John,
Welcome to The Blue Wave Weekly!
Every week I’ll be sharing insights, updates, and ways for you to get involved and help us build the Blue Wave. This work takes serious resources, so if you’re able, please make a donation to support Blue Wave California today. Here’s this week’s edition:
Press the Advantage. Don’t Give Them an Out.
This week felt like two realities colliding at once.
On one hand, we are grieving yet another killing at the hands of Trump’s private Gestapo in Minneapolis — a regime-aligned force that operates like secret police: masked, unaccountable, untrained, and increasingly sadistic. The point isn’t "immigration enforcement." The point is terror. They want communities afraid to gather, afraid to film, afraid to help each other, afraid to even notice what’s happening.
On the other hand, something else is happening — and it matters. The opposition is growing. People are getting activated in waves. The cracks inside the Republican coalition are widening. And for the first time in a while, you can feel the regime hitting resistance and having to adjust.
That’s why the message this week is simple: press the advantage. Go on offense. Don’t let Trump and his allies slip away with a PR "de-escalation" narrative while the machinery of repression stays fully funded and fully intact.
On The Practivist Pod, Jess and I talked with Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, about what’s happening on the ground, why Minneapolis matters, and how we fight back in the run-up to the midterms and beyond. What came through loudest is something we all need to internalize:
Fear is real. And it’s exactly what they’re trying to manufacture.
So the response can’t be isolation. It has to be community.
Minneapolis is the Proof — and the Playbook
None of this is "new" in the sense that it came out of nowhere. We’ve been warning for a long time that Trump would try to build a regime enforcement arm that operates outside normal accountability — a domestic force meant to intimidate, destabilize, and punish.
What’s different now is that the theory is over. We’re watching the playbook in real time — on video, at scale, with the full weight of federal resources behind it.
- Masked agents grabbing people in public.
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Detentions and violence without oversight.
- Intimidation as a tactic.
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And then the despicable lies afterward: anyone targeted is labeled a "violent criminal" or "terrorist," because the regime wants to gaslight the country to conclude, "Well, maybe they deserved it."
That last part matters a lot. Authoritarian systems don’t just rely on force, they rely on permission. They try to train the public to look away, to doubt their own eyes, to accept brutality as normal, and to treat solidarity as suspicious.
Minneapolis is being used as a test case for that model. And that’s exactly why we can’t treat it as "local news." It’s a preview of what’s to come in other Blue cities.
But Minneapolis is also showing something else: organized, nonviolent people power can repel them. It doesn’t "solve" it. It doesn’t end the fight. But it forces them into damage control. It changes the political math. It breaks the illusion of inevitability.
And it is working.
The Eyes on ICE Training: A Sea Change
I want to flag one number that should give you hope:
147,000 people registered for the Indivisible Eyes on ICE training.
Not a rally. Not a pep talk. A practical training with real-life scenarios, role-playing, and legal guidance, led by experts explaining how to document, how to stay safe, how to stand up for rights when a masked federal force tries to bully people into silence.
This is what it looks like when a society begins adapting to authoritarian overreach. It’s horrific that we’re here, and also deeply, unmistakably hopeful that people are responding like this.
And a really important thing Ezra said about all these newly activated folks: "welcome them."
Not "where have you been?"
Not "you should’ve done this last year."
Just: Good. Thank you. We need you. Let’s build.
That’s how movements grow.
Republicans Have the Power to End This — But They’re Choosing Not To
The political battleground has shifted in a clear and important way this week. What began as a brutal enforcement surge in Minneapolis — culminating in the shooting deaths of Renée Nicole Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents — has forced a reckoning in Congress.
Democratic lawmakers are responding to this moment — pushing back against Republicans who continue to fund and enable these actions. Many Senate Democrats are now united in resisting new funding that would further empower ICE and other enforcement agencies to operate without oversight or accountability. That alignment is a direct result of public pressure, outrage, and the daily activism we’ve all contributed to. It’s a shift from politics-as-usual to a recognition that standing up for communities against this violence is what voters want and what justice demands.
At the same time, the core responsibility for where we are right now lies with Republicans. Every Republican in Congress, especially the 16 Republican Senators who could join Democrats to block further funding for ICE and stop this escalation, has the power to end this madness. They could refuse to send another dollar to an agency whose actions have sparked national protests and bipartisan calls for review.
Instead, too many Republicans have chosen to stand with the Trump regime’s enforcement surge, even as images and videos from Minneapolis and beyond make it clear that what’s being funded isn’t ordinary law enforcement, it’s intimidation, violence, and abuse of power.
So while we are grateful that Democratic leaders in the Senate are holding the line and standing up for communities against these horrific actions, the moment also demands that Republicans be called out for refusing to act, even when they could end this with a few votes. The pressure on them from constituents, from the public, and from voters in their own states, is a lever that could move them closer to doing the right thing.
What To Do This Week
1) Call your Representatives.
Tell them: hold the line. No extra funding for DHS/ICE. Demand real limits: accountability, no masks, meaningful restrictions, and aggressive oversight.
2) Call Republicans too.
You don’t need to be polite about the moral stakes. You do need to be respectful to staffers. But let them feel the intensity. They are betting you’ll tire out.
3) Thank the Democrats who stay strong.
They don’t hear it enough, and positive reinforcement matters.
4) Plug into real infrastructure.
If you’ve been watching from the sidelines, this is the moment to get to work. Indivisible is a great place to plug in to and they are built for this.
What’s Coming: No Kings 3 (March 28)
Indivisible and the No Kings coalition have set the next major national mobilization: March 28. Organizers expect it to be the largest protest in American history, with the flagship event in the Twin Cities, a powerful signal of just how broad and determined this movement has become.
But as Ezra emphasized, mass mobilization is a tactic, not the strategy.
The strategy is organized, nonviolent, overwhelming people power, sustained over time and applied across multiple fronts. That means rapid-response actions when the regime escalates, trainings and community defense, sustained pressure on Congress, and large national moments that shatter the myth of inevitability around authoritarian power.
Movements like this create the conditions for change, but elections and governing majorities are how that change is locked in. That’s why it matters to back Democrats who are standing up for our communities right now and who will be needed to translate this energy into durable wins. At Blue Wave California, we’re focused on doing exactly that: building the infrastructure, resources, and support needed to turn organizing into electoral power.
That’s how we win, not just one moment at a time, but for the long haul.
Reasons for Hope
Jess: Seeing Gregory Bovino get bounced from Minneapolis, even if it’s partly a PR move, still matters. And watching this moment break through culture in unexpected places: knitting communities, sports, entertainment, even corners of the internet that normally avoid politics. That’s recruitment. That’s momentum.
Me: The people in Minneapolis showing up in brutal cold, putting themselves on the line, and proving that collective action can force the regime to retreat, even temporarily. It’s inspiring, and it’s working.
Ezra: Watching tens of thousands of ordinary people sit in their living rooms during his webinar and practice how to stand up for their rights and their community and realizing that the question "will people rise?" is being answered in real time.
Bottom line
They want you scared.
They want you isolated.
They want you overwhelmed and numb.
So the response is the opposite:
Find people. Get trained. Take action. Press the advantage. Don’t give them an out.
Hope isn’t a feeling. Hope is an action.
— Steve
