Self-Determined: Solidarity in Sovereignty

Less than four months into the second Trump presidency, we’ve witnessed a barrage of destructive policies, aggressive actions, and increasingly alarming rhetoric driven by greed and authoritarian ambition. While I am appalled by this, what unsettles me more is the collective response of quiet compliance. It is deeply troubling to witness how quickly so many have chosen to keep their heads down, clinging to the hope that we can simply white-knuckle it through the next four years until another election offers another hollow chance at change. 

This is a grave mistake that betrays our collective strength as well as our moral and ethical responsibility to resist the coordinated attempt to reshape our social and political reality through further monopolized power and control by a global elite. 

The reality is that much of what the Trump administration is doing—executive orders, policy threats, pressuring agencies and non-government organizations—is not law. Many of these moves are challenged and even overturned. Yet across the country, too many institutions are falling in line without a fight. Cities and universities are voluntarily cooperating with ICE. Medical facilities are pulling gender-affirming care. Businesses and organizations are scrubbing their websites of anything that might read as “DEI,” along with critical work to address climate change. It’s a preemptive surrender—a reflection of how fragile our so-called progress really is. It also shows how comfortable we have gotten with institutions that never fundamentally changed to effectively protect basic human rights.

For Indigenous Peoples, the consequences of this fear-driven obedience are devastating on many levels. DEI backlash and ICE crackdowns are impacting us heavily. This is despite the fact that we are not a racial or ethnic group but rather political entities with collective rights established by treaties. Our tribal sovereignty is defined by a nation-to-nation relationship with the federal government and international standards. 

There are cascading effects on Indigenous People in education, advocacy, art and culture programs, science and research, and even military spaces. We’re seeing a full-scale attack on community infrastructure such as health care and Head Start programs. This is a coordinated weakening of social and political services and agreements in order to accelerate access to natural resources found in and near Indigenous Peoples’ lands. 

Indigenous Peoples have always known we are up against a global oligarchy that we must resist—not assimilate into. Now is the moment for everyone to recognize how much is at stake and decide how to move accordingly.” 

We are witnessing attempts to reinterpret foundational agreements that define the legal relationship between tribes and the U.S. government. This isn’t a fringe debate. It’s a constitutional crisis. Oligarchs are showing us in real time how far they are willing to go to unravel the “rule of law.” This is enabled by a systemic failure to understand who Indigenous People are and the legal and moral obligations the U.S. government has to us. 

If we continue to lack a shared understanding of what’s at stake in this new wave of colonization, we will keep losing ground—literally—and enabling the full-scale attack against all people. 

This is part of a broader pattern. Too many Americans—even progressive ones, and even people working within the leftist movement—do not understand that Indigenous nations are not minorities seeking equality in an inherently unjust system. We are sovereign nations with a long history of resisting colonial governance structures. And that misunderstanding—which is the result of colonial governments relentlessly working to erase our history and invisibilize Indigenous People—is a critical liability in the broader fight for justice. 

We must not give ground to these tactics. Now is the time to honor the incredible strength and relationships we have built through decades of resistance, to hold the line together, and to advance new solutions to these inherently unjust systems. We, the global majority, are not in the same position we have been during previous waves of colonization. 

We call on our allies and accomplices to deepen their understanding of Indigenous Peoples’ rights, our resistance, and our solutions. By better understanding the entrenched power we’re all truly up against, we can collectively organize meaningful resistance. 

We must move past land acknowledgements. Indigenous Peoples have been fighting to protect our land, resources, culture, and people for hundreds of years. Indigenous Peoples have always known we are up against a global oligarchy that we must resist—not assimilate into. Now is the moment for everyone to recognize how much is at stake and decide how to move accordingly. 

The exhaustion in progressive circles is real. People are burned out. But maybe that burnout stems from a deeper problem: We keep trying to fix a system that was never designed to work for us. The U.S. government is structurally anti-democratic, which is why this administration can so easily dismantle decades of work with the stroke of a pen. That’s why, even as those who hold elected offices have become more diverse, we have descended further into authoritarianism. We’re not fixing the machine—we’re just changing the people operating it. 

Pouring billions of dollars, time, and talent into a political system that keeps betraying us is not working. It has normalized the stripping away of our humanity, disconnecting us from each other, and redirecting our faith into politicians and a political infrastructure that is more suited to protect private interests than our collective well-being. We have forgotten our own power.

What if we instead invest our precious energy and resources into Indigenous-led systems and models—governance rooted in relationality, balance, and deep care for the land and each other? Our ways have survived genocide, forced removal, and centuries of erasure. That endurance is not accidental—it’s instructive.

I’m not offering distant dreams of a future utopia. I’m speaking about acting on urgent, real-world solutions now. Grocery prices are too high? Worried about foodborne diseases? Indigenous food systems offer sustainability and abundance, and they are a striking counterpoint to the extractive, exploitative food industry that is failing our lands, farmers, and nutritional needs. 

Wildfires, flooding, desertification? Our land management knowledge can prevent and mitigate devastation. 

The daunting housing, education, and climate crises? Indigenous Peoples have been building effective, dynamic, diverse, place-based solutions, rooted in centuries of lived experience, intimate knowledge of local ecosystems, and steadfast resilience. 

We have knowledge of how to honor the specific land you’re on—traditional ways that vary across Tribes and ecosystems, from the desert South to the Pacific Northwest to the woodlands of the East and beyond. Protect the sacred and build with us. Believing in this system, or believing in and building something better, has always been a choice. 

We don’t just have ancestral memory; Indigenous people are actively practicing these solutions. We remember governance models that honor women, protect two-spirit relatives, and invest deeply in children. We still hold processes for resolving conflict that do not rely on punishment but on restorative justice. Our democracies are relational, human-centered, and alive.

We can remind you that this has always been a fight for our shared humanity and that together we can build something better.”

Recently, I joined other Indigenous leaders for an in-depth discussion about the Indigenous response on Turtle Island to the continuous rise of fascism. One of the topics we covered was how in movement spaces in which leaders imagine what real democracy looks like, Indigenous sovereignty was completely invisibilized and overlooked—even before the 2024 election. This is not surprising. There is a huge lack of political understanding of our unique positionality within the colonial borders of the United States. This is purposeful and has been used to keep people from understanding our—and, inadvertently, their own—power. 

This is the moment to root ourselves in a more critical analysis of what has transpired throughout history, lessons we’ve learned across generations, and how we need to root ourselves in our collective power and strength. We need to honor the role of Indigenous Peoples in creating and informing an alternative vision for everybody and for Mother Earth. 

We need to stop feeding a system that was never meant to serve us. Let’s stop trying to just hold on long enough, as if the next election will save us. It won’t. 

But we can save ourselves—by turning toward Indigenous Peoples’ leadership, memory, and vision. We can remind you that you are sacred. That you have gifts that are needed for this moment. That you are medicine for a world out of balance. That you are part of a beautiful, interconnected, and sacred relationship with all that is. We can remind you that this has always been a fight for our shared humanity and that together we can build something better. 

All Peoples and all sacred life deserve liberation from all unjust systems rooted in principles of supremacy. Our power will never be taken by any executive order, so let’s not quietly give it up.