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    • Trump hopes you will cave. With the climate, Gaza on the line, we can’t
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    Trump hopes you will cave. With the climate, Gaza on the line, we can’t

    Online Niel Posted on

    Democrats don’t have time to wallow in this electoral loss. The midterm elections are not far away, and we must organize to fix what the Republicans pledged to break.

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    Two weeks have passed since Donald Trump won his re-election bidand appointments of the president-elect keep coming. Each ad feels like a morbid joke, culminating in a series of would-be people the request of the president.

    Between the new administration and the Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, things look bleak.

    On Tuesday, Trump chose television personality dr. Mehmet Oz for the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He is also chosen Project 2025 co-author, Brendan Carr to lead the Federal Communications Commission, Trump is not the first candidate with ties to the Heritage Foundation’s agenda.

    Carr’s plans for the FEC include the approach of “censorship cartel”, alleged anti-conservative bias of social media sites. It’s not even the most worrying choice.

    There’s Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a well-known anti-vaxxer who thinks the chemicals in the water could to father gay or transsexual children, has been nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Matt Gaetz, a former congressman from Florida, perhaps best known for allegations of sexual misconductwas nominated to be Attorney General. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been selected to lead “Department for Government Efficiency”, a new Trump creation.

    As someone who wants to see our country move forward, I’ve struggled to feel hopeful in the wake of the Democrats’ failure this election cycle. But now is not the time to lose hope or check. We must continue to organize ahead of the 2026 midterm elections—in fact, we will need it if we are to survive another Trump presidency.

    Here are some of the dates I’m most concerned about.

    Trump’s pro-Israel government could care less about the Palestinians in Gaza

    For people concerned about US involvement in Gaza, things are about to get a lot worse. Trump has already said he wants to be a “protector” of Israel. His choices show that he has no care for over 43,800 Palestinians who died as a result of the war between Israel and Hamas.

    representative Elise StefanikTrump’s pick for US ambassador to the United Nations, is a Trump loyalist from New York. She went viral last year for questioning university leaders at a congressional hearing when she asked whether calling out the Jewish genocide would lead to disciplinary action by schools.

    Trump also picked the former governor of Arkansas. Mike Huckabeewhich opposes a cease-fire agreement and he does not believe in a two-state solutionto be the US ambassador to Israel.

    Opinion: Gen Z voters were the biggest disappointment of the election. Why did I fail?

    My hope is that the pro-Palestinian protests on our college campuses did not end in the spring; I want to see young people continue to protest US complicity in the massacre of Palestinians.

    After all, they continued to protest the Harris campaign until the final days of the election. Vice President Kamala Harris lost a lot of votes because of her stance on what’s happening in Gaza. I hope a more conservative government doesn’t scare people from speaking out against what they believe is wrong. Because what they care about is about to get a whole lot worse.

    Trump’s mass deportations will be reason enough not to give up

    In the first Trump administration, people on the left were outraged by the policy of family separation at the border and the subhuman treatment of immigrants. That energy must continue into Trump’s next presidency — especially since the person who oversaw those plans is coming back.

    Trump tapped Tom Homanthe former head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and another Collaborator at Project 2025to be his “border tsar”.

    At the National Conservatism Conference in July, according to Semafor’s David Weigel, Homan said on a sign that he would lead “the largest deportation force this country has ever seen.”

    Opinion: Voters rejected the qualified candidate. Can we ever have a woman president?

    Earlier this week, Trump also threatened to declare a national emergency and he is using the military to implement his mass deportation planssomething he talked about repeatedly in the campaign.

    This is America nearly 77 million Americans voted yesand we have to live with it. But for the next two years, I hope progressives refuse to stop talking about the ways Trump has done and will continue to hurt immigrants.

    What climate crisis? Climate change denial will escalate.

    For many of us, the ongoing climate crisis is a major concern. For Trump, that worry doesn’t exist. Maybe that’s why he chose Lee Zeldina former US congressman from New York to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Zeldin consistently voted against environmental rights groups as a member of Congress. He promises to “restore US energy dominance” in his new role.

    Trump also picked an oil industry executive Chris Wright to run the Department of Energy. Last year, Wright posted a video on LinkedIn denying the existence of climate change and asserting that the United States “is not even in the middle of an energy transition.” It’s safe to say that the Green New Deal isn’t happening anytime soon.

    However, we cannot give up hope. The mid-term elections are only two years away. If the Democrats can address the issues in their last election campaign and continue to organize in these two years, we may be able to keep the United States from total right-wing dominance.

    Now everyone – but mostly Generation Z, ages 12 to 27 – we must remember that this fight for our future is not over. If we want to see the things we care about come to fruition, we must mobilize. We cannot let the extremists win.

    Follow USA TODAY election columnist Sara Pequeño on X, formerly Twitter: @sara__pequeno

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