Life in Activism: Five Things to Do When Donald Trump, or Anyone Else, Threatens Your Livelihood

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Last Thursday, Donald Trump's whirlwind of revenge and attacks on our democracy spun uncomfortably close to home when he issued a presidential memorandum attacking ActBlue. You can read the Politico article that first broke the news on the memorandum here, and the actual memorandum itself here. You can also sign a petition I created supporting ActBlue here.

The reason why this is potentially a big problem for me is that ActBlue is the primary way that I earn a living. Bowers News Media and Wolves and Sheep operate through the grassroots support of our readers, and the majority of that support comes to us through ActBlue. As basically everyone in the political world knows, including obviously Donald Trump, ActBlue is a superior payment system for anyone operating in the Democratic and progressive space. It is such a good platform that if ActBlue were to go down, the viability of my small business might be in jeopardy.

That said, I still wasn't really all that worried. Why? It is not because I think ActBlue is entirely safe, because I do not think that. The truth is that I don't know how far Donald Trump will eventually go, or how successful he will be, in his attack on our democracy. In fact, it strikes as at least plausible that he will, at some point, take some sort of extreme measure such as trying to freeze ActBlue's bank accounts. And, well, that would be a big problem for me.

Rather, I am not really all that worried because as a political professional I have long been aware that my livelihood can be attacked, and attempts made to cancel it, at any time. As such, I have mentally prepared myself for times when such attacks might occur, and I have put into place plans to deal with such attacks as best as I possibly can.

Below the fold, for paid subscribers, I present the five steps I took to prepare myself for any attack on my livelihood by Donald Trump or, for that matter, anyone else. I believe that my five steps apply not only to my specific situation, but more broadly to a wide variety of situations where outside actors threaten either your livelihood or the livelihoods of those you care about. As such, I hope that you will find it useful not only during the remaining 1,362 days of the Trump administration, but during the many, many years after Donald Trump's departure from the White House on January 20, 2029.