WeUnite

When it comes to protests I've noticed two issues:

1. Protests especially in local cities are not being covered at all.

2. The media focuses almost exclusively on the violent aspect which is just a tiny portion of protest activity and a lot is just opportunities who don't care at all about the protest cause and are taking advantage of the fact that police are distracted to cause destruction and steal from stores.

We have the power to fight back. We can contact the media and first of all for local media use their tip line to say where and when there will be peaceful protests. This will increase the likelihood your local media will cover it which can trickle up to national media.

The second thing is for national media use the feedback option to contact them and demand they accurately cover the protests.

Here are some links to submit feedback to national media:

ABC News: https://support.abc.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=360003079511

NBC News: https://www.nbcnews.com/information/nbc-news-info/contact-us-n1232521

CBS News: https://www.cbs.com/showfeedback/

CNN: https://help.cnn.com/us/feedback

For how to write the feedback I'd just say keep it short and speak your mind. Don't worry too much about being perfect, the most important thing is they get lots of feedback from real people.

Here is a sample. Please do NOT copy and paste, it's just a starting point.

I saw your show the other day and I feel that it wasn't representative of what the protests are like. When I was there it was completely peaceful and I've seen lots of videos online on social media showing peaceful protests but your coverage didn't include that, instead it showed video of people who are opportunists who are not involved with protesting causing chaos.

I'm calling on {NEWS STATION REPLACE THIS PART ex: ABC News} to spend a lot more time covering the peaceful protests which represent the vast majority of the protests and show less footage of the violence.

When it comes to protests I've noticed two issues:

1. Protests especially in local cities are not being covered at all.

2. The media focuses almost exclusively on the violent aspect which is just a tiny portion of protest activity and a lot is just opportunities who don't care at all about the protest cause and are taking advantage of the fact that police are distracted to cause destruction and steal from stores.

We have the power to fight back. We can contact the media and first of all for local media use their tip line to say where and when there will be peaceful protests. This will increase the likelihood your local media will cover it which can trickle up to national media.

The second thing is for national media use the feedback option to contact them and demand they accurately cover the protests.

Here are some links to submit feedback to national media:

ABC News: https://support.abc.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=360003079511

NBC News: https://www.nbcnews.com/information/nbc-news-info/contact-us-n1232521

CBS News: https://www.cbs.com/showfeedback/

CNN: https://help.cnn.com/us/feedback

For how to write the feedback I'd just say keep it short and speak your mind. Don't worry too much about being perfect, the most important thing is they get lots of feedback from real people.

Here is a sample. Please do NOT copy and paste, it's just a starting point.

I saw your show the other day and I feel that it wasn't representative of what the protests are like. When I was there it was completely peaceful and I've seen lots of videos online on social media showing peaceful protests but your coverage didn't include that, instead it showed video of people who are opportunists who are not involved with protesting causing chaos.

I'm calling on {NEWS STATION REPLACE THIS PART ex: ABC News} to spend a lot more time covering the peaceful protests which represent the vast majority of the protests and show less footage of the violence.

Archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20250609174157/https://bsky.app/profile/anneapplebaum.bsky.social/post/3lr6ssiwzic2l

Remember that Twitter is also giving a platform to neo-Nazis. That's why it's important everyone stop using Twitter and switch to alternatives such as Bluesky and Mastodon.

For the protests Trump is hoping for one of two outcomes:

1. The protests escalate and he seizes power just like Hitler did: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/hitler-public-order/683098/
2. People roll over, stay silent and comply with the administration out of fear.

If fact I wonder if #1 would be more ideal for Trump because it would be a unifying cause for Republicans who are currently divided and soon face economic uncertainty. Remember that Trump's polling was worst in April during times of greatest economic uncertainty. However let's not give him either of those. Let's humiliate Trump by making all the people he brought in, in hopes of escalating useless and bored. Imagine the pictures of them standing around with nothing to do. It will foil the well used dictator playbook for seizing power.

The reality is a vast, vast majority of the protests are going to be peaceful no matter what. The problem is that the media even the mainstream media will focus on any violence there is so we need we really need to be as perfect as we can so let's do everything we can to ensure that every single protest remains as peaceful as possible and also take charge of the narrative too.

What we need to do is protest peacefully and lawfully, be a little more spread out, stay away from situations that are violent. I'd also recommend staying away from police and military. Use the time to expose Trump's corruption and educate people and bring new people to the movement and maybe even help register people to vote. By building a broad peaceful coalition we can reach even those who are stuck in echo chambers where they will only see what little violence there is and not notice the peaceful protests. The only way to break through is to protest peacefully in your city so they can see that protests are peaceful or get previously neutral people involved in protesting who will talk to their friends who will in-turn talk to their friends and so on eventually reaching those in echo chambers.

I'd recommend bringing American flags, say we love our country, we believe ALL Americans have equal rights and that we support the constitution and upholding American tradition like separation of power, that no one is above the law and that there are no kings in America. The more people who do that the more chances the media will be forced to show this which disrupts the false narrative that we're not patriotic, in fact I feel we're way more patriotic than the people who still worship traitors like the confederates, those who want to destroy our country and those who feel that only Americans who have the right skin color, gender and socioeconomic status deserve rights.

Online and in person we must strongly push back against those who call for violence, balkanization or civil war. These things will be devastating to everyone. I can tell you that I'm a blue dot in a red state, I have lots of friends and family members who are as well. Nearly all of us are too poor and too deeply rooted in our communities to move. This could literally be deadly for us and millions of innocent people who don't support what's going on now and even if not deadly lots of us could one day be subject to a oppressive regime in a spin-off of part of America, that would be horrible. If we make it to the midterms we can win enough elections and make our country better in all 50 states peacefully and legally.

Remember: broad peaceful coalition, bring more and more people over, eventually even some Trump supporters will see the light and we'll resolve this peacefully. I know we can do it!

PS: Hands-off put together a list of articles about de-escalation training here: https://actionnetwork.org/user_files/user_files/000/122/370/original/Hands_Off!__De-escalation_resources_(4).pdf

The YouTube link in the PDF wasn't stripped of tracking so use this link to watch their de-escalation training: https://youtu.be/_Pgmn9QRr48

I also saw an interesting idea of having monitors in high visibility vests and using whistles whenever they see even initial signs of violence, in the original suggestion they advised sitting but I read some persuasive comments that mentioned sitting down could be dangerous, instead I think leaving is the best approach.

Erica Chenoweth initially thought that only violent protests were effective. However after analyzing 323 movements the results were opposite of what Erica thought:

For the next two years, Chenoweth and Stephan collected data on all violent and nonviolent campaigns from 1900 to 2006 that resulted in the overthrow of a government or in territorial liberation. They created a data set of 323 mass actions. Chenoweth analyzed nearly 160 variables related to success criteria, participant categories, state capacity, and more. The results turned her earlier paradigm on its head — in the aggregate, nonviolent civil resistance was far more effective in producing change.

If campaigns allow their repression to throw the movement into total disarray or they use it as a pretext to militarize their campaign, then they’re essentially co-signing what the regime wants — for the resisters to play on its own playing field. And they’re probably going to get totally crushed.

Powerful letter, I really like how he says it's important to speak out!

Imagine this you're talking to friends and you start talking about cars. Naturally you work the following statement into the conversation: "I'm never going to buy a Tesla, they have so many recalls, are unreliable, lie about their range, and have poor build quality". What you just did might matter a lot more than you think because perhaps your friends will repeat what you just said and the message spreads. What you said may also surface when it's time for them to buy a car.

Or you're talking about social media and your friend says he's tired of the content on social media. You could say, yeah I totally agree. I deleted my Twitter/X, Facebook and Instagram account. I now use Lemmy, Bluesky and Mastodon. My mental health has improved a lot after making the switch.

Now imagine this: you're talking to someone who you're very good friends with but you're never talked politics before. This can perhaps be a little risky but what if you bring up something small and innocent that could be used to gauge their views. Or just listen to their thoughts without judgement and see where they stand. Perhaps you'll find that you both agree on things you never knew you did and then you become allies and you work together to make a difference in your community.

Or most importantly if you have friends who share your political views. If you do please ask them these questions: Are you registered to vote? Is your registration up to date, active and current? Do you have a ride to get to the nearest/designated polling place? Do you know all the upcoming election dates and primaries? Sadly we need this question too: Republicans are trying to suppress your vote: do you have up to date identification and paperwork?

There's a concern that Republicans are going to try to pass more voter suppression laws in hopes of shifting the results in their favor. We can fight against this both by doing everything we can to prevent these policies from getting passed in the first place and if sadly they become law let's still win anyway despite the additional challenge. Remember people throughout history fought hard for the right to vote, the best way to preserve your rights is to exercise it. Even if it becomes harder to vote it's still imperative that you do it! Also there's not much harm in having up to date paperwork. In fact it might be beneficial for other reasons in the future.

Here's information about voter ID laws by state: https://www.usa.gov/voter-id

Here's my suggested list of actions. Hopefully you won't need to do all of these to vote but you might still find benefit to doing these things anyway because it could help you later in life.

1. Up to date voter registration. Check to make sure it's active and accurate. How do this will depend on where you live so check locally using official information from your local government for example their official website (which will typically end with .gov or (two letter state initials).gov) or calling them with their current phone number.
2. Ensure your driver's license is valid and up to date if you drive or consider alternative forms of acceptable voter ID if you don't.
3. Get a certified copy of your birth certificate
4. Apply for a passport (may also be helpful if the country were to go really bad and if there's an emergency you never know if you'll need this, also you can travel internationally which is great!)
5. Social security card. You can get a free replacement if you don't have one.

Helping your friends vote can make a big difference because they may feel empowered to help their friends too!

They are convening now: I don't know if there's still an hour or so you can call your Senator and tell them to vote no on Hegseth.

You can watch live here: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-senate-convenes-for-expected-hegseth-confirmation-vote

Copy and paste from the Wikipedia article:

Charles and David have run fundraising/seminars on conservative public policy and political strategy twice a year since 2003. Only about 17 people participated in 2003, but that grew to around 500 in early 2016. The seminars grew from raising less than $100 million in 2008, under $300 million in 2014, and somewhere between $700 and $900 million for the 2016 election cycle.[38] The gatherings were characterized by great secrecy (participants were routinely urged to destroy all paperwork of the gatherings), commitment to conservative free market ideology, and the wealth of the participants, known as "investors" (in 2015, for example, 18 billionaires were present at a seminar). An example of a seminar at the network gatherings was one entitled "Understanding and Addressing Threats to American Free Enterprise and Prosperity", at the June 2010 event in Aspen, Colorado. The meeting invitation stated that "[our] prosperity is under attack by the current [i.e. the Obama] Administration and many of our elected officials" and "we cannot rely on politicians to [defend our free society], so it is up to us to combat what is now the greatest assault on American freedom and prosperity in our lifetimes".[96] The seminar program indicated that past meetings have featured speakers including Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas; Governors Bobby Jindal and Haley Barbour; commentators John Stossel, Charles Krauthammer, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh; Senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn; and Representatives Paul Ryan, Mike Pence, and Tom Price.[97] Some presentations at the gatherings are restricted. Guests may be required to give up their cell phones, media presence limited to only "a handful" of organizations, and photos and videos "strictly prohibited".[92]

If you encounter a paywall you can try reading it on MSN: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/she-lied-to-us-ex-gabbard-staffers-speak-out-about-insane-meeting-with-syrian-dictator/ar-AA1xB9oa

Also remember to contact your senator and demand that she not be confirmed. If your senator is a Republican remember to remind him/her that she was a lifetime Democrat. No matter the party mention that she's part of a cult and that someone who praises dictators isn't patriotic.