It’s hard not to get caught up in the increasingly contentious Democratic primary battle that’s mostly being waged online this week. But outside of the social media echo chambers, people who are taking the brunt of a vicious, authoritarian regime are asking deeper questions about how to build political power.  

Union and immigrant-rights organizers in Wisconsin held a joint press conference Thursday to talk about their efforts to get Latinos, newly naturalized citizens and struggling workers to the polls to elect people who will take a stand against the Trump administration’s terrifying crackdown on immigrants as well as Trump administration policies driving the crushing cost of living.

Roselia Navarro, a naturalized citizen who leads Voces de la Frontera’s New American program, helps guide other immigrants through the process of becoming citizens. She gave a touching account of how much citizenship and participating in American democracy means to her. She described it as a privilege to help other immigrants, many of whom have waited as long  as 20 years to obtain their naturalization papers and become eligible to vote. 

“I’m very proud to say I’m the first person that is able to vote within my family,” she said. “And that feels rewarding because when I vote, I feel that I’m not only making decisions for something that would benefit my kids, but it also inspires my family to see that I’m motivated and I’m involved.”

“I want to also invite the people in our community, especially the Hispanic community, that we can come together and we need to vote,” she added. “It’s extremely important for us to be part of the decisions that are being made in our state.”

First-time voter Yondo Borrera, who sat next to Navarro on the panel at the Voces office in Milwaukee, told reporters, “I will be voting to make a change in my community. I don’t like how everything is super expensive right now — gas, food, housing, rent. And I don’t like how ICE is in the community snatching people up, deporting people, taking people away from their families, and that’s something that I’m trying to change.”

Christine Neumann-Ortiz, Voces’ executive director, described the power of Latino voters in Wisconsin, a tippy purple state where elections are often decided by razor-thin margins. Over the last decade, “the Latino population, including the Latino voting population, has continued to grow in force statewide,” she said. She cited data from the 2024 election that showed high turnout among registered Latino voters about 84.9%  of whom voted, “yet this only represents 63% of the estimated eligible Latino citizen voting age population statewide,” she said. 

Immigrant rights’ organizers aim to drive the participation rate higher.

There is something poignant about that aim, which, in other election years, would seem like a run-of-the-mill exercise in civics. This is no ordinary election year, however. 

Armed federal agents have been dragging people out of their cars in Milwaukee. A young mother with no criminal record who fled violence in Colombia and was going through the U.S. asylum process, checking in with the government regularly as her case progressed, was grabbed along with her 8-year-old son out of their home in the Wisconsin Dells and is now incarcerated along with her little boy in an ICE detention facility in South Texas. 

This is just one case of the thousands across the country. Neumann-Ortiz described a few more in Wisconsin. “We’ve seen mothers and fathers and children and the larger community traumatized by the violence and the persecution and the racism, which is completely unchecked right now,” she said.

People who have full legal status are wary of being grabbed by rogue ICE agents looking to fill quotas in the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. Going to the polls in this environment is fraught. And yet, advocates say, it’s more important than ever. 

“We are in an unprecedented time of income inequality, with unwanted wars in the Middle East, and a quarter of a trillion of our national budget being used for the violent persecution and racial profiling of Black and brown people, Asian people, and shifting away these critical resources from healthcare and public schools and childcare and things that people need,” Neumann-Ortiz said. 

The only way to change all that is for people who are suffering under this terrible regime to grab control of their government.

Adrian Bracy, a worksite representative for the Service Employees International Union, spoke on the panel to people who feel that their vote doesn’t matter, that the system is too broken to be fixed at the ballot box. 

“Working for a union for 20 years, I know that uniting and standing strong and fighting firmly for what we believe in, it can make the difference,” she said. “It can definitely change things.” She urged people to encourage their friends and neighbors to vote.  “Let them know how important it really is, and that they do matter,” she said. “It does matter. It makes a difference …  in spite of the tactics they may use to intimidate or discourage or discredit our voters.”

As it happens, the effort to discourage and discredit voters is led by Wisconsin’s representatives in Congress. U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Janesville), who chairs the House Committee on Administration, is demanding information from the state Department of Corrections on voting by felons. The case that prompted Steil’s letter to DOC Secretary Jared Hoy involves a man convicted of theft who was one day shy of having served his full sentence on community release. Had he voted the following day, his ballot would have been legal. This single case, which did not affect the outcome of any election, is fodder for a campaign Steil is spearheading to cast doubt on the legitimacy of elections and disenfranchise likely Democratic voters by making them jump through hoops before they can vote, all in the name of rooting out exceedingly rare cases of voter fraud.

The main targets of this campaign are, of course, the supposed masses of noncitizens casting ballots and tilting elections to Democrats. 

U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, like Steil an enabler of election conspiracy theories, also took a big stand this week, demanding that Gov. Tony Evers turn over the personal data of FoodShare recipients in an effort to root out “fraud.” People who get food assistance in Wisconsin are already seeing their benefits cut, just as grocery prices skyrocket, under the massive tax cut and spending bill both Van Orden and Steil supported.

These attacks are related. After voting for policies that make life much worse for the people they represent, our Republican members of Congress are trying to make sure voters can’t hold them accountable. 

“The challenges facing our economy and our democracy are inseparable,” says Taifa Smith Butler, president of Demos, a nonprofit progressive public policy organization. Demos rolled out its 2026 national policy agenda this week:  “Power Policies: How to Get and Keep People Power in the United States.” 

“For too long, public debate has centered on short term wins, but the more important question is what happens after power shifts,” Smith Butler said at a press conference announcing the new report. “History shows that periods of political upheaval can also create opportunities for transformative change. Previous generations have used these moments to advance civil rights, expand democracy, and build economic security.”

Rising authoritarianism is linked to the erosion of both economic and political power for most people, Alix Gould-Werth, Demos’ chief of programs and strategy, said at the same event. It’s important to stop that erosion in order to fight back.

The solutions the group lays out in its progressive policy plan include affordable housing, universal childcare and a robust national wealth tax, as well as nonpartisan redistricting and automatic voter registration.

Rebuilding democratic institutions in the current environment seems like a huge hill to climb. But starting on the state and local level, it’s possible to protect “laboratories of democracy” that will serve as models for a larger shift, Gould-Werth said. 

Community housing grants and low-cost loans are one example Demos offers.

Here in Wisconsin, which long ago served as the laboratory for New Deal programs and progressive reforms that grew into lasting federal institutions, there is an opportunity to stand up and defend a better vision of society. 

It’s scary. And it’s challenging. But it’s a relief to see advocates at both the local and national level light a torch and keep us focused not just on the short-term crisis we are enduring, but how it fits into the long-term fight for a better world.