A Progressive Mother...'s Day
Fierce Kindness and Good Trouble is what we need.
Fierce Kindness. Good Trouble.
A few years ago, after I ran for State Rep in Illinois' 101st District, I got two new tattoos. Just four little words, but they say everything you need to know about who I am and what I stand for:
Good trouble.
Fierce kindness.
The first is familiar to many—it's the rallying cry of the late, great American hero, John Lewis. His call to rise up against injustice echoes through the lives of so many of us. We’ve taken it to heart: when we see bigotry, cruelty, or corruption, we do not stay silent. We raise hell.
The second phrase isn’t a famous quote. It’s a lesson—a legacy—passed down from countless women and men whose names most people never learned. But I carry them with me. One of them is on my wrist: Mother Jones.
Mother Mary Harris Jones was a tornado wrapped in petticoats. In the early 1900s, while others turned a blind eye to child labor and industrial poverty, she waged war on the powerful. Wherever she went, she found the poorest, the most forgotten—and she made them family.
She didn’t just pose for pictures. She sat at miners’ kitchen tables. She listened to children broken by factory work. She wept with widows and shouted with union brothers. She carried their grief and their fire with her to the next town—and lit the spark again.
Mother Jones didn’t have to choose between rage and love. She used her rage to fuel her love. That is what fierce kindness looks like.
And it’s why, as much as I loathe Donald Trump’s actions—his cruelty, his corruption, his orange charade—I cannot waste energy hating him. Because hate only rots the one holding it.
Do I hate what he’s done? Hell yes. But I don’t think Trump is the mastermind. He’s a puppet. Bought and paid for. A failed businessman whose only real skill is selling himself to the highest bidder.
And now, surrounded by people who flatter him—he’s let them run wild. They stroke his ego while they shred our Constitution. And he lets them. Because they’re nice to him. That’s all it takes.
Am I disappointed? Of course I am. This man mocks everything I love about this country—from veterans, to students, to our very flag. I’m disappointed that we re-elected someone so clearly unfit to serve.
But my rage—my deepest rage—isn’t aimed at Trump. It’s reserved for those who should know better.
I am furious, on this Mother’s Day, on behalf of Abraham Lincoln.
The man who has raised me better from the grave than some living ever could. A man who founded the Republican Party to lift up working families and preserve the Union. A man who believed in checks and balances, in voting rights, and the dignity of every person.
His legacy is being dragged through the filth by the modern Republican Party.
Lincoln stood for democracy; they now consolidate power under a single man.
Lincoln expanded voting rights; they suppress them.
Lincoln fought for the soul of this country; they sell it off for donor checks and TV ratings.
The Republican Party is dead.
Its corpse is being used like a puppet by grifters, billionaires, and authoritarians who care more about clout than country.
I hold my rage for them:
For Kristi Noem, who exploited my friend’s death to score political points.
For Stephen Miller, who whispered fascism into the President’s ear.
For J.D. Vance, Nancy Mace, Mary Miller, and every coward feeding from the Fox News trough.
They know exactly what they’re doing. And they do it anyway.
So today, in honor of Mother Jones—and every badass mother who came before me—I’m calling bullshit.
If Mother Jones were here right now, she’d:
Tell the stories of children who died because their parents couldn’t afford a safe crib.
Spit fire at billionaires who launch rockets for fun while ignoring poisoned waterlines and collapsing bridges.
Remind us that a party full of bootlickers is not a political movement. It’s a scam.
But she’d also open her arms. Because mothers—real ones—don’t leave people behind, even if they’ve been lied to, manipulated, or made a mess of it all.
So this week, I’m choosing not to let hate chew me up.
Instead, I’m living by the words etched on my skin:
Fierce kindness—to all who need it, even Donald Trump.
Good trouble—for everyone who stands in our way.
Because if we want a country worth passing on, we need a movement grounded in both fire and grace.
That’s how we build a better America. That’s how we honor Lincoln. And that’s how we win.
~^~ Jen