A video montage with a voiceover: “Donald Trump is a lie.” The sequence condemns the false information spread by the former President of the United States and the Republican candidate for his re-election on November 5. The YouTube channel that broadcasts it belongs to Don Winslow, author of successful detective novels. For four years he has been producing and broadcasting these videos.
The author considers his engagement justified if it helps convince supporters of Donald Trump or motivate his opponents: “Preaching to the converted has its purposes. You motivate your own base, or those who are not enthusiastic, when you say, ‘Look, you have a hard choice…’ You are facing a man, I want to be cash, who is a traitor! Excuse me if I shout, but there is a man who tried to overthrow the government of the United States.” he explained in an interview at the beginning of April with the magazine Rolling stones.
This time Donald Trump shows up and threatens to be a dictator to end the constitution.
R. De Niro
Don Winslow is one of many writers and artists who speak out against the former President of the United States. Robert De Niro committed to Joe Biden’s side before abandoning his candidacy. In a TV campaign spot, we hear the famous actor’s voice: “We knew Trump was out of control when he was president. He then lost the 2020 election and collapsed. He tried desperately to hold on to power. Now he appears again. This time, by threatening to be a dictator, to end the constitution. »
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Other cinema personalities take a stand. Donald Trump “would exercise the power of the presidency with unprecedented cruelty and injustice and in a disproportionate manner,” wrote actress and feminist activist Ashley Judd in a column published in July i USA today, where she urged Joe Biden to give up his seat to another Democratic candidate who would have a better chance of beating the Republican billionaire. Since July 21, it has now been done after Joe Biden gave up running.
In addition to celebrity efforts to counter a possible return of Donald Trump, there are members of the Democratic Party who will be knocking on doors, handing out leaflets and mobilizing voters.
Prohibition and pressure
Justified fight: The former president’s new quest for power was accompanied by an escalation of conservative policies and speeches. Thus Florida’s governor and former candidate in the Republican primary, Ron DeSantis, decided to lead one “war on wokism”.
In recent years, it has allowed the enactment of laws prohibiting discussion of issues of sexual orientation from kindergarten through middle school, or allowing the addition of “advantage” slavery (human rights organizations have challenged some of these measures in court). These laws only apply to Florida, but other conservative states are increasing attacks against minorities and LGBTQ+ people.
Book releases continue to target the titles that matter most to students.
Pretty America
One of the consequences of this policy is the banning of certain books. These works can be sold in bookstores, but they disappear from the shelves of schools or other public institutions. From July to December 2023, the Pen America association, which promotes free speech, recorded 4,349 cases of bans in the United States, compared to 1,841 the previous semester. “Book releases continue to target the titles most crucial to students: works that explore LGBTQ+ and gender identities; books about race and racism with characters of color; and others about sexual violence. But these books can be a lifeline for some children”writes the association in a report published in April.
On the same topic: In the United States, the impossible returns to the normal
Florida has become the epicenter of these blacklists. But not all its inhabitants support them. Jonathan lives in Jacksonville. For more than a year, he has been collecting banned books from teachers who can no longer use them. He then sets up a stand at local food markets to hand them out for free. The people he meets are “surprised by these bans” And “grateful” of this approach. The forty-year-old’s commitment does not stop there. He is part of a group that supports women who want it in clinics that perform abortions.
The approach mainly targets an establishment in the city where anti-abortion activists regularly post themselves at the entrance to dissuade patients from terminating their pregnancies. “We give them security” and moral support, he explains. Jonathon continues these operations even though the right to abortion has been significantly reduced in this southern state. Since May, abortion has been banned after six weeks of pregnancy with exceptions.
In 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade” on the right to abortion. Since then, it has been up to each individual state to legislate on this issue. Fourteen states have banned termination of pregnancy, and others, such as Florida, have implemented various limits. Associations and activists seek through legal or political means to regain this right. One approach is to collect signatures – the number and procedure of which varies according to local rules – to obtain the holding of a referendum. Ohio voters voted by a majority to enshrine this right in the state constitution in November 2023. Abortion is now permitted up to nearly twenty-two weeks of pregnancy.
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This example gave hope to activists in Florida, who were able to collect enough signatures for a referendum to be organized. Voters will decide next November, on the same day as the presidential election, whether to include this right in their local laws. Ryan Moran is an activist in the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, a political party to the left of the Democratic Party, in Jacksonville. He helped collect signatures.
“Usually we don’t have good candidates on our ballots. Those who are Democrats or Liberals [au sens de progressistes, NDLR] is never represented. That such voting is possible is innovative. It is a positive fight, which contradicts the feeling that some people have. Those who are hopeless and detached from the political system”, he looks forward.
“Refugees are welcome”
The right to abortion is one of the Democrats’ main issues, locally or nationally, while Republicans focus on the issue of immigration. Donald Trump emphasizes this point in his campaign. He confirmed during a meeting in December 2023 that migrants “poison the blood of our country”. Faced with xenophobia in the speeches of certain political leaders, associations are fighting as best they can.
Jimmy Dunson is the co-founder of the Love Has No Borders association in Tampa, Florida, to help refugees – through food distributions and facilitating their access to housing – or showing that ‘“They are welcome”. The association was established in 2015. It is strictly speaking not involved in politics but, “If policies have negative consequences for people, we oppose them and, by extension, we oppose the politicians who support them.” he explains. For him, his work has another function: “Nature teaches us that the best way to destroy concrete is not with a hammer. Seeds must be planted in the cracks, which will grow and sprout into a garden. »
Jimmy has noticed an increase in mutual aid initiatives in recent years. “In the resistance against the Nazi regime or in the underground railway [un système permettant aux esclaves de rejoindre le nord des États-Unis pendant le XIXe siècle et d’échapper ainsi au système esclavagiste dans le Sud, N.D.L.R.], much of the action involved caring for others, feeding the hungry, taking in someone who had nowhere else to go. This is what it takes to resist authoritarianism. »
