5 Ways People Are Resisting President-Elect Trump

It’s been ten days since Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. Not everyone is ready to accept that fact – especially since Hillary Clinton beat him by more than 1.4 million votes, as of this writing. Here are some of the ways people around the country are resisting Trump’s ascension to the highest office in the land (aside from signing another useless online petition).

Protesting
In the days since Trump’s election, protesters have taken to the streets in cities around the country. An estimated 8,000 people filled Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles on Saturday. In New York, thousands more demonstrated outside Trump Tower. Protesters have also turned out in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dayton, Las Vegas, Providence, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Oakland, Washington, D.C., and Portland, Oregon, where, according to one report, more than half of the demonstrators arrested over the weekend had not voted. (It’s not just Americans protesting, either; demonstrations were reported in Mexico City and Berlin as well.)

Donating
Private donations to some organizations that serve populations threatened by Trump have increased in recent days. For instance, the American Civil Liberties Union, which has declared war on Trump’s agenda, has seen an unprecedented spike in donations – $7.2 million in the five days immediately preceding the election. Executive Director Anthony Romero says the money will be used to defend the rights of immigrants, transgender individuals, Muslims and reproductive rights groups, and to fend off any plans to expand stop-and-frisk nationwide.

Planned Parenthood, a perennial target of Republican attacks, received 200,000 donations – a 40-fold increase – in the week after the election.

Nabeelah Naeem, communications coordinator at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, says its national office has not only seen a large spike in monetary donations, but has also fielded more than 500 inquiries about volunteering and skill-sharing in support of the organization.

Other groups that have seen a donations bump: The Anti-Defamation League, Naral Pro-Choice America, the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Sierra Club, the National Immigration Law Center and the International Refugee Assistance Project.

Volunteering to be a commute buddy
Kayla Santosuosso, deputy director of the Arab Association of New York, launched an effort to recruit escorts for individuals who might be affected by the recent rise in hate crimes and threats. “In the back of my head, I thought I’d make this Google Form and at the very least we’ll have this list of 50 people that I can connect in my own time,” Santosuosso told Gothamist. Within a few days, more that 5,500 people had signed up to accompany vulnerable individuals – people of color, Muslims and LGTBQ New Yorkers – on their commutes to work.

Becoming a clinic escort
Planned Parenthood affiliates around the country are reporting a spike in volunteer applications. Eight times as many people applied to volunteer at the Planned Parenthood of Maryland the day after the election than in a typical week. In Philadelphia, 22 times more volunteers applied after the election than during an average week. And Planned Parenthood of Arizona said more than three times as many people applied to be volunteers in the three days following the election than in the entire year preceding it.

Calling representatives
The first signals of how Trump plans to govern have come in the form of his early hires. He’s installed Steve Bannon, CEO of the Alt-Right outlet Breitbart, in the West Wing and, on Friday, proposed appointing Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions as his attorney general. The backlash to both announcements has been swift – 169 Democratic lawmakers have called on Trump to rescind Bannon’s appointment, but that’s basically all they can do. Since his role is not subject to Congressional approval, Trump can keep him. Sessions’ prospective role, on the other hand, will require Senate confirmation, and there’s reason to hope it will be denied. (When Sessions was nominated to be a federal judge 30 years ago, his confirmation was denied.) Amnesty International is among the groups opposed to his nomination. Individuals who feel similarly can take former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau’s advice and contact their congressional representatives to oppose Sessions.