIDS and other diseases after his fave gonzo gazillionaire randomly cut international aid, the ongoing, head-spinning idiocy - "Imams Wut" - and his Nazi ghouls and sycophants on all sides. At this week's grotesque grovel-fest of a cult meeting, lackeys and their Gulf of America caps all in a row, Execution Barbie Bondi burbled she's "signing death warrants" and, smirking "Are you ready for this, liberal media?," declared Trump's already saved 258 million lives, or 75% of America, who didn't die of fentanyl. "That's some North Korea Shit," from one patriot. Also, "Trump also invented corn on the cob. And birds."

On the relentless Constitution-shredding, rights-assailing, authoritarian cosplay, David Remnick is grimly succinct: "Every day is a fresh hell." Still, there are enough outcroppings of grassroots good trouble to (mostly) keep alive our flickering embers of hope. One strategy trending nationwide is democrats organizing so-called empty-chair town halls, an ingenious, effective update to the time-honored "unvarnished, direct democracy" of elected officials gathering with constituents to hear from we the people. Lately, of course, GOP lawmakers would rather not, thanks. Abruptly ejected from their soothing MAGA bubble, they have repeatedly faced real-life, pissed-off voters lambasting DOGE malfeasance. Taken aback, they've tried to dismiss the backlash as "pathetic astroturf campaigns" by "out-of-touch, far-left groups," generously paid. We wish. They've also tried carefully vetting events like Byron Donalds; alas, "They lit his ass up." Now, they're largely following the frantic counsel of Monty Python's Knights of the Round Table when they were confronted by a similarly improbable killer bunny: "Run away! Run away!"

In response, exuberant empty-chair town halls highlight their absence and cowardice with signs like "Where's Warren/Bryan/Elise" etc and "Wanted: Republicans with enough courage to honor their oath of office,” providing a chance to organize, galvanize and raise voters' frayed spirits. Even with constituents knowing that headliners won't come, turnouts are striking: Over 800 in Little Rock for (no-show) Sens. Cotton and Boozman, nearly 1,000 in Billings for 3 GOP no-shows, nearly 500 in Bangor, where Susan Collins hasn't held a town hall in over 25 years but her spox says she "has a proven record of working for all of Maine." In Maryland, Jamie Raskin filled in for (MIA) Andy Harris. In Fort Wayne, Indiana Sen. Jim Banks stayed home but sent donuts to "honor one of the best presidents we’ve ever had"; Indivisible thanked him for "the parlor trick" but regretted he didn't show to "Serve us. Show up. Listen to us." In Savannah, absent Georgia Rep. Buddy Carter got a mannequin in jeans and Where's-Waldo striped shirt with a "Buddy Carter" sign. In Glens Falls, NY., angry voters told an absent Elise Stefanik, "You work for us, not the other way around."

In one recent, brilliant innovation, hundreds of Ohio residents came to Middletown, J.D.'s hometown, to ask questions of a newly devised AI “ChatGOP,” which approximated the slimy, likely answers of Rep. Warren Davidson if he'd bothered to show up. After Davidson, an election-denier who squeaked into power in a highly gerrymandered district, snidely declined the invite - "No one needs to accept every argument (or war) they’re invited to" - his chair sat empty as a raucous crowd booed, cheered and challenged ChatGOP about immigration, education, voter suppression, workers' rights and firings. Fiery speakers - a pastor, union leader, NAACP president - addressed his "abandoned constituents, the people he supposedly works for but actively avoids: This is cowardice in a suit. He doesn't show up for families, workers, veterans, teachers, anyone who cant afford a lobbyist (or) his own damn town hall. But we see you, Warren." Organizer David Pepper praised the exuberant crowd for showing up in force when needed. "This was American democracy at work. Patriotism at its best," he said. "And it was electric."

May Day offered more inspiration, from Switzerland's marching middle fingers to, at home, our buoyant, four-stop, meticulously organized rally - workers, P.O., teachers, all - complete with the Ideal Maine Social Aid and Sanctuary Band at each stop and a patriotic dachshund's two-sided sign: "Dogs for due process" and "If he's a stable genius, I'm a giraffe." Also gifting hope: Bernie and AOC's crowds, Harvard standing up with, finally, 70 more schools, a defiant Alt National Park Service, #SaveOurParks, #RehireRangers. And with thanks to Chop Wood, Carry Water: Charges were filed - battery, false imprisonment - against six private security thugs who dragged a woman from a GOP town hall; the largest federation of unions created a pro bono legal network for fired federal workers; after an ACLU lawsuit, DHS will retrain over 900 California Border Patrol agents to comply with the Constitution; Colorado banned most semi-automatic guns without background checks; 12 GOP reps opposed Medicaid cuts; thousands are using online "anti-woke business finder" PublicSquare, to boycott MAGA businesses instead, and Maine won, again.

And the court rulings against autocracy mount. They've blocked freezes on billions in infrastructure and environmental funding, deportations in Colorado and Nevada, DOGE accessing information from Social Security, multiple mass firings. In a big win this week, Texas District Judge Fernando Rodriguez, Trump-appointed despite his name, ruled the regime's use of the Alien Enemies Act to disappear Venezuelan immigrants "exceeds the scope of the statute and is contrary to (its) plain, ordinary meaning." Friday, another judge permanently struck down a vengeful, bonkers executive order targeting Perkins Coie law firm as "a national security risk" simply because it worked with Hillary Clinton. In a furious, 102-page opinion, Judge Beryl Howell trashed every aspect of the order, said it violated the 1st, 5th and 6th amendments, and called it "unconstitutional retaliation." "No American president has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue," she said, adding, "In purpose and effect, this action draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare, who penned the phrase, 'The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.’”

For every such substantive action pushing back against tyranny, there's inevitably and gratifyingly a grassroots, off-the-wall, often hilarious act of resistance from some random patriot who just can't take it anymore. Last month, after Trump threw a hissy fit about a portrait in Colorado he didn't like, filmmaker Michael Moore helpfully asked artful readers to create and send their own "PORTRAITS OF POTUS—America’s Art Attack for Democracy.” Over 2,000 did - here, here and here - and they are....something to behold. Around the same time, some snarky tech nerds in California used their expertise to hack crosswalk buttons at downtown intersections in Silicon Valley cities - Redwood City, Menlo Park, Palo Alto - that replicate the unctuous tones and sage musings of broligarchs Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. The signals still work - and still say 'wait' - but they spout the inane ramblings of, say, "Musk" arguing, "You know, people keep saying cancer is bad, but have you tried being a cancer? It’s fucking awesome," or lamely pleading, "Can we be friends? I'll give you a Cybertruck." One comment: "Friends don’t give friends Cybertrucks."

There are many more. Zuck pops up near Menlo Park, site of Meta’s headquarters, to declaim how proud he is of "everything we’ve been building together." "From undermining democracy, to cooking our grandparents’ brains with AI slop, to making the world less safe for trans people, nobody does it better than us," he goes on. "And I think that’s pretty neat." Another from Zuck: "It's normal to feel uncomfortable or even violated as we forcefully insert AI into every facet of your conscious experience. And I just want to assure you - you don’t need to worry, because there’s absolutely nothing you can do to stop it.” From Elmo: "It's funny - I used to think Trump was just a stuffed sack of shit, but when you get to know him he's actually sweet and tender and loving." "You don’t know the level of depravity I would stoop to just for a crumb of approval," Musk also says. "I mean, let’s be real, it’s not like I had any moral convictions to begin with." "Every small thing you do helps remind people the wannabe dictators are sad, scared, fallible little boys," says one observer. John Adams, in a different context, "The sublimity of it charms me."

Finally, all hail the penguins of Heard and McDonald Islands, 2,485 miles off Australia in the Antarctic and accessible only by a seven-day boat trip, for fighting back against the Orange Hand's tariff tyranny. Small but mighty, the denizens of the Democratic Penguins Republic - "Our empire stands by the endless sea" - took up arms after Trump said he was slapping his "Liberation Day" tariffs on the islands' exports, which don't exist. "March, march, sons of the ice! For our holy island, they shall pay the price," they declared. "The silence breaks, no more delay. The order stands, we march today!" And so it went. So fiercely, in fact, they soon announced Victory Day - "Damn, that was fast" - even though "they questioned why we wore no tie." "Victory Day! The war is won! A million penguins marched as one," they sang. "The motherland stood, proud and grey. All shall praise the Democratic Penguins Republic today!" Online, many did. They welcomed "our new penguin overlords," watched and re-watched "unironically as a factual news source," vowed, "In cod we trust," begged for DPR merch and heralded "a dose of sanity in this time of madness." Keep marching. 

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