This land is our land: As 2025 draws to a close, Donald Trump looks weaker than ever, with democracy's defenders holding
As a Bellingham teenager, I witnessed a Peter, Paul, & Mary college concert up at Western, concluding with Woody Guthrie’s classic “This Land Is Your Land”, written as a counter to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.”
It features the rousing final line: “This land is made for you and me,” to which Mary Travers added the footnote, “It still does.”
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Alas, our land is being being given over to oligarchs, the billionaires who are the dominant figures of a new Gilded Age. The current occupant of the White House is their authoritarian enabler, signing a succession of executive orders. Change is dictated from the top.
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Not so fast. Growing opposition is coming from the country’s grassroots. The effort to conceal Trump’s ties (and those of other plutocrats) to the predator Jeffrey Epstein have met with a fierce response. It’s coming not just from progressive Democrats but disillusioned MAGA foot soldiers. Public pressure has forced the release of Epstein files. And spawned efforts to decipher what mentions have been redacted.
https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2025/12/this-land-is-our-land-as-2025-draws-to-a-close-donald-trump-looks-weaker-than-ever-with-democracys-defenders-holding-fast.html