![]() “There’s a certain point where you are negotiating where you become Sierra Mist,” she says. She uses what she calls the “soda pop” metaphor to get her point across, urging organizers, activists and folks on the ground not to settle for Sierra Mist when what they want is a Sprite – even if they know they won’t get either. Bernie Sanders willing to work with Trump? Nope. Senate Democrats voting for Trump nominees? Unacceptable. Now is the time to channel that newfound anger, Merritt says, and not to focus on caution and compromise. “They’re going to get a dose of what that feels like in their own blue heaven.” “The national left, if there is one, has spent the last decade having an incredible tolerance for the agony and the neglect that many red states have faced,” says Missourian Pamela Merritt, co-founder of the reproductive justice group Reproaction. To that end, Rolling Stone asked a half-dozen red-state organizers on what works when governments stop working for the people, and start working against them. That is where we will find many of our most resilient political activists and organizers. If the United States is to survive the Trump administration, we must look to the center – the geographic center, and the South – for leadership in the resistance. There are the OKC Artists for Justice, who made rapist cop Daniel Holtzclaw a household name the people of Ferguson, Missouri, who took to the streets to demand justice for Michael Brown and black men like him the Texas Christians who’ve given sanctuary to immigrants despite threats and harsh rhetoric from state leaders. ![]() Some of these movements have names – Moral Mondays in North Carolina, or the “Unruly Mob” that stood behind Wendy Davis, or the #NoDAPL collective. ![]() “Papers please”-style deportation forces? Brought Arizona activists to the forefront. Appallingly restrictive anti-abortion laws? Struck down thanks to the persistence of Texas abortion providers. Attacks on trans Americans’ right to use public facilities? North Carolina fought back first. While much of America comes to grips with the revelation of single-party rule by bigots, another swath of the country is shaking its head in recognition: The red-state progressives battling local and state government officials, law enforcement entities and courts who, through voter suppression, gerrymandering and an incredible fundraising capacity, have subverted the will of the people for years, and sometimes decades. “And I’m going to be in a place where I can make a difference.” “If I’m going to be afraid, I’m going to be afraid for a reason,” she says. Russell cut short a planned two-month West Coast vacation, packed up her dog, and drove halfway across the country to resume the work that has changed and challenged her – and even caused her to lose a job after an employer saw Russell tell her abortion story on CNN.
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