Under Pressure: Forcing Choices
Paper tigers and pressure campaigns
"Pressure forces choices." ~Timothy Snyder
Red State Democrats have learned a thing or two in the decades that we’ve been under Republican supermajorities. At the top of the list? That you only win a fight with MAGA when you go to toe-to-toe with them. Capitulation doesn’t work. They laugh at compromise; they call empathy weakness.
Bullies (and the MAGA wing is just a pack of bullies) only respect power. Theirs is a language of brute force. And that’s the interesting thing – when you pop a MAGA Republican in the nose (metaphorically speaking), they back down – just like we’ve seen Trump do time and again.
MAGA bullies tend to be paper tigers – all form, and no substance.
But you can’t see that the tiger is made of tissue paper until you push on it.
The exact moment when Maine’s Governor Janet Mills told Trump that rather than capitulating, she would “see him in court.” (She won, by the way.)
Exerting pressure can be uncomfortable – and especially considering this particular opponent, even scary. It’s certainly resource-intensive. And it’s probably not the most obvious strategy for folks who live in places where there’s still civil political dialogue. After all, when both sides are actually operating in good faith and trying to find the right policy, fighting back can actually appear (and can sometimes be) obstructionist.
But in Red States we’ve been fighting MAGA for a while. And we know the alternative to fighting back – to exerting direct, specific pressure – is being bowled over, overpowered, silenced.
And whether you think it’s because we’re stubborn or brave, Red State Dems are not willing to go down like that.
So we don’t. We push harder.
It works.
Here in Missouri, as my friend Jess Piper pointed out over the weekend, we have legalized weed, passed paid sick leave, and reinstated abortion rights – all in a state that Trump won in 2024 by more than 18 points.
How? Through ballot initiatives – democracy in its most direct form.
The MO GOP is not happy that we’ve been able to pass such progressive measures; so they’re scheming on how to change the ballot initiative process to make it harder in the future. They’re also spending a lot of time and energy trying to undo what we’ve already done (time and energy they could be spending doing other awful things, I might add).
So in a state where Democrats have a superminority in both chambers and hold no statewide office, Republicans are spending a lot of time and energy reacting to us. By exerting specific pressure, we’re forcing them to react.
It reminded me of a quote from Timothy Snyder, the historian and author of On Tyranny. He once said “Pressure forces choices.”
He’s right.
It’s like when I played soccer in high school. My job wasn’t to take the ball from anyone (I was quite bad at that, actually). My job was to run at them, full speed. My job was to force them to move. To decide.
When we give folks time to catch their breath, to regroup, to strategize – they’ll take it. So whether it’s in a soccer game or in a policy fight, we should be keeping up the pressure.
We should be pushing on that paper tiger.
That’s one of the reasons I applauded at the video of JB Pritzker’s speech in New Hampshire – in which he said we need to fight everywhere and all at once. Because when we come at anti-democratic forces from every angle, from every corner, and from every community, we force them to make choices and make split decisions – some of which will turn out for them … and some of which will not.
From the activist side, the Tesla Takedown, 50501 protests, and AOC/Bernie’s Oligarchy Tour have been a constant source of pressure, even in red states. And it’s having an impact – Musk is clearly off his game and out of Trump’s graces, and Tesla stock has tanked. He’s being forced to decide between dallying in the federal government or returning to his company.
On the purely political side, running nominees in every district (yes, even the so-called “unwinnable” ones) forces Republicans to make choices – to make them answer for their bad policies and for the serious damage that they’re doing to our communities. It’s one of the best ways for us to exert pressure.
And that pressure has a positive impact, even if the nominees don’t win.
Take Jess Piper – who I mentioned above. In 2022 she ran for state representative in a district that hadn’t had a Democratic nominee in cycles. But she ran hard, raised over $250,000 (not a typo), and forced the Republican nominee to stay home and campaign and attend town halls and answer constituent questions – and raise over $100,000 from Republican donors (that otherwise would have donated to another race).
By running, she forced their hand and made them react.
They honestly haven’t recovered. I’m not kidding when I say that Jess lives rent-free in the Missouri GOP’s heads.
But as I was considering the pressure we can bring to bear on Republicans, I realized that there’s a completely different angle – one that I’m not sure Republicans fully appreciate yet: the pressure Republican policies are bringing to bear on you and I.
Tens of millions of Americans have now had benefits cut, jobs destroyed, school programs defunded, grants clawed back, businesses wrecked – and that’s not even considering the people whose families have been physically torn apart.
This administration is making millions of people desperate, all at once.
An incredible amount of pressure is now coming down upon tens of millions of people, from every which direction.
That pressure isn’t going away any time soon. It will force people all across the country to make choices – and hopefully to join together, show their own power, exert their own force.
And fight the paper tigers.
Let's get to work.
Actions for the Week of May 6, 2025
Friend, things may be heavy – but you can lighten that load by doing something small – a “small deed” – to bring about the world that you want to see. In doing so we tell the world, the universe, our leaders – and most importantly, ourselves – that we will not go quietly into that good night.
I call it Action Therapy.
That’s why in each Tuesday post I share a few “small things” – usually a Small Thing to Read, a Small Event to Attend, and a Small Call to Make or Action to Take. My intention here is to give you actions you can tuck into your week with ease – and know that you’re doing something today to make tomorrow better.
Join me in doing so. It matters.
Small Call to Make/Action to Take: GOP Budget Actions – Hat Tip to Rogan’s List!
As I like to say, I’m interested in amplifying and collaborating – and this happens to be one of those days where Rogan’s List put out just such an amazing resource that I just want to share it with you. From their newsletter this morning:
REPUBLICANS ARE STRUGGLING TO FINALIZE THE BUDGET
After months of kicking the can down the road on the details of their reverse Robin Hood reconciliation bill, Republicans are at the point of having to make final decisions on just how they plan to cut Medicaid and food assistance to pay for tax cuts for billionaires. It’s not going well (full status update here). Multiple competing red lines from different factions within the party have already caused them to delay markups on crucial sections of the measure. It will not be easy, but we have a real opportunity to turn up the heat and maybe stop some of the worst of the damage.
Let’s keep up the pressure to stop them for stealing for the rich. We can:
Contact our members of Congress with call and email tools from Indivisible
Write letters to the editor, share on social media and talk to our friends and neighbors directly about how the GOP plans will hit us. We can use talking points and details for the specific impacts in our area:
Join efforts to reach out to folks in key districts! Multiple organizations are phonebanking voters represented by potential swing votes to get them to turn up the heat. We can make calls:
TUESDAYS AND SATURDAYS from 2:00-4:00PM and 11:00AM-1:00PM ET with Bluevote.org, sign up here
THURSDAY from 6:00-8:00PM ET with MoveOn, sign up here
THURSDAY (and future Thursdays) from 7:00-11:15PM ET with Grassroots Democrats HQ and Chop Wood, Carry Water, sign up here
THURSDAY (and future Thursdays) from 6:00-9:00PM ET with People’s Action focused on deep canvassing, sign up here
NEXT Thursday from 11:00AM-1:00PM Eastern with Indivisible, sign up here
Times to be determined with the Working Families Power call team, sign up here
I’m sure you can see why I wanted to share Rogan’s List’s comprehensive and helpful action list here. As a bonus action, I highly recommend subscribing to RL if you are not already a subscriber. You won’t regret it!
Small Event to Attend: Indivisible Call Thursday
Indivisible has already announced that they’ll be having a national day of action on June 14 (which is also Trump’s birthday and Flag Day and apparently the day we’ll have a military parade in his honor). They’ll be talking about their plans this Thursday at 2pm central over zoom. Register here: https://www.mobilize.us/indivisible/event/773746/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=_20250505
Small Thing(s) to Read: Trump’s Approval in Rural America Craters and Blumenthal Writes Scathing Letter Re: Trump’s Cryptocurrency Con (Yes! Good News!)
Last week Newsweek ran a piece about a new Marist poll that shows an erosion of Trump’s support in Rural America. “According to the poll, just 46 percent of rural voters now approve of Trump's job performance, while 45 percent disapprove. In February, 59 percent approved and 37 percent disapproved.”
That 13 point drop is huge news, because it’s darn difficult to break the information bubble in a lot of rural spaces. And the year is still young – the impact of Trump Tariffs and other economic policies (including the impacts to social security, medicaid, medicare, and rural hospitals) will hit Rural America especially hard.
Reminder, too, that a shift of just 3% in the Rural vote could be outcome-determinative for national elections.
Read the piece here: https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-approval-rating-polls-rural-voters-2067254
And if you want to dig into the crosstabs you can do that here: https://maristpoll.marist.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/NPR_PBS-News_Marist-Poll_USA-NOS-and-Tables_202504251028-2.pdf
Also! Senator Blumenthal, the Ranking Member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, wrote a letter to the company that launched Trump’s “memecoin” announcing a “preliminary inquiry into potential conflicts of interest and violations of the law from President Trump’s cryptocurrency ventures, including the $TRUMP cryptocurrency and associated businesses’ financial dealings with foreign nationals, foreign governments, and other cryptocurrency firms.”
It’s an excellent letter that lays out the scheme (and self-dealing) in very clear terms. If you’ve been wondering what’s up with the Trump family’s crypto self-dealing, this letter serves as great background. Check it out here:
Thanks for reading, friend – I’m glad to see you here! You’re making a difference, I promise.
Small Deeds has always been, and will always be, a free newsletter. But if you like what I do and you want to support it, consider becoming a paid subscriber.
Thanks for continuing to show how pressure at many levers works for justice, even though it is slow. Keep our eyes focused together
Thank you Michelle and thank you Jess Piper for inspiring us!