By Democracy Action Network in demonstrations — 30 Jan 2026

Shock Around the Clock

Issue 8 - January 30, 2026

In This Issue:

The List to Resist: “Time for some new sign when we next hit the streets,” says contributor S.W.
Out of the Box: “Something Old, Something New: Songs of Protest in 2026” by contributor A. Glore
Yays and Nays: Who we’re celebrating and who we’re calling out.
Recommended Reads: Articles we think should get more eyeballs.

Today’s a first call for a general strike to press the point that it is the People in this country who have the power. There are many ways to participate, even if you can’t do everything.

“…a call for a shutdown began on Sunday, January 25, through a coalition of four student groups from the University of Minnesota: the Black Student Union, the Ethiopian Student Association, the Liberian Student Association, and the Somali Student Association.” - LA Taco reporter Ivan Hernandez

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(Photo by Jeff Wheeler at the Minnesota Star Tribune. Subject is Curtis Evans, a Marine veteran.)

The List to Resist

by S.W., contributor

Time for some new signs when next we hit the streets. Here are some suggestions:

● Stop the lies

● Stop the grift

● Stop the cruelty

Most importantly — Stop the killing.

As reported last month, 2025 was one of the deadliest years in ICE detention ever recorded, with at least 32 deaths reported, and many others are reported missing.

We will likely never know how all of those who were deported fared, even via the Freedom of Information Act. The craven indifference to these people’s fate is a feature not a bug, deliberately stymying attempts to keep track of the kidnapped. This is why the legal observers in the streets, recording the movements and actions of ICE, are so important — they may well be the difference between a victim being traceable by their attorneys and loved ones and being entirely disappeared. It has taken a great deal of unpaid labor to keep the records we have — it will continue to be a vital effort going forward.

As anyone with a phone or television knows, Minnesota is now besieged as an act of revenge against this kind of pushback, the violence thinly cloaked as a “crisis of fraud” perpetrated by Somali immigrants. This assault by our own government has resulted in two deaths of US citizens in Minnesota in rapid succession, and three shootings (that we know of) in this first month of 2026. There are continued reports of people being literally disappeared as we have seen in California and other states. In some dropped off with no warm clothes or their phones. Some ICE agents are robbing those they snatch, and one enterprising asshole even sold his teenage victim’s phone.

Meanwhile the grab the “P” felon-in-chief and Stephen Miller have continued to “unleash” goons who yell “F’ing Bitch!” when shooting a women in the face, who shoot a man almost a dozen times when he’s already down, and who clap in approval and enthuse, “It’s like Call of Duty, so cool, huh?”

Here are some of the companies assisting ICE do their thing.

Hilton, I hear, is no longer housing our home-grown terrorists. Boycotting works. Calling out these companies does work. Let’s get to it!
The Fortune story linked here [500 Companies with ICE contracts] is behind a paywall. If you don’t have a subscription, you can get it at your local library — a good place to support these days.
And this Google map will let you search those aiding and abetting ICE by location.
A group of students at Rice University also created ICE Map for exposing the scope of ICE activities with an interactive map tracking documented incidents and detention facilities across the nation.
Particularly egregious corporate examples are:
- The for-profit incarceration companies CoreCivic and GEO Group are the largest private prison contractors for ICE, benefiting from increased funding for detention centers.
- Companies like AT&T and CACI provide essential IT and data services, which are crucial for ICE operations.
- Avelo airlines ran nearly 2,000 ICE Air flights between May and December of 2025; that insane number is only 18% of all U.S. immigration enforcement flights during that period
Just for fun - track Government Spending in general: USAspending.gov
And in case anyone is still counting the lies, 47’s first year in office has resulted in adding $2.25 trillion to the national debt. Must be all that “deal making.”

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Something Old, Something New: Songs of Protest in 2026

by A. Glore, contributor

No political action drive would be complete without a lineup of smart tunes to belt out along the protest route. Renée Good’s and Alex Pretti’s murders have propelled people around the country to demand justice and have their voices heard. They’re writing songs and chants conveying their anger, their heartbreak and their commitment to solidarity.

Beyond Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho

Here are a just few new tunes and chants to update your protest march repertoire:

“Hold On” by Heidi Wilson. This simple, easy-to-sing tune went viral after a group of 600 protesters sang it while marching in frigid Minneapolis. It has the grace of a spiritual and the power of an anthem.

Hold on, hold on.

My dear ones.

Here comes the dawn.

If you’re comfortable with the F-bomb, there’s the foot-tapping song-chant introduced recently by protesters in Times Square. The Caribbean flavored “o-le o-le o-le o-le, fuck Trump!” is particularly fun to sing.

Hey Nazis, fuck you

Hey Maga, fuck you

Hey Proud Boys, fuck you

Hey Elon, fuck you

Hey Fascists, fuck you!

O-le o-le o-le o-le, fuck Trump, fuck Trump

O-le o-le o-le o-le, fuck Trump, fuck Trump!

Church-goers in Minneapolis shared another song-chant in the spiritual mode, Who Keeps Us Safe? The melody is basic, made more potent by clapping.

Who keeps us safe?

Who keeps us safe?

We keep us safe.

We keep us safe.

Our love for our people

Will conquer hate

Our love for our people

Will conquer hate.

Songs for Your Message Mix Tape

Songs that set the stage for and then fueled the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War protests include:

“This Land Is Your Land,” Pete Seeger’s quiet cover of Woody Guthrie’s rebuttal to Irving Berlin’s sentimental “God Bless America,” imagins the country as an everyman’s paradise.
“Eve of Destruction.” Without apology, this raw, rough recording by Barry McGuire summed up the fear felt by young people facing the draft, racial divides and nuclear proliferation.
Along with the spiritual “We Shall Overcome,” “A Change Is Gonna Come,’” Sam Cooke’s plaintive ballad, became synonymous with the Civil Rights movement.
Creedence Clearwater Revival’s 1969 hit “Fortunate Son” expressed the fury felt by many American youth too aware of the economic inequities baked into the draft (bone spurs anyone?).
Editor Addition: In the early 90s, the band Rage Against the Machine brought their repertoire of protest and leftist music to the world. While often bafflingly misunderstood by conservatives, there can be no confusing the meanings in their lyrics as a call to a new paradigm.
In 2003, the Black Eyed Peas released “Where Is the Love?” a hip-hop anthem exposing the hypocrisy and injustice of George Bush Jr.’s war on terrorism.
“American Idiot” set to music the progressive mood of the early 2000s, with Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong raging punk-style against the lies behind the Iraq War. Given Trump’s latest embarrassing, infuriating performance on the world stage, the song feels as relevant as the day it was written.
Editor Addition: If you’re a Millennial who came of age during the Dubbya years, it is impossible to overlook System of a Down’s fiery “B.Y.O.B.”
Editor Addition: Pearl Jam and Ben Harper released “No More” in 2008, written specifically for the anti-war documentary Body of War, which was also dedicated to Iraq war veteran Thomas Young.
Editor Addition: A personal 2000s-era favorite of mine is from the nearly undefinable punk band, Gogol Bordello. (Punk music as a genre having, of course, a long history of protest music and anti-fascist struggle.) Give “Immigraniada (We Comin’ Rougher)” a listen for an extra kick in your anti-ICE step.
Editor Addition: In 2015, Kendrick Lamar put his finger on the pulse of the exploding conversation about police brutality and racist oppression and penned the triumphant “Alright.”
Editor Addition: In 2018, right in the middle of the first Trump presidency, Childish Gambino dropped the eerily catchy “This is America,” which captures the contradictions inherent to Black life in the United States. The music video doubled down, every frame brimming with meaning.
Recently, Jesse Welles, the Arkansas folk singer in the Dylan mode, made waves with his protest songs, the satirical “Join Ice” and “No Kings,” among others.
And finally, brank spanking new is the song “Streets of Minneapolis” by Bruce Springsteen. Listen to it here.

What are your favorite protest songs to add to the list?

Yays and Nays

Speaking of boycotts, to start off the NAY column, the heir of Estée Lauder is one of the key billionaires in Trump’s ear about Arctic expansion and Greenland in particular. Ya’ll know what time it is.

Over on the YAY side of things, a group of state Attorneys General are mad as hell and trying to make us all stop taking it anymore.

“‘Whenever you’re confronted by a bully like Donald Trump, if you think by keeping your head down and being quiet, being sweet, nice, that he’s not gonna stomp all over you, you are wrong,’ said [Minnesota Attorney General Keith] Ellison. ‘The only solution is to stand up, fight back, and protect your own.’”

In a similarly cheering vein, the Irish have checked in with a few notes.

In the NAY column, Democratic leaders have once again failed to see the harm in sympathizing with the devil, and so are treating very literal crimes against humanity, namely expulsion, as a point of negotiation. We keep the pressure on every day until we primary them out, friends.

Way over in YAY, have you been wanting to help out the legal observers keeping the pressure on in the Twin Cities, despite the very real threat of mortal violence? Here’s a fund to provide them PPE! Or you can put some dollars toward towing for ICE victims, so their cars don’t end up in impound.

In a quick succession of egregious NAYs, a combat veteran was held in detention for 8 hours by ICE for bearing witness to their crimes; it’s now two protestors who’ve been blinded here in California by so-called “less lethal” munitions; and observers in Maine are being threatened by agents showing up at their homes. Indeed, the abuse of facial recognition software and social media monitoring is ironically rampant; the EFF has a searchable database of policing tech in the U.S. making up our newly super-charged surveillance state.

And last night, the Department of “Justice” finally got their way and black journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort were arrested. Their crime? Documenting and reporting on the protest at a St. Paul church service where the pastor is also the head of the ICE field office in the area. Congratulations, of course, to all the free speech enthusiasts on this newest flagrant violation of the First Amendment.

With all of these things in mind, we’re YAY-ing these toolkits for engaging in nonviolent protest and demonstrations.

The CANVAS Core Curriculum
Infosec 101 for Activists
How to Film ICE Safely and Effectively
A Quick Guide on Talking to Cops, from your friendly neighborhood foul-mouthed attorneys
If An Agent Knocks