“No knight in shining armor is coming to save democracy. We’re the ones who will have to save our democracy and our rights," Clinton wrote i
Pocharapon Neammanee at HuffPost:
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a statement to philanthropists this week, warning that “democracy is under siege,” and calling on them to “lead the way” in saving “our rights.”
“No knight in shining armor is coming to save democracy. We’re the ones who will have to save our democracy and our rights. Civil society, philanthropies, activists, faith communities, mission-driven companies, citizens — we must lead the way,” Clinton wrote in her annual letter to the philanthropic community.
Clinton’s call to action comes amid recent findings showing autocratic governments have outnumbered democracies for the first time in 20 years. She compared those governments to the U.S, warning of health care, education, economic and disaster relief programs “being dismantled” recently.
Her letter went on to warn of the spread of misinformation in a “post-truth world,” claiming “social media has made it possible for bad actors to further divide Americans.”
Clinton emphasized that women’s rights remain “an urgent frontline” in the fight for democracy, citing right-wing attacks on reproductive health care and efforts to push women out of the military.
“The takeaway is clear: if you’re fighting for democracy, you’re fighting for women. And if you’re fighting for women, you’re fighting for democracy,” Clinton wrote
“So when autocrats move to suppress democracy, they target women by rolling back legal protections, dismantling reproductive healthcare, and pushing women out of public life and back into the home,” she continued.
Hillary Clinton issued a stark warning in her philanthropic letter about the state of American democracy: “No knight in shining armor is coming to save democracy. We’re the ones who will have to save our democracy and our rights. Civil society, philanthropies, activists, faith communities, mission-driven companies, citizens-- we must lead the way”
Organizers call for 11 million people to march and rally in this weekend’s effort to ‘protect democracy’
Robert Tait and Edward Helmore at The Guardian:
Protesters poured into the streets of cities and towns across the United States again on Saturday, in the second wave of protests this month, as organizers seek to turn discontent with Donald Trump’s presidency into a mass movement that will eventually translate into action at the ballot box.
By early afternoon, large protests were under way in Washington, New York and Chicago, with images of crowds cascading across social networks showing additional demonstrations in Rhode Island, Maryland, Wisconsin, Tennessee, South Carolina, Ohio, Kentucky, California and Pennsylvania, among others. Americans abroad also signaled their opposition to the Trump agenda in Dublin, Ireland, and other cities.
More than 400 rallies were planned, most loosely organized by the group 50501, which stands for 50 protests in 50 states, one movement.
Opponents of the Trump administration mobilized from the east coast to the west, including at rallies in Portland, Maine, and Portland, Oregon, decrying what they see as threats to the nation’s democratic ideals.
The demonstrations included a massive march through midtown Manhattan, a rally in front of the White House, and protesters holding up placards reading “It’s Our Turn to Fight Tyranny” and “The Fascists Are Coming, The Fascists Are Coming” at a Concord, Massachusetts, commemoration of the start of the American revolutionary war 250 years ago.
[...]
It is the fourth protest event to be staged by the group since Trump was inaugurated on 20 January. Previous events included a “No Kings Day” on President’s Day, 17 February, a theme adopted before Trump referred to himself as a king in a social media post days later.
Organizers have called for 11 million people to participate in the latest rallies, representing 3.5% of the US population.
Such a figure would likely surpass the numbers who took part in the “Hands Off” rallies staged on 5 April, when 1,200 demonstrations were staged across the US to register opposition to Trump’s assault on government agencies and institutions, spearheaded by the president’s chief lieutenant, the tech billionaire Elon Musk, and his unofficial “department of government efficiency” (Doge) unit.
Indivisible, the progressive movement behind the “Hands Off” events, said it was seeking to send a message to opposition politicians and ordinary voters that vocal resistance to Trump’s policies was essential. It also said it was seeking to build momentum that would lead to further and larger protests.
Hunter Dunn, a spokesperson for 50501, said the goal of Saturday’s protests was “to protect our democracy against the rise of authoritarianism under the Trump administration”.
Yesterday in cities red, blue, and purple across the USA, numerous protests organized by 50501 and other groups against the Trump Regime took place.
See Also:
AP, via HuffPost: Anti-Trump Protesters Rally In New York, Washington And Elsewhere Across The Country
A Democratic guide to minimizing harm from the coming Trump term
Jay Kuo for Think Big Picture:
We’re all still grieving the electoral loss and feeling queasy about the prospect of Trump returning to the White House in January. But in response to the giddy pronouncements from the GOP and the Trump campaign, some have already begun to think about an effective political resistance to Trump and Trumpism.
Democrats need to make these plans knowing full well that Trump will be backed by a sycophantic GOP Congress and blank check-writing SCOTUS. And this time around, there won’t be any adults in the room, including White House counsel who during his first term would quietly shelve Trump’s most outrageous requests, or chiefs of staff like John Kelly who would struggle to moderate, educate and soften his most extreme positions.
No, this time around Trump will be surrounded by people even further to the right of him. They will seek to implement the most dangerous and destructive of policies, many drawn from the Project 2025 blueprint. And they will encourage Trump to issue Executive Orders that could reshape American democracy, insert our armed forces deeply into civil affairs, hurtle our economy into an abyss, and upend the lives of millions of minorities.
This is a thought piece, an early stab (and work in progress) about how Democrats (and the lawyers who are aligned with them) can ready themselves to resist Trump. We’re in very new territory here, but the ideas are based on what we’ve learned about Trump from both his first term and the four years he’s been more or less idle when he wasn’t sitting in courtrooms or stumping on the campaign trail. They play into both his ego and the worst aspects of his character and leadership style. I hope you find this early exploration a good starting point for how the next four years could go if Democrats play their cards smartly, even if the strategy seems highly unorthodox.
Note that I won’t be discussing what average citizens might consider doing. This, for now, is the beginning of a political and legal strategy. Others involved in grassroots organizing may have ideas for direct resistance by citizens, but that is for another discussion.
[...]
Hit ‘em with lawfare
One of the most effective weapons against Trump’s policies during his first term was the slew of lawsuits that his executive orders met when they were first announced. Remember the Muslim ban? That bounced up and down the courts for years before it could finally go into effect in a watered-down form.
Lawyers from every non-profit walk of life should be readying civil complaints today, just as people like Russ Vought are already preparing horrific executive orders for Trump to sign. The minute Trump announces his Day One policy to deport millions of undocumented migrants, for example, lawyers everywhere should file suit. It shouldn’t just be one suit; it should be several. Tie up the White House lawyers and the Trump Justice Department with as many cognizable claims as they can think of.
More than the sheer number, they should file these cases before judges in jurisdictions where the appellate courts will be more friendly, such as in the Ninth Circuit. This is the inverse of what MAGA and Christian Nationalist legal counsel have been doing now for years by picking a single court near Amarillo, Texas to ensure their cases are heard before radical judge Matthew Kacsmaryk.
Once those cases are filed, judges (and their clerks) should slow-walk them. Act like the nun in The Sound Of Music, opening the gate as slowly as she can so the Nazis are delayed. Then, after issuing temporary restraining orders, set the hearings out as far as possible. Have the lawyers demand extensions. File motions that could receive interlocutory appeals, to further gum things up. In short, drag things out as long as possible to prevent his policies from going into effect.
Governors in blue border states could also get involved. California and Arizona both have Democratic governors, after all. And they also have Democratic state attorneys general. These states could move to intervene in suits or file them on their own, just as the red states have done to block Biden’s policies like student debt relief. Sure, this will eventually get up to the Supreme Court and get overturned, but the point is delay. Run out the clock, run out the clock, run out the clock. Trump only gets four years, two before the midterms.
[...]
These are but a few broad-stroke ideas, but it’s time everyone who will be part of the resistance start thinking about how they can play a vital part in pushing back. Some of these tactics are admittedly unorthodox, others quite petty. Still others are variations on what has worked well before. Together, they could bog down or distract Trump and the White House just long enough for the midterms to give Democrats a chance to regain control of one or both chambers and really turn up the heat.
It may make many quite uncomfortable to consider deploying these kinds of strategies. They make Democrats into obstructionists, even political saboteurs, much as the GOP has been for the few cycles when Democrats have been in charge.
But here there is a difference, though it’s one MAGA Republicans will never acknowledge: When actual fascists have taken control of the government and are trying to destroy democracy, patriotic opponents must use every peaceful means at their disposal to prevent them. Indeed, it is a moral imperative, because millions of lives are on the line. We cannot act as if the world has not changed, and Democrats must grow far more accustomed to acting outside the box and getting creative in their approaches.
It’s time for Democrats to play rough by delaying and gumming up Donald Trump’s tyrannical proposals to run the clock down.
Friends,
Demonstrations against Trump are getting larger and louder. Fabulous. This is absolutely essential.
But at some point we’ll need to demonstrate not just against Trump but also for the America we want.
Trump’s regressive populism — cruel, tyrannical, bigoted, authoritarian — must be met by a bold progressive populism that strengthens democracy and shares the wealth.
We can’t simply return to the path we were on before Trump. Even then, big money was taking over our democracy and siphoning off most of the economy’s gains.
[...]
Instead, lawmakers responded to the demands of wealthy individuals (typically corporate executives and Wall Street moguls) and big corporations — those with the most lobbying prowess and deepest pockets to bankroll campaigns. And “when a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites or with organized interests, they generally lose.”
Notably, Gilens and Page’s research data was gathered before the Supreme Court opened the floodgates to big money in Citizens United. After that, the voices of typical Americans were entirely drowned.
In the election cycle of 2016, which first delivered the White House to Trump, the richest one hundredth of one percent of Americans accounted for a record-breaking 40 percent of all campaign donations. (By contrast, in 1980, the top 0.01 percent accounted for only 15 percent of all contributions.)
The direction we were heading was unsustainable. Even before Trump’s first regime, trust in every major institution of society was plummeting — including Congress, the courts, corporations, Wall Street, universities, the legal establishment, and the media.
The entire system seemed rigged for the benefit of the establishment — and in many ways, it was.
The typical family’s inflation-adjusted income had barely risen for decades. Most of the economy’s gains had gone to the top.
Wall Street got bailed out when its gambling addiction caused it enormous losses, but homeowners who were underwater did not. Nor did people who lost their jobs and savings. Not a single top Wall Street executive went to jail.
A populist — antiestablishment — revolution was inevitable. But it didn’t have to be a tyrannical one. It didn’t have to be regressive populism.
[...]
Strengthening democracy by busting up big corporations. Stopping Wall Street’s gambling (e.g., replicating the Glass-Steagall Act). Getting big money out of politics, even if this requires amending the Constitution. Requiring big corporations to share their profits with their average workers. Strengthening unions. And raising taxes on the super-wealthy to finance a universal basic income, Medicare for all, and paid family leave.
Hopefully, demonstrations against Trump’s regressive, tyrannical populism will continue to grow.
But we must also be demonstrating for a better future beyond Trump — one that strengthens democracy and works on behalf of all Americans rather than a privileged few.
Demonstrations against Tyrant 47 show a vision for a better America.
Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill held closed door meetings where they complained that voters from around the country are organizing and as
Oliver Willis at Daily Kos:
Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill held closed door meetings where they complained that voters from around the country are organizing and asking them to be stronger in resisting President Donald Trump’s harmful agenda.
Axios reports that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries attended the meetings in question, along with members of the House Steering & Policy Committee. The outlet reports that a senior House Democrat told them that Jeffries is “very frustrated” at activist groups like MoveOn and Indivisible that have helped concerned Americans make phone calls to congressional offices.
The source added that “people are pissed” that Democrats are receiving pressure to significantly increase their opposition to Trump.
“There were a lot of people who were like, 'We've got to stop the groups from doing this,’” a source told Axios. Democratic Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia reportedly complained, "It's been a constant theme of us saying, 'Please call the Republicans.'"
“Our supporters are asking Democrats to demand specific red lines are met before they offer their vote to House Republicans on the budget, when Republicans inevitably fail to pass a bill on their own,” Indivisible cofounder Leah Greenberg explained. She said voters have said they want more concrete action from Democrats beyond floor speeches decrying Elon Musk.
Since Trump took office congressional offices have reported a massive increase in calls. A memo distributed to Senate staffers last week read, “The Senate is experiencing an unusually high volume of inbound calls. External callers may receive a temporary busy signal when phoning a Senate office.”
Embarrassing and out-of-touch moment by Democratic leadership attacking MoveOn and Indivisible and similar groups.
Defying mainstream media narratives about the exhausted opposition, protests are picking up in D.C. and across the country, led by protester
Melissa Gira Grant at TNR:
Late Sunday, a reported 20,000 people joined an organizing call quickly convened by Indivisible, a group founded to push back on Trump’s first administration, in response to actions largely undertaken by one of his unelected lackeys, the chaotic tech entrepreneur Elon Musk. As the call maxed out its capacity, tens of thousands more watched via YouTube. Meanwhile, outside an otherwise unexciting federal building in Washington, federal workers and D.C. residents assembled. Inside, under orders from Musk (who apparently paid his way into the president’s good graces), a small group of young men, whose only professional experience was working for one of Musk’s or Musk’s cronies’ companies, were wreaking havoc on federal payment systems. “Musk is inside the Treasury right now with his cadre of flying monkeys, and we don’t know what they’re doing,” said Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin on the organizing call. No one seemed to know how to stop them.
But the accounts from that small protest outside the federal building, with just a few people blocking the doors—backed up by chants of “There’s a robbery in progress”—put a spotlight on the scene and gave it a story. On Monday morning, as federal workers reported lockouts from their offices, more people joined. Some protesters took to the street outside the Office of Management and Budget and blocked traffic. And the next day, Indivisible demonstrators and Democratic members of Congress gathered at the Treasury Building in opposition to Musk’s ongoing takeover, which some lawmakers were by then plainly calling an “illegal raid,” in which he “illegally seized power.” When they tried to get into Treasury on Tuesday, they were turned away. “We’re not going to allow them to steal from our people, from working-class people!” Representative Maxwell Frost said at the rally assembled outside.
In the wake of the November election, multiple news outlets ran stories suggesting that, this time, the president’s opposition were exhausted and inclined to sit this one out. But the fact that the National Mall isn’t packed with pussy-hat-wearing women does not mean that everyone has moved on. Some may have, of course, like the group of Pennsylvania women profiled in The New York Times ahead of the 2025 inauguration, whose first experience organizing was protesting Trump’s first term. (But, to be fair, we don’t know how many people in that particular demographic have really tuned out.) The story those particular protests were telling—a man who sexually assaulted women was in the White House, and himself was a threat to democracy—has only gotten more grim, more all-encompassing, in the last eight years. If anything, there is too much to protest and there are too many villains, an overwhelming number of stories competing for attention and action. But protests are, in fact, happening—and this week, more people are starting to show up.
At the same time as some lesser-known federal office buildings became sites of protest on Sunday, thousands of people across the country were turning out in opposition to Trump’s promised mass deportations and the already-escalating ICE raids: In Los Angeles (blocking the 101 Freeway), Phoenix, Las Vegas (over several days, including hundreds outside Trump’s hotel), Dallas, and Atlanta, among others. On Sunday and Monday, a few thousand people in Washington, D.C. and New York protested Trump’s attempted bans on gender-affirming care for young trans people. On Tuesday, as Trump contemplated shutting down the Department of Education by executive order, students walked out of schools in Los Angeles, and members of the Chicago Teachers Union held “walk-ins” at 100 schools, calling for protections for immigrant students, parents, and educators.
What do we know about these protests? It’s too early to make any data-based generalizations. But based on the rapid-fire research I did for this story, including going to some of these protests (both now and in the first Trump administration), they are not primarily organized under a banner of “Resist Trump.” Protests have mobilized around Trump’s orders, but they are also targeting those who are carrying out his orders, whether that’s responding to an ICE raid in their own neighborhood or to a hospital that is preemptively banning gender-affirming care. Many of these same protesters, not coincidentally, remained active no matter who was in the White House.
Their communities did not see the Biden years as a victory but as a possible reprieve. That reprieve didn’t materialize: Biden didn’t brand his deportations as Trump did, and they weren’t media spectacles, but by the numbers available, he removed as many people from the United States as Trump did in his first term. For trans people, who Biden did at least mention in some speeches and whose rights he backed in a number of executive orders, almost all of that has been undone by two weeks of Trump. The Biden years also saw a constant onslaught of attacks on trans people at the state and local level. There was nothing to sit out.
Maybe, to those who deemed protesters “tired,” this resistance doesn’t look like what they expected. Perhaps they don’t see protests led by immigrants and trans people as part of the resistance, or see these as side issues—even though those are the communities Trump is specifically targeting.
The resistance to Tyrant 47 feels and looks different from Autocrat-in-Chief Trump’s first term. #Resist47 #ResistTrump
As Trump aims to dismantle large swaths of US government, growing outcry from Democrats appears to be having an effect
Lauren Gambino at The Guardian:
When organizers announced a “Nobody Elected Elon” protest at the treasury department’s headquarters in Washington – in response to the revelation that Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) had accessed sensitive taxpayer data – not a single Democratic lawmaker had agreed to attend.
But as public outrage mounted over Donald Trump’s brazen assault on the federal government, the speaking list grew. In the end, more than two dozen Democratic members of Congress including Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, spoke at the event, which drew hundreds of protesters outside on a frigid Tuesday last week. In speech after speech, they pledged to do everything in their power to block Trump from carrying out his right-wing agenda.
“We might have a few less seats in Congress,” Maxwell Frost, a Representative from Florida, thundered into the microphone. “But we’re not going to be the minority. We’re going to be the opposition.”
In the weeks since Trump took office, Democrats in Washington have been under increasing pressure from the left to get tougher as the president, with Musk at his side, defies Congress and possibly the constitution. Their phone lines have been inundated with angry callers imploring the opposition party to “do something”. And on Wednesday, progressive activists staged protests outside of their Congressional offices, demanding Democrats in Washington “treat this as the constitutional crisis it is”.
“Nobody is going to hear your boring message about the price of tomatoes when a coup is going on,” said Ezra Levin, co-founder of the activist group Indivisible, which helped organized the treasury department action. “You’ve got to fight back.”
Relegated to the minority in both chambers of Congress, Democrats have limited powers to stop Trump. But Levin said there is more they could be doing to stand in the way, especially in the Senate.
He has urged Democrats to channel Mitch McConnell, the former Republican leader who built a reputation as a ruthless tactician by stonewalling much of Barack Obama’s agenda.
“Mitch McConnell was the leader of a much smaller minority than Chuck Schumer leads today. And you know what, he never said, ‘I’m in the minority. I’m powerless. What do you want me to do?’” he noted, challenging Democrats to “pretend you’re Mitch McConnell … and use the powers that he would use.”
On Wednesday, Senate Democrats held the floor in an all-night protest against Russell Vought, Trump’s nominee to lead the White House budget office and the architect of Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for Trump’s second term. The office was behind a now-rescinded Trump administration order freezing all federal loans and grants, which drew legal challenges and united Democrats in opposition. Vought was ultimately confirmed along party lines, but activists were pleased to see Democrats jolted into action.
“What we are seeing from members is a very strong desire for Democrats to show some resolve and meet the moment,” said Britt Jacovich, spokesperson for MoveOn, a progressive group that helped organize Tuesday’s protest. “They want Senate leadership and House leadership to use every tool at their disposal to fight back.”
Some Democratic senators – Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware – have said they will vote against all of Trump’s nominees, citing the president’s “unacceptable and dangerous” actions. Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii said he will put a “blanket hold” on all of Trump’s state department nominees until the administration restores funding to USAid, which Musk moved to eliminate.
“We should not be complicit in approving Trump’s nominees or Trump’s legislation,” Murphy told the Guardian, arguing that doing so sends the wrong message to Americans whom Democrats are asking to rise up against the Trump administration’s “dangerous slide towards corruption”.
In the House Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader, has vowed to use Democrats’ leverage in the narrowly divided chamber to protect federal programs that Trump has tried to defund. On Thursday, he introduced legislation that would shield taxpayers’ personal data from the Doge team, denouncing Musk as an “unelected, unaccountable, out-of-control billionaire puppet master”.
Democrats are also attempting to seize the spotlight. Last week, groups of House and Senate Democrats turned up at government agencies targeted by Doge. On Monday, they protested outside of USAid’s headquarters in solidarity with fired and furloughed workers, after being denied entry from the agency’s building. Similar standoffs unfolded at the treasury department and the education department.
Trump, with Musk’s help, has acted with astonishing speed. The president’s blitz of executive actions is part of a deliberate effort to “flood the zone” – a tactic that former Trump administration strategist Stephen Bannon said was designed to overwhelm the opposition and the media.
“It’s important for you to understand that the paralysis and shock that you feel right now is the point,” Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told followers during an Instagram live last week. “They are trying to induce a state of passivity among the general public.”
But she said Democrats could flood the zone as well, and encouraged supporters to keep making calls to members of Congress, including to Republicans in vulnerable districts who may be persuaded to vote against the president’s agenda if they fear a political backlash in their district.
Democrats across America are calling for more aggressive resistance against the Trump-Musk-Vance axis of evil. #Resist47
249 years ago today, we freed ourselves from a mad king tyrant who was oppressing the colonies who sought independence from England, and was granted independence in 1776.
249 years later, America has a mad king tyrant running our nation who has done horror after horror since he returned to office, such as attack the freedom of the press, declared war on academic freedom, greatly expanded powers for the executive branch at the expense of the other two branches, disparaged and/or punished those opposed to him, mass deportations and other cruel anti-immigrant policies, enacted and expanded concentration camps for undocumented immigrants and likely those oppose to his vile regime (eg. Alligator Auschwitz), legally erased the existence of trans people, ending diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, sold out our allies while helping our enemies, and wrecked our economy... all this while he and his regime stripped away rights of Americans.
In the spirit of those who fought against tyranny nearly 250 years ago to get our hard-fought independence from England, we as Americans should fight hard against the tyrant in The White House and his destructive regime that seeks to undo the meaning of America.
We have no kings for a reason, so it's time to show our 1776 spirit and resist!
