Youth Advocacy
Youth Advocacy
Year 4, Week 33 (283 total reports)
08.10.2025-14.10.2025
REVIEW and ANNOUNCEMENTS
Dr. Jerry Goebel
Trumpism—not just Donald Trump—is poised to destroy democracy, not just in our lifetime but our children’s lifetimes and their children’s lifetimes. This weekend is your chance to say “NO! Find your nearest No Kings Rally and support it.”
Visual Stories!
Someday, if we do our part, the nightmare will be over. This song, written for a woman’s choir, asks, “will you be able to say you stood for democracy? When The Nightmare’s Finally Over.
Top Links of the Week
14.10.2025
America Needs a Mass Movement—Now
Some of you know that David Brooks is my favorite author/news commentator, and The Atlantic, my favorite news journal. So when the two combine to tell a story, I’m all over it. Why is it time for a mass movement? Brooks explains, “The second Trump administration has flouted court decisions in a third of all rulings against it, according to The Washington Post. It operates as a national extortion racket, using federal power to control the inner workings of universities, law firms, and corporations. It has thoroughly politicized the Justice Department, launching a series of partisan investigations against its political foes. It has turned ICE into a massive paramilitary organization with apparently unconstrained powers. It has treated the Constitution with disdain, assaulted democratic norms and diminished democratic freedoms, and put military vehicles and soldiers on the streets of the capital. It embraces the optics of fascism and flaunts its autocratic aspirations.” Brooks identifies the problem not as Donald Trump, but Trumpism. He states, “If you think Trumpism will simply end in three years, you are naive. Left unopposed, global populism of the sort Trumpism represents could dominate for a generation. This could be the rest of our lives, and our children’s, too.” I really appreciate Brooks’ litmus test for authoritarianism: “One way to tell if you’re living in an autocracy is by asking this question: Do people feel free to express their dissent?” October 18 is Saturday, a new chance to show up at your nearest “No Kings” rally. I hope you have researched where you will go and how you will show support this weekend. We are losing democracy, and the effects won’t just be felt by our current generation, but Trumpism will take root for generations to come.
13.10.22025
Portland’s Dancing Protesters Are Showing Us How to Stand Up to Trump
As journalist Jeet Heer points out, this administration wants us to be afraid. It is their goal to make us so afraid that we become numb, then incapacitated. Portland’s response to that has been a training ground for dealing with conservatives. We must remember that the conservative mind does not get humor; Trump and his cronies don’t find anything funny that is not demeaning. So unless they’re making fun of someone, they can’t understand humor. The response from Portland to the constant attempts to invoke violence has been people turning up in the streets and dancing in full-body costumes like frog suits. When Kristi (dog-shooting’) Noem gathered with ICE agents on the roof of the ICE building in Portland, aiming rifles at the protestors, they turned up the music and boogied down. The Trump Gestapo wants violence; instead, they got Portland. Remember, this is the city whose motto is, “Keep Portland Weird”; why would the Trump Administration expect anything less? Have a listen to this song: Laugh at them… laughter drives them crazy!
10.10.2025
Trump Loses Nobel Peace Prize He Shamelessly Campaigned For
The man with orange makeup is going to need an extra layer this morning. As we mentioned yesterday, Trump is living in fear of what his obituary will read. He desperately wanted a Nobel Prize so that he would not just be remembered for his predatory crimes and insatiable graft. As this article points out, despite his constant and shameless campaigning, a woman from a country Trump has been targeting and illegally attacking, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, won the award for—as the committee stated, “her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.” You can bet there is ketchup on the White House dining room walls this morning as we know that the infant-in-chief does not take such news well. The alarming part is, now that the Nobel Prize is off the list, how will the angry old man respond? Who will he target next on his “Revenge Tour II?” Letitia James was on the list yesterday, James Comey, the week before, prior to that, Jimmy Kimmel, and, of course, Stephen Colbert. The retribution list seems endless for all the enemies in Trump’s rapidly decaying mind.
09.10.2025
Retribution Is Here
This President has two modes, and both are dangerous for America, indeed… the world. Tribute and Retribution. He panders to those who give him tribute and seeks retribution on those who don’t. Foreign leaders like Putin, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), and Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani have acknowledged this and used it to manipulate this President on multiple occasions. In this article by Jonathan Lemire, he tells us that Trump is currently also driven by what his obituaries will say about him. Lemire states, “Trump knows that they will mention his history-making presidencies, his ostentatious wealth, and his unusual charisma—but he also is aware that when he dies, people will remember his conviction on 34 felony counts, and that there is nothing he can do about it. Even now, White House officials have told me, Trump rages about how his guilty verdict is sure to be mentioned way up high in his obituaries.” Lemire also points to Trump’s demands that two governors be arrested (while not giving any evidence of wrongdoing), at the same time that James Comey is being hauled into court on charges that his previous attorney general said were unsubstantiated. Trump’s motivation, obviously, is pure retribution.
08.10.2025
This morning there are two exceptional articles from Trump-Occupied Chicago that are worth reviewing. Both are heart-rending, both from mothers, one is a representative from the area, the other a working mom. Both are afraid for their children in light of what the Trump machine is doing there. The first one, by working mother, Meredith Shiner, The Case for the Forever Shutdown, makes us wonder what the Democrats are doing (and have been doing) during the two Trump administrations. She artfully argues that whatever they have been doing is obviously not working, because the government is not working. Yes, the Republicans own the House, the Senate, the White House, and the Judiciary, but Democrats keep playing tete-a-tete on Republican terms. They argue about the economy when clearly, the country is not working on all levels. On ALL LEVELS! When parents are afraid to send their children to school in the morning, then the government is not working. Ms. Shiner argues that this is not a time to argue not just about the economy, this is a time to argue about the purpose of government and whatever purpose is elucidated; that purpose is not functioning in America. It IS time for a shutdown. The other article, by Illinois state Rep. Lilian Jiménez, states, Trump is trying to make an example out of Chicago. We won't stand for it. Rep. Jiménez is from the district where Trump’s Terror Troops, repelled onto the roof of a high-rise apartment building at 1 a.m. and forced people into the streets, some were naked, children were zip-tied, no one was read their rights, and many were American citizens. Trump’s immigration machine is the fourth largest military in the world thanks to funding from the GOP and their One Big Beautiful Bill; he is using that military to take revenge and attack Blue Cities in Blue States. This is a government that is not working, it doesn’t need to be “tweaked,” it needs to be remade.
