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As we look back at a year when every day was punctuated by the news of mendacity performed in plain sight, voices of moral clarity stand out as touch points to make sense of what has happened over the past twelve months. Bishop Mariann Budde stood in the pulpit of the National Cathedral at the inaugural prayer service in January and made the most basic of pastoral pleas for the President to show mercy – especially to immigrants, the poor, and the marginalized. Trump called her exhortation “nasty” because mercy was not on the agenda of a regime that came to power promising unprecedented prosperity for the people but only saved seats for billionaires in the Capitol rotunda on day one. The simple clarity of the Bishop’s plea unveiled the thin veneer of the heralded “golden age.”
In response to an executive order targeting LGBTQ people early this year, administrative judge Karen Ortiz replied to the 185 other judges copied on an email from her supervisor, “Please RESIST. DO NOT COMPLY WITH THEIR ILLEGAL MANDATES.” Her email account was shut down, but she continued to speak with moral clarity. “I can live on cornflakes and community at the end of the day if it means that my soul is intact,” she told the New York Times.
By February, federal workers had organized a lunch-time speak out in DC against billionaire Elon Musk’s effort to get inside of government agencies, fire people without cause, and extract the data that companies like those he owns find so valuable. Bishop Barber stood with the workers to remind them that no one can be a king unless we bow.
Over the course of this year, millions of Americans stood together to say, “No Kings.” Our friend Joan Baez even joined Jesse Wells to sing it as an anthem for the movement.
If 2025 was about coming together to say, “No,” the work of 2026 is to reach the untapped people power of a true populist movement in this moment. As a people we are vulnerable to hucksters and social media manipulation because we allow almost half of Americans to live with their backs against the wall - working full time and living in cars, in the shadows without documentation, having to chose between rent and health insurance. Absent leadership that would challenge corporate interests and demand justice, a plurality of eligible voters believed the false promises of politicians who blamed immigrants, scapegoated minorities, and promised prosperity. Donald Trump did not create this scheme, but he saw he could benefit from it. The Wall Street Journal estimates that the Trump family raked in $4 billion this year alone.
As preachers we know that Jesus organized a people’s movement in the 20th century by recruiting exploited workers to tap the power of the everyday people who’d been targeted by an extractive economy. In the Galilee, where Jesus lived, the Romans used local fishermen to feed a global market for a fish paste called “garum.” A popular commodity throughout the empire, garum production led to the first recorded example of overfishing in human history. The Roman authorities didn’t just exploit the labor and tax the income of Jesus’ neighbors. They depleted the fisheries that local communities had relied on for generations.
In that context, Jesus recruited disciples for his movement with a simple mandate. “Come, follow me,” he said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.”
When the authoritarian rulers of an extractive economy used fishermen to deplete the local fisheries, Jesus went to those exploited fishermen and said, “Come fish for people.” No one is in a better position to recruit people for a movement to change an unjust system than the people who’ve experienced the injustice first hand. Not everyone can preach to the President, refuse to obey unlawful orders, or maintain the integrity of institutions in the midst of an authoritarian crisis. The integrity of leaders in this moral moment is crucial, and many stood tall to clarify what’s at stake. But the genius of fishing for people is that it is something each of us can do.
In the great song tradition of the spirituals, there is a hymn that says,
If you can’t preach like Peter,
If you can’t pray like Paul,
You can tell the love of Jesus…
The fundamental conviction of any true populist movement is that there’s something each of us can do. A moral movement in America in 2026 must give everyday people the tools they need to fish for people. We know that communities will be traumatized by ICE raids, millions will lose their health insurance, rural hospitals will close, data centers will drive up electricity bills, and children will come to school hungry because their families have lost SNAP benefits. Whether you drive the bus, serve the coffee, stock the shelves, fix the pipes, clean the floors, or keep the books in your community, you can fish for people. You can tell your neighbors that you see their pain. You can assure them they are not alone. You can help people understand that these are policy choices that have been made by people in public office, and you can help them make a plan to vote in the midterms.
In communities of every size and make-up, people came together in 2025 to say no to an authoritarian abuse of power. In 2026 we need a movement that tells people what they can work for as we move forward together in love and justice.
Across the country in hundreds of Congressional races in 2022, our last midterm election in the US, more people opted not to vote in the last midterm election than voted for any candidate in any Congressional race in the country. There is an incredible untapped power in people who feel left behind and forgotten in the US political system today. The work of 2026 is to reach them.
If you stood up to say, “No Kings,” in 2025, make a plan for how you’re going to fish for people to reconstruct democracy in 2026.
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