The flood of executive orders and information is meant to overwhelm you, confuse you, distract you, and make you feel helpless. Don’t let it work.
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Welcome to Week 7 of One Small Thing. We are in the thick of it now, executive orders raining down fast and furious. Scientists scrambling, federal employees strapped, DEI gone, immigrants in hiding, and the price of eggs going through the roof. Don’t try to process all of it. We’ve got to be in this for the long haul. We can fight and we can organize and we can do that from within the framework of our daily lives as we try to survive. Here’s a list of daily things you can do without burning out.
1. Download Signal.
Signal is a free, open-source messaging app that prioritizes privacy and security. It has no data tracker and offers end-to-end encryption. It will greatly enhance the safety of some actions we will want to take in future. Since downloading it, I have been added to several group chats of like-minded people and activists doing serious work. It’s a great alternative to traditional messaging and social media. Consider downloading it from the app store and starting to move your communications there.
2. Don’t forget about the LA fires.
Now that the fires are finally petering out, California is tasked with rebuilding and taking care of all the victims of the flames. Finding temporary shelter, clothing, food, and other staple supplies continues to tax the resources of the area. World Central Kitchen has been integral in feeding people on the ground there. The stipulated dollar amounts for food supplies were too high for me, but there is an “other” box where you can give whatever you can afford. I donated $20. It took just a few minutes. Click here to help.
3. Unfollow Republican leaders who snuck onto your social media.
After the transition of power, many found their social media accounts following Donald Trump, JD Vance, and Melania Trump. One theory is that if you were following members of the Biden administration, those accounts transitioned over. But some people even found themselves following Mark Zuckerberg or META itself, so the jury is out on why this happened. If you haven’t culled the herd already, check your followers by doing this: Click on your Facebook profile. Click on Settings and Privacy. Click on your Activity Log. Click on Connections. Click on Followers. This will show you who you have recently followed, and you have the option to unfollow them from there.
4. Sign the ACLU letter to help their immigration lawsuit.
The American Civil Liberties Union is gathering strength for the lawsuit opposing the executive order to end birthright citizenship. Congress actually has some power here, and they’d have to basically rewrite the 14th Amendment to allow this order to take effect. The link allows you to sign a letter, contacting Congress directly. In this instance, you’ve got a real shot at getting the people’s representatives to listen and act accordingly — if they see enough outrage. Click here for the easy way to sign the letter.
5. Write your senators to oppose Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health and human services secretary.
RFK Jr. says there is no vaccine that is safe and effective. When running for president, he said he’d pause research on infectious diseases. Even without him heading the nation’s health department, we’re facing executive orders halting grant applications and we’ve withdrawn from the World Health Organization. Congress is not synonymous with the Trump administration. They have some power here. Implore them to use it. Confirmation hearings are happening this week. Take two seconds and send this off to your leaders.
6. Download and read Siembra’s local ICE watch playbook.
The nationwide raids executed by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), combined with Trump’s attempt to disallow natural birth citizenship, has many immigrants already in hiding. My city has been a sanctuary city, but we’ve been told that’s not allowed anymore. Also, ICE is no longer restricted to arrests in public places. However, there are other mandates ICE agents must continue to follow, and immigrants, businesses, and involved citizens need to brush up on what they can do to help.
This playbook is a great resource on who to call for information, on organizations already providing resources to help, and on how to start up local ICE watch groups to protect our own neighbors. I first read about this in Teen Vogue, and I downloaded the playbook.
There are many messaging groups and active organizing groups you can join, so do your research to find what fits your skills and capacities. For this kind of research, Signal (see above) came in handy. Be mindful. Some of these groups have hundreds of members and it can get overwhelming quickly. Focus on a specific thing you want to accomplish and complete that task before you move on to the next. Good luck, and I’ll see you there!
7. Write your senators against Kash Patel as FBI Director.
You’ll want to make time for letter writing to your Washington legislators this week, because confirmation hearings are on the schedule, and letters to senators — who vote to confirm or deny Trump’s nominees — give you personal access to this important process. Pete Hegseth needed a tie-breaker vote by Vice President JD Vance to squeak onto the Cabinet as defense secretary. Just one more senator swinging against these ludicrous nominees can make all the difference.
So I used a form to send a letter to my senators about not confirming Kash Patel as FBI director. I took out a paragraph in the form letter about Trump using the Patel nomination to wreak revenge against the agency that investigated him so assiduously over the last four years, because I think my particular senators would toss the letter without consideration if that were in there. What I left in were paragraphs pointing out how unfit Patel is to serve as FBI chief. Remember, you can always change these letters or write your own, or just sign on to what is there already. Click here to get started.
Don’t succumb to passivity. While Trump is “flooding the zone” with executive orders and other actions designed to make him look invulnerable, there is actually a lot we can do to fight back. We just have to take it one step at a time, doing what we can, when we can. The more people stepping up to do small things, the more big things we’ll accomplish. See you next week.
Past weeks of “One Small Thing” can be found here.
