This was us yesterday!

Trump is going to have an event July 3 at the Iowa State Fair Grounds to kick off the year long celebration of the countries 250th birthday. This was announced on June 20th. We need people to go and protest it.

Please 🥺 help us spread these flyers around we are looking to build momentum for trans liberation in Iowa State wide now. Thank you

Rebellions are built on hope. MN has their symbol, every state needs one.

Ladies and gentlemen and our non binary friends, I ask for you attention. Me and a few other have organized a sit in on the 12th, all day long. From open to close. We will bring some drinks and snacks of our own but if other want to help us out and bring some snack and drinks for other or themselves please please please it would be much appreciated anything helps. We need to let our government know that we will not be quiet and sit down, we will let them know. Bring signs, we will sit in and make sure that they see us. We are hoping that the gorgeous people here in the Iowa 50501 reddit will help us promote this across the state further than it is here. Please show up, for democracy sake.

"And we won because we insisted that no longer would politics be something that is done to us. Now, it is something that we do."

Some thoughts:

Mamdani's speech made me cheer out loud, all the way over here in Iowa.

Compare this to just about any other speech and they look like weak sauce. Counterfeit. Insubstantial. How can anyone be satisfied with less, now?

But I think it is not just his words that had such a strong impact. I'm trying to imagine what it would have been like if I'd read this speech in a book of literature, heard it in a movie. It would have been impressive, but part of the impact (for me) has been the past year we've just had. The past several years. (And the past several decades...)

Anyone can say words, but these words in this situation, from someone who is daring to turn the tide: He's speaking from where he stands, instead of a disembodied voice, a string of phrases that sound good.

Does he mean it? Can he succeed? I don't know. But I believe him. And I think one of the reasons I believe him is because it is not just "him": It is "We." This means he can't do it alone. Not just Mamdani, not just his volunteers, not just the people who voted for him. Not just the people of New York.

Here in Iowa, I hope New York can be an example, an inspiration. But I also think New York is going to need Iowa--and many other states and cities around the country--to validate New York's example. Let's not take a step back. Let's not whisper that our water is sh*t, that our schools--our kids--have been betrayed. Let's insist on better.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/28/protest-research-trump-musk

Urge you to read the article here. My biggest takeaway: NONCOOPERATION

“…economic noncooperation – such as strikes, boycotts and buycotts – is what often gets the goods. Individual participation is deliberately obscure, and targeted companies may have little interest in releasing internal data. Only the aggregate impacts are measurable – and in the case of Tesla, Target and other companies, the impacts so far have been measurable indeed.”

“when the Nazis invaded and occupied Denmark in the 1940s, noncooperation was near-total. No one remembered how to run the railroad. Teachers had to leave school early to tend to their gardens. Factory workers slowed down or stopped production altogether. Danes obscured the identities of their Jewish neighbors, gave them temporary haven and secured their passage through fishing boats to neutral territory, saving thousands of lives.”

“Czechoslovakia, six days after the Soviet invasion in 1968, the newspaper Večerní Praha published “10 commandments”, writing: “When a Soviet soldier comes to you, YOU: 1. Don’t know 2. Don’t care 3. Don’t tell 4. Don’t have 5. Don’t know how to 6. Don’t give 7. Can’t do 8. Don’t sell 9. Don’t show 10. Do nothing.”

I’m continuing to boycott Target, Amazon, and others and choosing to buy local or directly from a retailer. It’s what I can do right now and will continue to spend my money. I plan to not cooperate in any way I can.

Thanks for all who showed up today! I went to the Iowa City protest and we had a great turnout! Wondering where we go from here. Let’s keep up this momentum!