5 Lessons about Civic Engagement in the Age of Trump

Image: Author’s own, at May 1 protest, Beaverton, Oregon

Trump’s war on the civilized world has made me feel like a soldier called up to help defend and revitalize liberal democracy. I’ve gladly joined the ranks of pro-democracy troops fighting to protect human rights, safeguard the rule of law, and create a fairer, more abundant, and more sustainable society. 

As I step up my involvement in the transformational democracy movement, I’m developing a better understanding of how to carry out my role as a citizen activist. In this essay, I distill what I’ve learned so far into five lessons, which I discuss one at a time. 

My hope is that the lessons might be of some use to you in your own justice-seeking efforts. Please let me know how the lessons landed for you. Are they similar to insights you’ve had? Or is your experience notably different? Whatever your perspective might be, I’m sure it would be valuable not only to me but to other readers if you shared it in the comments section.

1. Aligning activities with purpose can bring more coherence to my actions. 

For the first three months of Trump’s reign, I was busy reacting to invitations and requests to participate in a host of political and community service activities, for example, to attend town hall meetings, to collect signatures and provide written testimony for state legislative initiatives, to attend public hearings on critical issues, to become a member of a political organization affiliated with the Democratic Party and to join a public-issue oriented civic association that I had heard good things about but had never joined. I said Yes to almost all of these opportunities and also donated to causes that I had not previously given money to. 

Though I didn’t regret pursuing any of these worthwhile activities, after a while I felt like I was bouncing from one activity to the next without clear lines of connection between them. 

What helped me to make connections across activities was to see them in relation to the intentions behind them, or their purposes. With a clearer understanding of purpose, one that rang deeply true for me, I’ve been better able to choose and view actions according to the ends they serve rather than as ends in themselves. 

I’ve identified five purposes, which I’ve used as a basis for grouping activities, as shown below: 

Purposes and Supporting Actions

To demonstrate moral outrage and a zeal for social and political change

• joined mass demonstrations on April 5 and May 1

• attended 3 town halls with U.S. Senators & Congresswoman 

To advocate for justice, freedom, & humaneness

• called and wrote elected officials expressing deep concern and urging action

• gave written testimony in support of two bills in the state legislature

• as part of a team, collected signatures for a state ballot measure and a legislative initiative and with fellow volunteers presented signatures for the legislative action to lawmakers at the state capitol 

• joined Swing Left, a grassroots organization dedicated to electing Democrats and remaking our democracy, and am participating in weekly Zoom meetings to build our capacity to make a difference

To contribute to the community

• Joined the City Club of Portland, participated in Friday forums, and gave feedback on a policy-related report

• Volunteered with AARP Oregon in several service contexts

• Increased donation to ACLU Oregon and participated in the organization’s launch party for an equal rights ballot measure

• Attended a large gathering for Habitat for Humanity and gave a donation

• Participated in a CROP Walk for Hunger and gave a donation

To play a part in city government

• Applied to serve on Portland’s long-range transportation planning community advisory committee (haven’t heard yet whether I’ve been selected)

To mobilize others to act

• Joined Vote Forward, a nonpartisan group that boosts voting among new and infrequent voters, and wrote and had approved a personal letter that I will handwrite multiple times and mail out to prospective voters

Many of my actions were focused at the local and state levels and included participation in civic associations that were doing good work in the community but not directly opposing Trump (though the ACLU was an exception; its role in fighting Trump in the courts was and continues to be essential). I appreciated what the Willamette Week, a Portland-based newspaper, recently said in reference to a county special election this month, “Fixing what’s broken in this country starts at home.”  

When I take in the full scope of the purposes I’ve articulated, I see that I’ll need to give more thought to setting priorities among them. For example, I’ll likely give greater weight to my connection with local government if I’m selected to serve on Portland’s transportation planning committee. 

2. Beyond purposeful action, it’s helpful to note takeaways and next steps.

After I organized activities according to purpose, I realized that something was missing: a record of what I was gleaning from my activities and notes on how I might follow up on my experiences. So I began to note takeaways and next steps, as illustrated below in reference to the following three purpose/action sets:

Demonstrating outrage through public protests & town halls: 

• I felt a great sense of solidarity and hopefulness in both the protests and town halls.

• I’ll attend the June 14 “No Kings Protest” in Portland.

• I’ve registered for Senator Cory Booker’s Town Hall with the ACLU on May 22.  

Advocating for justice by calling/writing elected officials, giving public testimony, etc.:

• It was satisfying to harness the emotional power of the protests and town halls and channel it in strategic ways.

• This coming week I’ll use the “5 Calls” app, a handy resource that I learned about in a Swing Left meeting, to call our congressional delegation about at least one critical issue.

Contributing to the community, like participating in ACLU initiatives, City Club forums, etc.:

• When I participate in groups like ACLU, the City Club, and AARP Oregon, I feel a groundswell of collective energy and capacity to make life better for one and all. 

• My intuitive sense about the value of civic associations resonates with one of the twenty lessons about resisting tyranny that Timothy Snyder made in his book On Tyranny, which we’ve been exploring in Swing Left Meetings by listening to John Lithgow’s dramatic reading of Snyder’s lessons. When civic associations and institutions are strong, Snyder has found, it’s much harder for an authoritarian like Trump to consolidate power under his rule and become a full-fledged dictator. 

Taking the time to write about what I felt and gained from an activity helps me to learn, find meaning in, and grow from the experience. Similarly, noting next steps orients me to upcoming actions that will build on my experiences. There’s also a gentle accountability element in identifying next steps because it means I’ve gone on record, however informal the record might be, to do something specific in the near future. 

3. It’s important to challenge my edge.

If I want to serve in areas of clear need and impact, I have to be open to doing things outside my comfort zone. The most salient example of this is the prospect of serving on Portland’s community advisory transportation system planning committee. I have applied to be a member of this committee, after being alerted to the opportunity by AARP Oregon, and am waiting to hear back from the city. 

I’m interested in the committee’s work because of my life experiences and values and not because I have any technical knowledge or expertise in the transportation sphere. Specifically, I was hit by a car while walking in my neighborhood over a year ago and have a special interest in pedestrian safety. I also drive an all-electric car and want to support our city’s efforts to build a clean-energy future.

But as I worked on the open-ended committee application questions, I sensed a rising doubt: If selected, would I have anything substantive to contribute? I’m accustomed to policy-related committee work but not outside the context of public education, the context in which I spent my career as a teacher, researcher, and program director. I didn’t relish the idea of appearing amateurish or coming across as a lightweight.  

Yet I reminded myself that nobody was asking that I be a transportation professional. The committee is to be composed of community members, not technical specialists. If selected, I would need to trust that as an everyday Portlander, I would have something worthy to share and that I could learn from fellow committee members and collaborate with them in fashioning recommendations.  

So I’m nudging myself into this new terrain of service because what’s needed is not about validating how much I know but about offering whatever I can.

4. It’s hard to be personal and heartfelt but also nonpartisan.

Following research-informed advice from Swing Left, I wrote a short, personal, and heartfelt story intended for elected officials, a letter to an editor, or prospective voters in swing districts regarding an issue I cared deeply about: Trump’s cruel and unlawful campaign against immigrants (except, apparently, white immigrants from South Africa). Swing Left made the persuasive point that for most audiences, letters or postcards that were handwritten and heartfelt had more of an impact than generic messages that appealed to the intended recipient’s commitment to lofty principles or abstract values.

Here’s the draft letter I composed:

"I'm afraid for my dear friend, a Dreamer who came to America as an undocumented three-year old child. She is now an upstanding, hard-working community member. But she feels threatened by President Trump's cruel and sweeping intimidation of immigrants. She’s worried that she and other Dreamers could be deported for no good reason. Please [I’d fill in this space with an appropriate action] protect my friend's humanity and contribution to society. Sincerely, ….

I asked my friend to review the draft to make sure it represented her experience. She said it did, and I thought I was ready to write a final draft.

But then I registered with Vote Forward, an organization I learned about in a Swing Left meeting, that had a well-honed letter-writing process for boosting voting among low-propensity voters. Vote Forward had the names and addresses of new and infrequent voters in districts that would be holding special elections in 2025. They would be able to obtain the same information for voters in the 2026 mid-term Congressional elections, including voters in swing districts.

I admit that I was so enthused about the system Vote Forward had in place for communicating letters to low-propensity voters that I didn’t study the guidelines they had developed to compose letters. I did see that their overall advice was very similar to what I had heard in Swing Left: Write short, personal, and heartfelt stories. So, without looking further at their more detailed guidelines, I went ahead and submitted to the Vote Forward team the draft letter I had written about my friend’s experience as a Dreamer.

Within hours, I received a reply indicating that my letter was too partisan. Vote Forward has found that new and infrequent voters respond best to letters that are handwritten, personal, and emotionally genuine but do not try to persuade them to vote for a particular candidate, take a particular stand, or align with a political party. The organization’s goal, I saw, was to boost voter turnout, not to take sides. Respectfully, a Vote Forward team member asked me to revise my letter.

But I found it difficult to be heartfelt and personal, on the one hand, and nonpartisan, on the other. I had strong feelings not only about Trump’s immigration policies but about the Trump regime more generally. I felt like trying to write with an authentic voice but without taking a stand on issues of the day would be like writing with only half my heart. 

At the same time, I appreciated what Vote Forward was saying. If I put myself in the shoes of a voter who is not all that interested in voting to begin with, I could see how receiving an impassioned, urgent message to vote for a particular cause or candidate might be unwelcome, or a turn-off. 

But I couldn’t think of a way to adapt my letter about my Dreamer friend without suggesting that a prospective voter oppose Trump’s immigration policies and support immigrants’ rights. So I went for a walk to clear my head. When I got back home, I drafted a new letter from a whole different and nonpartisan perspective, one that affirmed the value of voting without trying to sell a position or back or oppose a candidate. My message was as follows:

“I vote because voting has always made me feel in a tangible way that I was a part of our democracy. Also, years ago, when I taught high school social studies, I could see that every student had values and interests that deserved to be expressed in the political process. I believed then, as I believe now, that voting is a key way to express what's important to us and to be heard as a citizen. Thank you in advance for voting. With appreciation, Glen F., Portland, Oregon.”

A friendly Vote Forward team member replied promptly that my new letter “was great,” and that I was now registered with the organization and could participate in their letter writing campaign (which involved my handwriting a letter to each individual on a list I would obtain from Vote Forward). 

I suppose the lesson for me is one I had learned and internalized years ago, but had apparently forgotten to apply: Always keep both purpose and audience in mind as guides to writing. Even when writing in a highly charged political environment, if I’m writing for the purpose of encouraging reluctant voters to vote, I need to let go of my own strong opinions and focus on what would be encouraging to them. 

Writing messages that are both heartfelt and nonpartisan is still a work in progress for me. I’m not entirely happy with the letter I wrote that was approved by Vote Forward, which made reference to my early experience teaching high school social studies. The letter seemed a bit bland to me and a little too general. But at least now I’m alert to the difference between writing in a partisan and nonpartisan context. I’ll keep working on improving my writing in both contexts. 

5. Reading books that offer a big picture look at political and social transformation inspires me as I  carry out small, week-to-week civic actions. 

As I implement my weekly civic action agenda, I’m finding that I need a boost from big thinkers to keep my mind open and awake to new possibilities for change. I’ve always liked to read, but since Trump took office, for the second time, I’ve done more focused and sustained reading than ever before about civil resistance,  the breakdown of democracies, and, as I mentioned earlier regarding Timothy Snyder’s work, the nature of tyranny. These books contain cautionary tales, for sure, about what can go wrong with liberal democracies, but they also point the way toward positive change. 

I won’t go into the specific issues and opportunities these books so masterfully bring into focus. My point is simply to observe that it’s invaluable to me to read well researched books that not only analyze the forces of reaction and breakdown in our political and social order but offer a plausible vision of transformation. It’s easy to lose sight of a bright vision for a flourishing future when we all must spend so much energy simply defending basic rights and freedoms that should never have been compromised to begin with. But the week-to-week work we all do to make the world a little bit better is buoyed by the currents of transformation that are always there, if we reach out for them.

I hope you will feel inclined to offer comments in the comments section. I’d love to hear from you.

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