Portside

The first Muslim elected to US Congress is being asked to take the reins of the Democratic Party

Elizabeth Warren | 'Why We Are Angry'. Leonard Cohen | Democracy. John Oliver: School Segregation. Michael Moore: Get Out and Protest. Millions Sign Onto Call for Electoral College to Award the Presidency to Popular Vote Winner Clinton.

The fundamental duty of America’s President, is to protect and preserve our democracy. We hope to work with President-elect Trump to help him carry out this responsibility. Regardless, America’s labor movement will safeguard the most vulnerable among us. But make no mistake, we can never back down from our values. Racism, misogyny and anti-immigrant appeals caused damage in this campaign and we must all try to repair it with inclusion, decency and honesty.

We know the rancid politics of the Tea Party, but what is behind the thinking of white, rural and hard-scrabble far-right supporters whose economic self-interests are at odds with their hard-right political and social beliefs. Berkeley sociologist Hochschild spent five years doing field research in western Louisiana, describing what people say, how they live, reconciling their contradictions and what lessons can be learned by knowing these people in a deeper way.

Reader Comments: Bertolt Brecht's message for our times; This is How the Future Voted; The Rest is Up to Us; Racism and White Nationalism up to the election and after; FBI plot?; Trump and Reconstruction-Era White Supremacy; Support MST School Against Brazilian Terror; Healthcare Justice Conference in January - planned before the election, now even more important; and more...

My six-year-old fell asleep thinking Hillary Clinton would be the first female president. Now I have to explain to her why Donald Trump was chosen instead. The truth is that this shameful election result was backlash, pure and simple - a reaction to women's growing rights, racial progress and a cultural shift that no longer centers straight white men.

Indigenous leaders are calling on us to take to the streets and disrupt "business-as-usual" one week after the election to demand that President Obama's Army Corps of Engineers and the incoming administration stop the Dakota Access Pipeline -- and all those after it. As of now, there are 102 events planned (see map). It's time for the Administration to take immediate action to stop this pipeline.

Trump's campaign has already been building a wall-not between the United States and Mexico but between American communities. His wall is with myths about white people under siege from black and brown "others"-immigrants stealing jobs, Black Lives Matter activists threatening "law and order," or Muslim Americans undermining shared values. We have the capacity to tear down walls so that people can unite and build an economy and political system that works for all of us.

If we withdraw into our grief and abandon those most threatened by Trump's win, history will never forgive us. These are the times that try men's souls-and women's, too. It is time to summon everyday massive nonviolent civil disobedience on a scale not seen in this country for decades. The next four years will test our country-and our movement-like nothing else we have seen in our lifetimes. Welcome to the fight.

A new book of essays by one of this country's most celebrated poets.