How are you getting ready for inauguration day?

What happens next week won’t be easy.

Many of us in the broader progressive movement lived in a constant state of emergency during Trump’s last term—frantically trying to cut the countless hydra heads of right-wing mayhem spawning from D.C.

As one who spent 2016 to 2020 as a organizer of Muslim, refugee, and immigrant communities, everything sucked except one simple thing: the number of opportunities we gained to move people into action grew tremendously.

“But PITAFACE,” you might say, “Trump won again, we fumbled the ball, all those mobilized were meaningless, the worst is yet to come!” And to that I’d say, “Have you ever used Reddit?”

The weird thing is that I’m only partially kidding.

We may have mobilized millions of bodies and dollars in Trump’s first era, but we still lost in 2024 partially due to the right’s ability to out-message us to audiences we overlooked. They picked populist fights on abortion, education, and immigration online and offline—in a diversity of spaces, backed by real money, and megaphoned through genuine messengers in a way we couldn’t touch.

Despite our best efforts, better policies, better values, and a dedicated ground game to get out the vote — Trump’s fandom won and our progressive audiences got annoyed at our incessant messaging (see Daily Kos founder talk about the progressive media lay-offs due to the “Trump hangover”).

So why am I pushing Reddit and building “karma” (Reddit’s way to gameify engagement) now? The answer is simple. Reddit is a easy platform to practice organizing non-progressives around abortion, education, worker rights, and cuts to essential programs that we can expect under Trump.

No better time to get started than now.

Interested in building the resistance to Trumpism better than in 2017? There’s a Reddit for that.

I’m a firm believer of the proverbial saying that digital organizing is just organizing, online. Reddit is the most accessible place out there to try it out, and I believe we have much reason to get started right now.

As our movements shift into defensive stances to prepare for full federal Republican control, we cannot recreate the same mistake of crafting messaging that primarily works for Women’s March attendees or those who put “in this house we believe…” signs in their front yards. We need to build trailheads into our movement like never before.

On Reddit there is a bonafide community for any life experience. Whether you’re a parent, have a disability, or just really like that one TV show that got canceled after season 2, there’s a conversation happening in a subReddit.

The best part: you don’t need to know how to AB Subject Line test or code in HTML to make Reddit work for you. Just the ability to be a genuine participant with good judgment on a listserv—engaging in comments, asking agitational questions, or writing headlines that get the conversation going on the right threads. All things good organizers know how to do.

Last but not least, the most widely used search engines prioritize content on Reddit! This makes landing a good post on Reddit possibly the most effective in-house (without the use of ads, press, or influencers) way to build organic growth around your issues and ideas. Check out this short thread from Abortion Squad or this thread on Reddit for more. 

I’ll be creating a curriculum for reddit in the near future, but for now my most recent experiment is worth the read. Reddit may be the best organizing gateway into the digital realm for us all.

CREATING PURPOSE IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS CULTURE WARS

Can I (PitaBreadFace) turn the absolutely toxic online discourse circulating around key statewide races in North Carolina into an organizing opportunity and recruit rural people in NC into a powerful campaign dedicated to protecting public schools from far-right attacks?

READ THE EXPERIMENT HERE

I spent the two weeks before election day 2024 in the middle of comment threads, subReddits, and direct messages – building relationships with other North Carolina parents who are in the middle of a escalating fight for the future of our public schools. 

I wrote scripts unique to TikTok, Reddit, X, and direct messages to recruit people to organizing and Get Out The Vote opportunities. There were lots of ups and downs, some drama, some wins, an account suspension, but overall a lot of learning. I didn’t hit the recruitment numbers I set out for, but the journey was compelling none-the-less.

READ THE EXPERIMENT HERE

Please take this SURVEY before you go!

I sent a bad link last time, sorry.

Back for more before you know it!