Nobody Is Coming To Save Us From Trump

Tell Us What To Do

When I first started writing these posts, I ended every one of them with a formal call to action.
Call your congressman.
Email your representatives.
Protest.

I still include those things, but not as formally as I used to. Because like many of you, I grew tired of hearing, and saying, the same words over and over again.

It’s not that those actions don’t matter. They do. It’s that after years of crisis, it can feel almost condescending to be told to “call your congressman” when it feels like the country is burning down around us. It’s like being in a flash flood and calmly blowing up the raft while the water keeps rising.

The truth is, this isn’t a do this or do that situation anymore. It’s a do everything situation.

And we’ve seen pressure on lawmakers work. We know it has an effect. Things would be far worse if people hadn’t marched, called, written, and protested. But the wheels of progress are turning too slowly. We all feel that.

So where does that leave us? What do we do?

Because we’ve been conditioned to wait for someone else to fix it. To lead us. To tell us what to do.
But no one is coming to save us.

No single person has stepped forward to spearhead this battle. And waiting for the next election to magically fix everything isn’t a plan. It’s a lullaby.

We don’t have to wait.

Every one of us has a part in saving this country. Most of us just haven’t discovered what that part is yet.

Start there. Think about your strengths and your resources. It sounds simple, but that’s where real resistance always begins.

I’m a writer. My weapon is my words. I had a platform from my previous work, so I revived it and made the conscious decision to make this my full-time fight. Not everyone can do that. But everyone can do something.

What can you do?

Can you canvas and register voters? That’s going to become even harder, and more essential, especially for women.
Are you an artist? Make signs. Paint windows. Create visuals that make people stop and think.
Are you good with a camera? Help document ICE raids, voter suppression, and the cracks between propaganda and reality.
Can’t protest? Donate. Share. Support those who can.

There is a place for everyone in this movement.

When I think about creative resistance, I think of the underground networks of World War II, how people found ways to tell the truth when propaganda was the only official language. They built trust when the world had none left. They found ways to combine their food rations so that families in hiding could eat without alerting the authorities. They found ways to survive together.

That’s what we must do now, get creative enough to accomplish what feels impossible.

We also have to stop waiting for a savior. The Democrats have had almost a year to produce an opposition leader, not necessarily a presidential contender, just someone to rally behind. Someone who can unify messaging and direction. It hasn’t happened.

So the truth is simple, we are the ones who will save us.

And it will start at the local level.

Look at Portland. They are outsmarting Kristi Noem’s photo ops. ICE and the Trump regime are desperate to provoke violence so they can justify the Insurrection Act. But the people of Portland aren’t giving it to them. They’re dressing in frog costumes, holding tea parties, dancing in the streets. Their defiance is creative, peaceful, and powerful.

Look at Chicago. When ICE agents knocked down doors and dragged families, including naked children, into the street, the people of Chicago rose up. They marched to Trump Plaza. They showed the world that we will not go quietly. That this country still belongs to us, not to the Divider in Chief.

We each have a role to play. We just have to find it, and then settle in for the long haul.

Right now, we’re in the stretch of a year that will determine everything.

If you’re in California, you already know what’s coming next.
October 20 is the last day to register to vote for the special election. November 4 is the vote. Prop 50 is on the ballot. This is one of those moments that will decide whether we still have a chance to claw our way back from the edge.

If you’re outside California, donate to help get the message out. The other side is flooding the airwaves with propaganda.

My fifteen-year-old told me that on YouTube, for every one “Yes on 50” ad, she sees at least four “No” ads, slick, manipulative, and convincing. If a politically aware teenager can feel the pull of that manipulation, imagine what it’s doing to everyone else.

So start there.
If you don’t know where to start, start with Prop 50.

Make sure anyone you know in California is registered, informed, and ready. Because it matters.

Next, make plans to attend the next No Kings protest on October 18. Find the nearest event and go. Bring someone with you. It’s less intimidating when you’re not alone. Invite family, friends, anyone who might be waiting for a reason to act.

It’s going to become more and more important to surround yourself with people who believe in democracy. This fight will be both national and local, but also deeply personal.

Join local organizations that register voters or fight disinformation. Join civic clubs, community networks, and library boards. This isn’t about left or right anymore. It’s about survival, of our democracy, our freedoms, and our shared humanity.

Support independent journalists and writers who are documenting this moment in real time. Many have been fired from mainstream outlets for telling inconvenient truths. Some face lawsuits. Some live under threats. Support them. Subscribe. Share. Amplify.

And when you feel helpless, when you need to do something right now, go stand on a street corner with a sign. It doesn’t matter if you’re alone. Someone will see you. Someone will remember. Courage spreads faster than fear once it’s visible.

Start conversations online. Comment on posts. Share articles. The disinformation machine is loud because it never sleeps. The truth must become louder.

And if you can handle it mentally, because it’s not easy, start your own platform. Pick a topic you care about. You don’t need to be an expert. Just be honest, consistent, and curious. I spend hours fact-checking every post I write. Not because I want to be perfect, but because the truth deserves that kind of effort.

If you feel called to step into this world, do it. Because when this is over, the question will be, what did you do?

Donate to politicians and causes that are actually fighting for democracy. Small donations add up. The other side isn’t fueled by passion, it’s fueled by billionaires and dark money.

And yes, I’ve said before that a national economic blackout might be the only thing that could shake this system. The French do it best. When they’ve had enough, they stop everything, trains, shops, work. They flood the streets. They make the cost of ignoring them too high to bear.

They understand something Americans have forgotten, silence is complicity, and democracy is a muscle that only stays strong when you use it.

Maybe one day we’ll find that kind of courage. But for now, we act where we can.

You know those companies still flying MAGA flags, still funding hate, still celebrating cruelty? Stop buying from them. Let them know we see them. Economic power is people power. If enough of us withdraw our support, company by company, we create pressure they can’t ignore.

And when you start to doubt that ordinary people can make a difference, remember the ones who already did.

Because history isn’t written by the powerful. It’s written by the brave.

The American colonists didn’t start with muskets and armies. They started with boycotts, with tea and thread and principle. Their revolution began at the kitchen table, not the battlefield.

The Underground Railroad wasn’t built by generals, but by neighbors. Teachers, farmers, and ministers, people who risked everything because the law itself had lost its morality.

When the Nazis came to Denmark, citizens didn’t ask permission to resist. They looked at one another and said no. Within days, fishermen and shopkeepers ferried nearly 7,000 Jewish men, women, and children to safety. Ninety percent of Denmark’s Jewish population survived because a nation chose conscience over compliance.

In Munich, a group of students called the White Rose printed leaflets calling for moral awakening in Nazi Germany. Hans and Sophie Scholl were barely older than my kids. They knew they would be caught. They did it anyway. They were executed by guillotine, but their words outlived the regime that killed them. Truth, once spoken, cannot be unspoken.

In Montgomery, Alabama, ordinary Black citizens refused to ride the buses for 381 days. They walked through rain, heat, and hatred until segregation cracked under the weight of their persistence.

In Poland, when the government banned truth, shipyard workers built their own printing presses. They called their movement Solidarity, and that spark helped bring down an empire.

In the Baltic States, when the Soviet Union forbade their songs, hundreds of thousands gathered and sang them anyway. They held hands across 400 miles, forming the Baltic Way, a human chain of freedom. They fought tyranny with music, and the world listened.

In Liberia, when men with guns couldn’t end a war, women in white did. Christian and Muslim women together. They prayed, protested, and blocked the doors of the negotiating hall until peace came.

And in Czechoslovakia, citizens filled the streets and jingled their keys, symbols of unlocking their future. It was called the Velvet Revolution. They faced riot police with candles, not weapons. Within weeks, the government fell.

These weren’t heroes carved in marble. They were people like us. People with families to feed, rent to pay, fears to carry, who still acted.

They remind us that resistance isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s one person printing leaflets. Sometimes it’s a mother refusing to move. Sometimes it’s a fisherman hiding a family in the dark. Sometimes it’s a song rising from a crowd that refuses to kneel.

Every movement begins with one decision, to stop waiting for someone else.

So when we say, tell us what to do, history has already answered.
We just have to listen.
And then we have to act.

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

It was Theodore Roosevelt who said it, quoting a man named Squire Bill Widener, an ordinary citizen with extraordinary wisdom.

Because that’s all any generation has ever had, what they could do, with what they had, where they were.
And somehow, it was always enough to change the world.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather