It’s Time To Fight MAGA Not Retreat

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The civil rights pioneer and former pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama Dr. Vernon Johns famously said, “If you see a good fight, get in it.”

Of course, Dr. Johns was not in any way promoting physical violence and neither am I. Instead, we’re both simply saying that turning a blind eye to struggle and injustice is, at best, immoral and, at worst, self-destructive. If you ignore your neighbor when he or she is being bullied, it’s only a matter of time before those same bullies come knocking on your door.

Again, I’m not suggesting violence. But sometimes nice words won’t get the job done. 

I was thinking about that Tuesday night as I watched President Trump’s address to Congress and it became abundantly clear to me that, in the world of MAGA extremism, the old operating system of “When they go low, we go high” is an outdated, antiquated and downright ineffective strategy. Now that the other side has mastered the art of “going low,” we must follow their flow.

If you see a good fight, get in it.

Look at how they are behaving from firing hundreds of thousands of federal employees to using DJ Daniels, a 13-year-old cancer survivor, as a PR prop at the same time that he’s cutting cancer research. 

If that isn’t low, what about claiming to love our men and women in uniform while targeting 80,000 VA jobs for cuts, slashing the FBI and pardoning insurrectionists and white supremacists who attacked capitol police officers? What about criticizing President Biden’s disaster response while cutting FEMA and threatening to withhold disaster relief for those who lost their homes during the California Wildfires? What about starting a trade war that will devastate America’s farmers while telling them to “have fun?” 

Donald Trump has completed a third of Project 2025, despite claiming he knew nothing about it, and hired two of its top authors to run the Office of Management and Budget and the Federal Communications Commission. That has nothing to do with improving the economy, lowering the cost of groceries, raising wages, or making America great.

Of course, you can’t point that out to Trump or the MAGA Republicans. They just can’t handle it.

The Associated Press insisted on reporting the actual news, continued to fact-check Trump’s constant barrage of lies and refused to cave to his threats and treating him no different than they had any other president, Trump banned them from the White House.

Hard-working everyday Americans began showing up to town hall meetings in their communities to have their voices heard. They were angry about Donald Trump laying off government employees, threatening Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and giving Elon Musk their Social Security numbers.  

So, rather than face the growing backlash from their constituents, Republican Speaker Mike Johnson told his members to stop holding town halls.

President Volodymyr Zelensky had the audacity to correct Trump and Vice President Vance who kept blaming Ukraine for Russia’s invasion and the whole GOP lost its mind when Rep. Al Green spoke out on Trump’s lies during his speech to Congress, they had him removed and censured. Of course, they ignored it when Rep. Joe Wilson acted out during President Obama’s speech or Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s behavior during President Biden’s.

Oh, and if college students try to exercise their right to free speech, Trump says he’ll lock them up.

I don’t know about you, folks, but I see a lot of good fights out there. It’s time to get in it. It’s time to stop agonizing and start organizing because it’s too important not to. They’re not in the next state over anymore and they’re not accosting our neighbors. They’re knocking on our door. So it’s time to stand up.

Maybe one call to your Congressman or Senator might not make a difference. But a few thousand will.

One voice at the town hall can be shouted down. But what if you fill the auditorium?

It’s time to go door to door. It’s to register to vote and help your neighbors sign up while you’re at it. Have you been ducking the issue at the family cookout because you want to keep the peace with that uncle who wears the MAGA hat and won’t shut up about “cancel culture?” Well, it’s time to get off social media, out of our comfort zones and into the fight.

It’s a good fight, after all…and we can’t afford to lose.

Antjuan Seawright is a Democratic political strategist, founder and CEO of Blueprint Strategy LLC and a senior visiting fellow at Third Way. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter @antjuansea.

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