Some liberal activists seethed at President-elect Donald Trump’s victory. Some pleaded for a white knight — the news media or maybe judges — to lead a new resistance over the next four years.
Still others called in the healers.
The Women’s March, which in 2017 organized a mass protest around Mr. Trump’s first inauguration, said Wednesday it needed to “reground ourselves and restore our energies for the road ahead” with a group yoga and journaling session.
“This healing justice event offers community support, insights from movement leaders, and guidance from healers to help ground us — no matter what comes next,” march organizers said online. “We’ve got each other, and together we’ll get through this.”
Healing was far from the minds of immigrant rights advocates, who were preparing for what they expect to be the worst four years they’ve faced in modern American history.
“We stopped him before and we will stop him again,” said Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition. “Together, we will fight the fascist president-elect and his racist deportation agenda every step of the way — to ensure that our immigrant neighbors, families and communities will live in safety and with dignity.”
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The American Civil Liberties Union said it envisioned “chaos and destruction” from a second Trump term. The organization said it’s ready with the same tsunami of lawsuits it filed in Mr. Trump’s first term — 434 of them. Many of those lawsuits derailed some of his immigration plans last time.
“At the ACLU, we play the long game. We’ve been around for 105 years. We’ve seen 19 presidents come and go,” said Anthony Romero, the ACLU’s executive director.
People For the American Way, another liberal activist group, urged Democrats to take advantage of the time they still have control of the White House and Senate to push through more judicial confirmations.
“Trump 47 will be worse than last time,” said Svante Myrick, PFAW’s president. “He has signaled he intends to preside over a regime of fascism and bigotry on steroids, one that will be empowered by a MAGA Supreme Court. That means the resistance must start now.”
Former Rep. Liz Cheney, the one-time GOP leader who supported Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, said she accepted the results — but urged ongoing resistance to Mr. Trump “over these coming four years.”
“Citizens across this country, our courts, members of the press and those serving in our federal, state and local governments must now be the guardrails of democracy,” Ms. Cheney said.
Some Trump detractors are going through the fight-or-flight calculation and concluding the latter option may be the best.
Google Trends data showed a 90% leap in searches for “immigrate to,” according to Fatjoe, a search engine optimization consultancy. Canada led the list of potential destinations, followed by Australia, Ireland, Switzerland and Germany.
And some Trump opponents turned their fire inward.
Justice Democrats called the results “a devastating outcome for our country” and demanded a housecleaning of Democratic leaders, saying Ms. Harris’ party wasn’t liberal enough to win over voters.
“With the victory of Donald Trump, there are no easy answers for where we as a country and movement go from here,” said Alexandra Rojas, the group’s executive director. “But what is clear to us is that politically courageous leaders at the federal level are needed now more than ever — the Democratic Party must usher in a new era, led by new leaders, not beholden to corporations and billionaires.”
Ms. Rojas suggested those in the Squad, the far-left group in the House that includes Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat, and Rep. Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Democrat, take the reins.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations said Democrats bungled their handling of Israel’s war with Hamas, which prompted “deep frustration” among Muslim, Arab, Black and young voters.
CAIR said in embracing Ms. Cheney and in blocking pro-Palestinian voices from her convention in August, Ms. Harris chased away some voters.
CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad said he wants to see Mr. Trump “fulfill his campaign pledge to pursue peace abroad, including by ending the war on Gaza.
“However, this must be a real peace based on justice, freedom and a state for the Palestinian people.”
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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