WASHINGTON—Faced with the looming prospect of a second right-wing Donald Trump regime, more than a hundred Washington, D.C., activists met Nov. 21 to strategize how to battle the president and a hostile congressional majority.
The group, which included a handful of trade unionists from the Communications Workers and the Government Employees and an ILGWU retiree, discussed everything from educating the nation’s masses that real people live in D.C. and that most don’t work for the feds, to mass civil disobedience.
The activists have yet to articulate a unifying theme for their campaign. “But we have to remind people of the real threat” of Trump, one said. Most of the discussion, though, turned away from him.
The activists face unique problems which will make the fight difficult. Congress and the president can do whatever they wish with the nation’s capital, including ending its limited home rule government.
And since D.C. lacks votes in Congress, its clout there is circumscribed. Veteran Democrat Eleanor Holmes Norton, a longtime civil rights activist, is D.C.’s non-voting “delegate.”
Another hurdle is outdated prejudices about Washington that are pushed by Trump – that it is simply a city of bureaucrats and that it’s majority Black. It’s not either, anymore, but both are an easy Republican “sell” to the rest of the country.
The two major parties are little help. Several current House Republicans in that GOP-run chamber introduced bills this year that would abolish home rule, returning D.C. to the appointed commissioner system that was dumped more than half a century ago—and to control by racist Southern Republicans, rather than racist Southern Democrats.
And in an example of Congress’s power and Democratic weakness, when the D.C. Council overhauled the city’s criminal code, increasing penalties for some crimes while decreasing others, the House GOP yowled and overrode it as “soft on crime,” code words. The Senate’s Democrats did likewise—minus the open prejudice—and Democratic President Joe Biden signed it.
The obstacles didn’t daunt the group, which agreed that battling Trump’s hate for D.C., its residents, and government workers in general is the immediate fight they must wage. Long-range the goal is to make D.C., with its 715,891 residents the nation’s 51st state. D.C. houses more people than Wyoming, which is dead last, and Vermont, and it’s just behind Alaska.
The most direct Trump threat to D.C., one activist pointed out, is his hate for federal and city workers.
Trump has assigned a worker-slashing ax to billionaire Elon Musk and so-called entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. One of their objectives is to slash agencies or move them out of town. The D.C. government employs 37,000 people, whom the Government Employees represent.
Educating both city residents and making inroads in the rest of the country will be the first step in their campaign, the activists decided. Part of that is to get out on the road and show the nation D.C. is more than monuments, lawmakers, and lobbyists, but regular families living in regular houses doing regular things, just like the rest of the U.S.
Another way to catch people’s attention is to describe some of D.C.’s unique handicaps—such as congressional interference in local issues—and then ask listeners “How would you like it if…?”
The activists brainstormed on how to get that message out, via op-eds, letters to the editor, traveling visits around the nation, videos, social media and figuring out, both in D.C. and outside, who are fellow activists and influencers. Once those “supervoters” who have credibility with colleagues and neighbors are reached and convinced of the cause, they can in turn lobby others.
“It’s training the trainers,” one participant said. “Online will be harder” another activist noted, because people are starting to be leery of the ideological slants they see in blogs and on the internet. There also must be “in-person surveys of people about what they want to hear,” that activist said.
The large session broke into numerous small groups, to figure out how to reach and engage various blocs of people, including area residents who are sympathetic but who put D.C.’s plight low on their priority list, and out-of-state visitors, since D.C. is a tourist magnet. “We have to make D.C. relatable” to the rest of the U.S., one speaker summarized.
Another suggestion was, predictably, to seek coalition partners in the cause, virtually all among progressive groups, such as women’s rights groups, pro-abortion groups, unions, groups trying to protect immigrants from Trump’s mass deportation plans, and LGBTQ people.
There was surprisingly little discussion of how to specifically combat Trump, who made his distaste for D.C. obvious in his prior term in office. The group expected Trump and the Republicans will try legislative “overreach,” using D.C. as their political plaything, as both parties have in prior years. Pro-D.C. campaigners, the group said, must be ready to take advantage of that.
Other ways to lobby for D.C. included using arts and culture to portray the vibrancy of the area, campus organizing, recruiting the business community, direct action, “labor solidarity,” and the inside game of lobbying lawmakers.
The group decided demonstrations are not enough and not necessarily effective. Pledge cards are more effective, followed by gathering signatures on petitions. And, when necessary, lawsuits to stand up for the rights of D.C. residents. Details of that were left for later, as the group had few lawyers.
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