Progressive groups are organizing to protect the gains of the last few years.

A Rallying Cry

Progressive groups are organizing to protect the gains of the last few years.

By Susan Milligan | Staff Writer
Nov. 25, 2016, at 6:00 a.m.

Election night had progressives bursting with optimism and the promise of more changes to come in the arenas of women's rights, immigration reform,and communities that welcomed Muslims, Jews and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people openly. Eleanor Smeal, founder of the Feminist Majority and an early president of the National Organization for Women, planned to mount a new campaign for an Equal Rights Amendment. Backers of LGBT rights looked eagerly to Democrats winning in North Carolina, sending a signal that the state regretted a law mandating that people use the public bathroom assigned to their birth sex, and wanted a president who would be a champion of the LGBT community. And immigration reform advocates were banking on Latinos to deliver a win in Florida and possibly even Arizona, making clear to Congress that anyone who held up legislation to provide a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants did so at his electoral peril.

Instead, the disparate progressive community watched in disbelief and horror that night as they considered the reality that they would spend the next four years worrying if they would lose the gains they had made during the administration of President Barack Obama. And they spent little time licking their collective wounds.

Even as results were still coming in, Chad Griffin, the president of the LGBT rights group the Human Rights Campaign, got on the phone to the leaders of Planned Parenthood and the NAACP, figuring out a game plan. "They made a commitment to stand even closer together than we have before as leaders in the progressive movement," says HRC communications director Jay Brown. In the days following, leaders of groups that had opposed president-elect Donald Trump huddled together and starting mapping out a plan. "It's going to look very different for us, but we've not gotten where we've gotten without hard work," Brown says. "Our movement has had incredible setbacks and devastating results and we have pushed on."

The task is arduous. First, progressives say they must deal with the immediate anxiety of communities uncertain and worried about what the incoming Trump administration will do.

"This election has placed many immigrant families in crisis. Basically, what's happening is that people are sitting down and saying, 'Oh my God – do we try to ride out the next four years? Do they really come after us? If they come after us, do they get our cars and house?'" Frank Sharry, executive director of the immigrant rights group Americas Voice, explains. "You're talking about a very settled and rooted group of people. The kids tend to say, this is where we want to stay. The parents say, maybe we should go somewhere else – to Canada or to our country of origin." Then the family members wonder, "if we do, will we ever see each other again?" Sharry says.

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