The Most American Thing
Hello, and welcome to the latest edition of our 50501 CO newsletter!
In this newsletter we discuss the value organized dissent in America. In addition, you’ll find information on upcoming activities from the 50501 calendar, actions you can take outside of protesting, and also find out about additional ways to connect with us.
See you on the streets! ✊✊✊
Actions and Activities
(The below list contains details on all actions this week and next week which have been submitted to our 50501 CO calendar; click the link above for more details and the full calendar)
All Cities
10/22: 6:00pm - 7:00pm - Team ENOUGH Welcome Session (For Young People Under 26) (Virtual - Hosted in Denver CO)
10/29: 6:00pm - 7:00pm - Team ENOUGH Welcome Session (For Young People Under 26) (Virtual - Hosted in Denver CO)
Colorado Springs
10/24: 6:00pm - 7:30pm - “Between Ordination and Expectation: Women and Evangelicalism” with Beth Allison Barr (Chapman Auditorium at the ENT Center for the Arts, 5225 N. Nevada Ave. Colorado Springs, CO 80918)
Denver
10/25: 1:00pm - 2:00pm - CO Fox Takedown (Fox 31 Studio, 100 Speer Blvd, Denver, CO 80203)
Littleton
10/25: 11:00am - 1:00pm - Protest Against Tyranny (5700 South Broadway)
11/1: 11:00am - 1:00pm - Protest Against Tyranny (5700 South Broadway)
Loveland
10/25: 12:00pm - 2:00pm - Hands Off (US 287 from US34/Sprouts to Tesla)
11/1: 12:00pm - 2:00pm - Hands Off (US 287 from US34/Sprouts to Tesla)
Northglenn
10/24: 11:00am - 1:00pm - Protest at Gabe Evans’ Northglenn Office (Northglenn District Office, 10701 Melody Dr, Northglenn, CO 80234)
10/31: 11:00am - 1:00pm - Protest at Gabe Evans’ Northglenn Office (Northglenn District Office, 10701 Melody Dr, Northglenn, CO 80234)
Thornton
10/24: 4:00pm - 6:00pm - 4th Friday Intersection protest (112th avenue and Colorado Boulevard)
The Most American Thing
Recently, Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed a nationwide day of protest as a “Hate America rally.” But protest isn’t the opposite of patriotism. It’s the proof of it.
Dissent isn’t disloyal—it’s the oxygen of democracy. The United States didn’t begin with quiet compliance. It began with an argument. Colonists dumped tea into a harbor. Abolitionists defied laws that protected slavery. Suffragists chained themselves to fences. Laborers struck, marchers sat in, students walked out. None of them did it because they hated their country. They did it because they loved it enough to demand better.
That’s the paradox of America: we were founded on rebellion, and yet every few decades someone decides that protest is un-American. The rhetoric always sounds the same. “Law and order.” “Respect the flag.” “Stop dividing the nation.” But the nation was built by people who refused to confuse order with justice. The flag they invoke only exists because citizens once broke the law of a king.
The right to dissent was written into the First Amendment not as decoration but as safeguard. The founders understood that power, left unchallenged, hardens into tyranny. They didn’t trust kings, and they didn’t trust governments to police themselves. The Constitution they wrote begins not with “We the Leaders,” but “We the People.” The idea was radical then and remains radical now: the governed reserve the right to call their government to account.
That’s why labeling peaceful protest as “hate America” flips the script completely. The un-American act isn’t dissent—it’s silencing dissent. When any administration, Republican or Democrat, tries to paint critics as enemies, it borrows directly from the authoritarian playbook. Authoritarians fear protest because it exposes the gap between their propaganda and the public’s lived reality. Democracies, by contrast, depend on that friction. The noise is how you know the machine is still running.
This has never been about one president. People protested Trump’s power grabs, yes—but others protested drone strikes under Obama, wars under Bush, surveillance under Clinton, deregulation under Reagan. The freedom to object doesn’t change hands every four or eight years. It belongs to all of us, all the time. You don’t have to like a protest to be grateful it’s allowed to exist. Every administration that’s been jeered, picketed, or criticized should count it as evidence that the country still works.
Yet the smear persists. Peaceful demonstrators are called agitators. Journalists are branded as traitors. Teachers, librarians, and students who speak up are told they’re poisoning the well. It’s nonsense—but dangerous nonsense, because once the act of protest is cast as disloyal, obedience becomes the new virtue. That’s how democracy withers without a single coup. Not through force, but through social shame.
To protest is to insist that America live up to its word. It’s to say the Pledge of Allegiance and mean the part about “liberty and justice for all.” It’s to treat the Declaration of Independence not as a museum relic, but as an ongoing assignment. The right to gather, to petition, to shout in the public square—these are not luxuries granted by the powerful. They are obligations accepted by the free.
That’s what separates patriotism from propaganda. Propaganda wants applause. Patriotism wants accountability. Propaganda demands silence. Patriotism welcomes disagreement because it trusts the people more than it fears them.
We are living through a moment when power once again wants quiet streets and obedient citizens. But this country has never stayed quiet for long. The sound of progress has always been loud—marching feet, raised voices, the chorus of “enough.” Every generation relearns the same lesson: the surest way to lose freedom is to stop using it.
So, when someone calls protest un-American, remember who we are. The right to dissent is the birthright we inherited from revolutionaries, reformers, and everyday citizens who refused to bow. The truest way to honor the flag isn’t to stand still beneath it. It’s to carry it into the streets and hold it high while demanding the country live up to its own promise.
The silence of obedience builds empires. The noise of protest builds America.
Non-Protest Actions Bingo
The below bingo card contains a list of actions you can take (other than protesting) to help further the cause. If you get a bingo, tag us on social media to let us know!
1. Despite the fact that Home Depot has become a target for ICE raids, the company has remained silent. Visit the homepage for this boycott for more details and a full toolkit of actions you can take to help protest Home Depot’s inaction.
2. As you have likely heard, the United States budget for fiscal year 2026 must be passed before the end of September to avoid a government shutdown. Both Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have indicated that they are willing to compromise on passing the budget so long as Affordable Care Act subsidies are added back in. This cannot be the only item they fight for. Democrats have the ability to filibuster the budget in the Senate, and should use it to rein in ICE budgets/behavior, the rampant corruption of the Trump administration, and the use of the Department of Justice as a political hit tool. Call our CO senators and demand that they pressure Schumer and their peers to take a stand for what really matters to you!
3. The list of CO events sponsored by Indivisible is available here
Connect with 50501 on Social Media
UNDERSTANDING & REACHING THE UNAWARE
Support and enlighten our unaware family, friend and neighbors.
Good news - Führer tRump’s poll numbers are declining. Most US citizens think he’s making America worse then before he became president again - I can’t imagine why. Bad news is the tRump has successfully destroyed democracy in America! We still don’t have enough resisters to regain our civil rights and end the tRump regime. Less than 5% of the American population is actively and sustainably supporting the resistance. 95% are doing absolutely nothing! That 95% is comprised of greedy tRump loyalists, Republicans MAGAts and also unaware people who have no idea that our democracy has already been lost.
The chronic liar tells us, he is cutting programs the Democrats like but he doesn’t tell you is that the programs the Democrats like, favor the majority of Americans from both parties, instead of the billionaire oligarchs that the Republicans fight for. The tRump definitely, doesn’t tell you that his Big Brutal Bill does not discriminate, it will hurt millions of US citizens, Democrats and Republicans. El Führer doesn’t tell you that the Democrats are trying to restore Medical benefits for all Americans including the majority of the MAGA Republicans.
Many of us are aware of the evil descending from the White House. Unfortunately, many more will have to feel the pain of the tRump’s brutal cuts directly before they wake up and join the resistance. Hopefully, it won’t be too late.
Look around you people, the current state of our union should be front and center in the minds of every American and it is not. Ignorant bliss is a wonderful thing - is it not?
I take every opportunity to try to reach the unaware. When I talk about the hell the tRump is reigning down on us, I get comments like this:
“I don’t follow politics”
“Those are all lies the Democrats are telling - you should be ashamed of yourself.”
“He (the tRump) did what needed to be done.”
“I don’t get to watch the news, because my kids are playing video games”
“I’m to busy to watch the news”
“The Supreme Court will stop him.”
“Everything on the news is a lie, I don’t know what to believe so I quit watching.”
“I didn’t know there was a blackout this week. What’s a Blackout?”
“That can’t happen in America.”
“I have heard some very disturbing things about that, I guess I should look into it”
“It’s in the constitution - they can’t break the law.”
“We have laws for that.”
“No one told me about the bridge protests” - they pass every Friday on the way home from work.
“Your going to a rally on a Thursday? No one told me about that.”
On the day the tRump’s Big Brutal Bill passed I was interviewing an experienced, elder care worker for a weekend job opportunity. She told me that she had just lost her job. She needed a job right away, while she searched for a permanent full time position because she couldn’t afford to be without income even for a short time. She had two grown kids who’s families were struggling and a sick husband. I told her that things were going to be getting much worse because I had just heard that the tRump’s Brutal Bill passed. I wasn’t surprised when she told me that she had voted for him and knew nothing about the bill because she was too busy to watch the news. I told her that we were losing our health care services. I mentioned that we were losing Meals on Wheels and SNAP. She knew the importance of Meals on Wheels because her husband used to volunteer for them. Her grandchildren were on Medicaid and receiving SNAP benefits. I told her that I was concerned about nursing homes closing and seniors who couldn’t afford home care becoming homeless. She told me, she didn’t know what to believe. I told her, that I believed the grieving citizens that were posting their tragic stories online.
A friend told me that he had posted a reminder about the Labor Day protest on the community calendar at work. His employee’s kept asking him, what they were protesting. The coworkers were clueless when he answered - the president.
After RFK Jr’s announcements about not needing our vaccines, I asked a nurse if that meant they weren’t going to be available at all. She had no idea what I was inquiring about and her indifference made me think she didn’t believe me at all, she just thought I was crazy.
Yesterday, I tried to talk to my own doctor about my concerns about losing my insurance. I had to be the one who told him the Republicans were trying to eliminate the Affordable Care Act and he didn’t believe me. He didn’t even know his own insurance could more than double in January. He dismissed me.
Never has anyone told me - I’ll be at that protest or I am supporting that Blackout or even that they already knew what I was talking about. I myself, don’t hear about our resistance efforts. I have to look for them.
I understand the unaware - I was one of them. Once upon a time I was totally immersed in managing my very busy young family and volunteering in my kid’s schools. In my mind, elections were all about two honorable men with different opinions on how to best run the country. I have voted for both Democrats and Republicans. I am embarrassed to mention how I picked who I was going to vote for, in those days. I will tell you that, I now wish I had paid more attention to the politics.
I am sure, many of you understand these people too. Maybe you used to be one also or you have unaware friends or family member that are still clueless about the pain, the Demented, Demonic Destructor of Democracy in the White House, is inflicting.
Some people hear the stories but they don’t believe them because they are just too hard to believe. I don’t want to believe them either!
These are the people we need to reach. If I was an unaware busy young parent in 2025 I would want someone to alert me that my kids were going to be growing up in a communist country with a treasonous, Limp Dick Traitor in the Oval Office. Führer tRump is outlawing everything he doesn’t like - from paper straws, low water pressure toilets, our Constitution and now he is trying to outlaw all of us citizens, that oppose him. How about that - he has us on the same honorable list, as our prestigious Governors, Judges, Lawmakers, Scientists, Comedians that he wants arrested!
Listen up people! All of this means we are doing a terrible job Spreading the Word.
We need to encourage at least two or three preferably unaware people to support The New Civil Rights Movement and attend a No Kings Rally on October 18. If you are afraid or just can’t attend a rally, there are more effective ways to support the resistance. If you can’t attend check the list below for more ways to support the Anti-tRump / Fight the Oligarchs Resistance.
Führer tRump has initiated the first steps of genocide in the US. People are already dying. If we don’t end this now, this war against our democracy could become like Ukraine’s war. Worse yet we don’t want this war to end - like we ended the Holocaust, with some other country dropping bombs on us, like we did to end the evil dictator in Germany.
Our failure to reach the unaware makes me feel hopeless sometimes but I can and will continue to support the cause. What makes me mad is knowing that I may never reach the unaware. That makes me feel hopeless. It makes me sad that people will be deeply affected by the tRump’s brutal cuts before they feel the need to fight, it makes me sad that I may not live long enough to see our democracy restored because Americans are not willing to fight. Bringing down the regime will require sustained resistance. The bus boycott was successful but it took over a year and they had dedicated supporters but we just don’t. This is a much larger movement and most Americans remain unaware.
None of our resistance efforts have succeeded in end this wicked nightmare but they are making more people aware. The resistance is growing slowly but surely!
Don’t let us run out of time!
The most effective way to support the New Civil Rights Movement and end the evil tRump regime are to use your words (written or spoken) to reach out to the unaware and enlighten them.
The second most effective way to support the Anti-tRump / Fight the Oligarchs Resistance is to Boycott and stop supporting billionaire businesses like Amazon, Walmart, All National chain businesses and restaurants that have locations in every state. When possible support small local businesses instead. Shop life sustaining essentials, food and medical care only until the regime falls.
Only in solidarity can we defeat the tRump! Stand up and be heard America!
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Let Senator Sanders shows us how to reach the unaware!
https://onemommy.substack.com/p/bernie-sanders-visits-deep-red-trump?r=113nff
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NEVER SHUT UP - SPEAK UP AMERICA!
Words are our most powerful tool to support the Anti-tRump / Fight the Oligarchs Resistance. Please forward, share or talk about these messages with your family, friends, colleagues, even strangers if given the opportunity. Post, restack or repost on your social media accounts! Substack protesters share this message outside of this political category and get it out to everyone.
To learn more about how to support the Anti-tRump / Fight the Oligarchs Resistance read:
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SIMPLE WAYS TO SUPPORT THE ANTI-TRUMP / FIGHT THE OLIGARCHS RESISTANCE EVERYDAY
https://onemommy.substack.com/p/everyday-ways-support-the-anti-trumpfight?r=113nff
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ADDITIONAL ANTI-TRUMP PEACEFUL RESISTANCE RESOURCES AND INFORMATION
https://open.substack.com/pub/onemommy/p/anti-trump-peaceful-resistance-resources?r=113nff&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
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If permitted here are some e-posters to screenshot and share on your social media…
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
Effective civil disobedience and successful activism require some degree of inconvenience and sacrifice. Strikes and Blackout are the most effective way to initiate change but they come with hardship and sacrifice. People could lose jobs and businesses may close.
But historically we have sacrificed far more. At this point, no one is asking people to walk miles to work every day for a year, endure personal violence or sacrifice their own lives like they did during the first Civil Rights Movement.
Our resistance efforts now are minor in comparison. The longer we wait to resist the more intense our sacrifices become. Above all resistance only works if we stand together. Mature adults are the ones building and leading this New Civil Rights Movement, the ones with knowledge of our history, the ones that fought for equality and remember what it was like before the movement. It seems like young Americans will need to directly feel the pain of the tRump's destructive cuts and illegal executive orders. This tRump nightmare could have been over already if we had united when he first revealed his authoritarian plans. Instead most Americans are sitting back watching our democracy collapse around us. So many more are clueless about the immense evil the tRump has unleashed in our country.
Unfortunately, people in this country don't want to be temporarily inconvenienced in any way and they definitely don't want to make the simplest of sacrifices like stop unnecessary shopping, avoiding traveling, limiting their entertainment!
Right now we have no where near the numbers of people consistently resisting that we need to save our democracy. The tRump is winning the war against our democracy and has begun the initial stages of genocide in America.
We have to decide if it is better to sacrifice some jobs or a few small businesses or do we allow the tRump to privatizing public education, health care and insurance, making it available to only the wealthy. On top of your mortgage, transportation, utilities, cell phone services and everyday essentials can you afford to pay private school tuition for twelve years and then college, medical expenses without insurance, nursing homes for your parents or grandparents? The tRump wants to privatize health insurance too. Say good-by to insurance benefits from work. Insurance is expected to double in price for everyone. Can you afford all of that? If not what will you have to live without?
The tRump has no plan to increase your wages. Do we continue to let the tRump regime, steal our Medical services, medications, food services for our veterans, disabled, children and the elderly. If we don’t resist more people will loose their jobs, homes, medical care, freedom and many more people will die from neglect while the tRump gives much more of our money to his billionaire oligarch friends?
Do we prefer to fight for our democracy or allow the tRump to continue to strip FEMA funds for communities that mother nature destroys, accurate weather alerts and food safety inspections? He has already ended science and medical research for climate change, cancer, vaccines, Alzheimer's and much more.
Would you prefer to have low wages forever, no civil rights, no truthful media, no right to choose what movies, TV shows or music we watch or listen to?
We need to bring down the true leaders of this country, the greedy billionaire oligarchs that fund the campaign of politicians that support the causes that make them richer. The only thing they care about is money. We need to hit them where it hurts - their bank accounts.
In order to do that and when possible we must stop giving them our money. We need to stop buying their products and using their services. We need to stop spending money unnecessarily. We need to make the oligarchs start paying the same taxes we do and they need to start paying their employees fair wages.
We need to support small businesses instead. Imagine if everyone stopped supporting the oligarchs owned national chain businesses and started shopping locally owned small businesses and restaurants instead. That's how we build our local economy.
SPEAK UP AMERICA! Words are our most powerful tool to support the Anti-tRump / Fight the Oligarchs Resistance. Please forward, share or talk about these messages with your family, friends, colleagues, even strangers if given the opportunity. Post, restack or repost on your social media accounts! Substack protesters share this message outside of this political category and get it out to everyone.
To learn more about how to support the Anti-tRump / Fight the Oligarchs Resistance read:
SIMPLE WAYS TO SUPPORT THE ANTI-TRUMP / FIGHT THE OLIGARCHS RESISTANCE EVERYDAY
https://onemommy.substack.com/p/everyday-ways-support-the-anti-trumpfight?r=113nff
ADDITIONAL ANTI-TRUMP PEACEFUL RESISTANCE RESOURCES AND INFORMATION
https://open.substack.com/pub/onemommy/p/anti-trump-peaceful-resistance-resources?r=113nff&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
The impact of person to person communication:
https://onemommy.substack.com/p/bernie-sanders-visits-deep-red-trump?r=113nff
SPREAD THE WORD! If permitted here are some e-posters to screenshot and share on your social media…