Hey there John, it's Allyson from Sunrise PDX

When I heard that Trump had deployed National Guard troops to Portland, I’ll be honest: I worried we were about to give him what he wanted. If there’s one thing I love about my city, it’s that we’re always down to get teargassed for a good cause. But I also knew that Trump was counting on this same energy. 

He needs an excuse to escalate his fascist violence all across the country, and he chose to invade Portland because he thought he could stoke fear of “antifa” with images of Portland protests like he saw on FOX News in 2020. Never mind that Portland protesters are as peaceful as anywhere else — we have an aesthetic preference for dressing in black, we don’t run when the feds attack us, and Trump thinks this looks scary on TV.

Was my city going to unintentionally play the character Trump needed for his propaganda? This question terrified me.

So I linked up with my Sunrise hub and we got to work. It wasn’t an accident that Portland leaned hard into our weirder side, making a joke out of the National Guard deployment and launching the Portland frog as a worldwide symbol of resistance. It was a strategy that Portland organizers worked to execute.

That’s why I’m reaching out today: across the country, hubs like mine are organizing our communities to stop cooperating with Trump’s fascist agenda, and we need your support.

This month has been a wild ride in Portland. Here’s what I’ve learned:

1. Get clear on what Trump wants and stop cooperating with it. Within a day of Trump announcing the National Guard deployment, my hub had aligned around Trump’s goal (propaganda) and our top priority (fuck with the propaganda). We immediately brainstormed how to make Portland protests as goofy as possible: we bought costumes, organized an emergency protest, and blasted out our strategy over social media.

2. Work your network. In moments of crisis, people are eager to help. Make the ask! Our partners helped us scramble to host a mass training. We made a list of all the community groups we had connections to, and within the hour, were organizing dance events and a pop-up roller disco at the Portland ICE facility. We’ve been using the visibility of our protests to absorb into “neighborhood teams,” to plan activities like ICE watch and strike pledge canvasses.

3. Be authentic. Some local politicians came in hot saying “don’t protest the ICE facility! It’s what Trump wants!” They fell flat. Portland is a protest city, and at Sunrise we were always clear-eyed that this is a good thing. The real question was: how could we make our identity as a protest city relatable? Our hub’s solution was to lean into the silly side of our city (a side that can be hard to see when ICE is throwing flashbangs at us). I don’t actually think that inflatable frogs and rollerskating flamingos are the answer everywhere. If Trump wants to kidnap our neighbors and attack our cities, we need to show the world exactly who he’s up against: everyday people who are sometimes weird, sometimes sarcastic or angry or joyful or nerdy – and always thinking creatively about how to undermine Trump’s agenda. Right now, in many different contexts across the country, Sunrise is helping our communities find ways to stop cooperating with fascism.

4. Ask for help. This is where you come in. Real talk: it costs money to organize against fascism. Whether we’re hosting a training, organizing mutual aid, or purchasing an emergency bulk order of pickle costumes, Sunrise hubs can’t do the work we’re doing without your support.

Can you chip in today to make sure that we can organize young people around our country to fight back against authoritarianism?

Donate $25 

See you in the streets. In the meantime, enjoy this photo of me and my labubu hula hooping against fascism.

Love,

Allyson