Claire McGale knows what it is like being an underdog.
After growing up in a privileged Ivy League setting, she took off at age 19 and spent the next few years hitchhiking around the country, gigging at music and gem festivals, living in tents and scrambling for her next meal.
“I like messy,” said McGale, 36. “I know what it’s like sleeping outside in winter.”
McGale is now using that experience to protect underdogs in hardscrabble Holyoke where she has lived for the past six years.
After attending an ICE protest in Boston in April, she decided to organize her neighbors back home, many of whom are Latinos alarmed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
Carrying a sign that said, “Solidarity Without Action is Meaningless,” she and her husband, Dylan McGale, stood by themselves at the first protest at a popular downtown intersection in May. One week later, there were five people. Two weeks later, there were two-dozen.
By early summer, McGale had organized a diverse coalition, The Real Majority Holyoke, and expanded the protests to City Hall where city councilors were considering a resolution declaring that Holyoke is not a sanctuary city and would fully comply with all federal laws, including ICE raids.
The protests attracted dozens of people and extensive media coverage. In October, after Latinos, youth and trans residents spoke in opposition to the resolution, the council rejected it in a narrow 7-6 vote. A few weeks later, the long-time councilor who led the resolution push, Kevin Jourdain, was voted out of office.
This is what peaceful, sustained civil resistance looks like.
It is up to us, average Americans like Claire McGale, to stand up for democracy and against the rapid rise of Trump authoritarianism.
But resistance needs strategy, training and unwavering commitment to exercise that power. Every day. Every hour.
In small but encouraging ways, it is happening. One Million Rising, a national civil resistance movement launched in July by the nonprofit group Indivisible, is growing in numbers and impact. More than 300,000 trained volunteers are organizing protests, sit-ins and other types of nonviolent interference aimed at businesses, federal agencies and other entities supporting the president’s policies.
The strategy is less about broad-based demonstrations, such as last month’s No Kings Day, and more about sharply focused, continuous collective action to undermine key pillars of support that the administration is relying on. By chipping away at vital institutions that uphold their power, the president’s authority will erode and eventually tumble. The president cannot consolidate power without airplanes to handle his deportation flights, banks that finance his detention centers and a media that spreads his misinformation and squelches truth.
We’re seeing positive progress, with the biggest focus being on Trump-friendly businesses.
When Disney and its ABC affiliate suspended Jimmy Kimmel’s show in September over his remarks about Charlie Kirk’s fatal shooting, consumers quickly responded. Disney’s streaming apps lost more than one million paid subscribers in a matter of days. The show was quickly restored — a major victory for free speech.
Avelo Airlines, a budget commercial airline that flies out of Hartford, New Haven and dozens of other U.S. cities, also is facing intense opposition over its contract to handle deportation flights for ICE. After numerous protests at Bradley Airport, Avelo announced last month that it was ending all Bradley flights, starting in January. Similar protests are underway in New Haven and other airports around the country.
Protesters also are targeting a major ICE facility in Burlington that has held hundreds of immigrants for days at a time under allegedly deplorable conditions. Like Holyoke, the first protest was started in the spring by a young couple, Jared and Laurie Berezin, who stood alone holding a sign, “Just Say No to Harassing Immigrants.” The weekly protests are now attracting several hundred people every week.
And they are producing results: In October, the Burlington Town Meeting voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution demanding that the ICE facility end all overnight detentions and overall “inhumane” conditions.
These wins are surely important, but bigger, broader resistance is needed.
The movement needs more people like Claire McGale, Jared Berezin and Laurie Berezin who refuse to stand idly as free speech, human rights and other constitutional protections are being trampled on.
They felt like they had no choice but to act.
“I really didn’t want to be the one to organize in Holyoke because I don’t represent Holyoke,” McGale recalled. “I’m a white property owner. I’m privileged.”
But after “waiting and listening” for months, she took the leap.
It is time to stand together. We are writing American history right now — what will your story be?
Peyton Fleming is a resident of Ashfield and a member of the Indivisible Mass Coalition.