Rising This Week: Good trouble
More than 1,500 actions across the U.S. will stir up good trouble on Thursday, the fifth anniversary of John Lewis's death. Also, will Kilmar Abrego Garcia go free?
Every week, All Rise News lists opportunities for subscribers to make “good trouble” and “get in the way.” Our listings of court proceedings, protests and other forms of civic engagement are under the column below.
People across the United States keep getting in the way of Donald Trump’s plans.
Trump wanted the people of the United States to glorify him on his birthday, but people got in the way. Millions protested at No Kings demonstrations across the country, while empty seats filled the bleachers of the military parade that he ordered for himself in Washington, D.C.
Trump wanted citizens not to care when he sent immigrants to foreign prisons without due process by simply accusing them of being dangerous criminals and terrorists. But lawyers, judges, and protesters got in the way. Now, a man who the Trump administration vowed would never set foot again on U.S. soil is here, fighting for the Fifth Amendment rights the government tried to take away from him.
Trump wanted the universities of the United States to accept the targeting of their students who disagree with him politically for arrest, detention, and deportation, but the Constitution got in the way. Now, most of those students have been freed on bail by judges who denounced the government’s violation of their First Amendment rights. The administration is on the defensive, currently standing trial in Boston, Mass. and facing a $20 million lawsuit by Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, a man the government had tried to incarcerate into silence.
On March 7, 1965, Alabama’s racist governor ordered police to uphold white supremacy in Selma, but the late civil rights legend John Lewis and hundreds of civil rights activists got in the way of their tear gas and billy clubs on a march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. On Bloody Sunday, they exposed the brutality of the Jim Crow South and stirred the conscience of the nation.
Later in life, Rep. Lewis frequently reflected on how his grandparents explained segregation by telling him: “That's the way it is. Don't get in the way. Don't get in trouble!” Then, after learning about and meeting Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., he came to learn the importance of causing “Good trouble, necessary trouble.”
Some six years before his death, then-Rep. Lewis told the graduating students of Emory University in Atlanta, Ga.:
“There may be some setbacks, some delays, some disappointments, but you must never, ever give up, or give in. You must keep the faith and keep your eyes on the prize. That is your calling. That is your mission. That is your moral obligation. That is your mandate. Get out there and do it. Get in the way!”
On Thursday, for the fifth anniversary of his death, more than 1,500 events will take place across the United States for “Good Trouble Lives On: John Lewis National Day of Action.” Organizers say that the flagship event will take place in Chicago, Ill., and other “anchor” events will be held in Atlanta, Ga.; St. Louis, Mo.; Annapolis, Md.; and Washington D.C.
Find out more about how to “get in the way” during the nationwide protests on their website and in the listings below.
One of my editorial objectives when launching All Rise News was to combat the sense of fatalism and powerlessness that people feel about the alarming headlines that we read.
It’s tempting to look at Trump’s near-lockstep control of his party in the legislature, Supreme Court rulings weakening the judiciary, and the passage of his wildly unpopular and destructive budget bill and indulge in feelings of futility. Why call a senator who is more afraid of a White House tweet than an angry constituent? Why file a lawsuit before a judge you believe will be overruled for vindicating your rights, and why speak out against a vindictive president who weaponizes the government against his critics?
My conviction, then and now, has been that deep and informed reporting about our institutions shows the enduring strength of our levers of power. Despite the damage that Trump has wrought, many of his administration’s illegal and unconstitutional plans keep getting frustrated, and a recent ruling blocking his attempt to ban birthright citizenship shows that his victories have been far less sweeping than advertised.
That’s why I have spent the last few months since our launch in late April reporting live from courtrooms in New York, Maryland, New Hampshire, Tennessee and elsewhere. Those courtrooms have been the sites of the legal pushback, where Trump’s claims have been tested and his lies have been debunked.
I will head back to Nashville for another hearing in the criminal case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia on Weds., July 16, almost exactly four months to the day since the Trump administration illegally abducted him to El Salvador. That hearing could mark a historic inflection point if Abrego is released from jail to await trial from Maryland with his family.
Whatever the outcome, the Trump administration likely never imagined this possibility. Multiple officials said that Abrego would never return to the United States, and then, they said Abrego would never be out of government custody.
The Trump administration may be on the cusp of humiliating defeat on both of these points because lawyers, judges, and the public got in the way of the government’s attempted end-run of the Constitution. The public knows Abrego’s story so well because reporters were there to witness it — and because Trump was wrong that people wouldn’t care enough to learn about it.
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