Activists ramp up efforts to push back against Trump

USA Today

20-03-2025

Activists ramp up efforts to push back against Trump
Show Caption
Hide Caption
Hundreds gather in NY to protest Trump on International Women's Day
Hundreds participated in a 'Unite and Resist' march protesting Trump on International Women's Day.
In a blue strip of Rep. Kevin Kiley's California district, an empty chair will sit on stage when his constituents gather tonight.
'We would love to have him show but we haven't heard one word from him,' said Kathy Dotson, the event's organizer and leader of the Nevada County chapter of Indivisible, a progressive advocacy group.
Dotson said there is local appetite to hear from Kiley in the county, which supported Democrat Kamala Harris with 54.4% of the vote in November's presidential election. Recently two of the congressman's staff people held an event locally and were greeted by over 400 unhappy constituents. Dotson spoke with people waiting in line.
'They were so concerned. The majority of them were seniors. They were concerned about Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and quite a few were veterans, and they were petrified that their livelihoods were going to be affected,' she said. 'People are scared. People are really, really nervous.'
In just two months since Trump took office and began a sweeping effort to restructure government by firing tens of thousands of federal employees, closing entire departments and shutting local offices for agencies like Social Security, activists have ramped up their efforts as well, with lessons learned from a fight that began in Trump's first term. Protests have accelerated across the country as Trump has rolled back protections for green card holders, asylum seekers, transgender people and federal workers.
In February alone, more than 2,085 protests took place nationwide, according to the Crowd Counting Consortium, a joint project of Harvard Kennedy School and the University of Connecticut. That's an increase from 937 protests in February 2017, during the first full month of the first Trump administration, though many of those were much larger than America has seen so far in 2025.
The White House dismissed the increasing activism.
'Anyone who thinks protests, lawsuits, and lawfare will deter President Trump must have been sleeping under a rock for the past several years," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to USA TODAY. "President Trump will not be deterred from delivering on the promises he made to make our federal government more efficient and more accountable to the hardworking American taxpayers across the country who overwhelmingly re-elected him.'
'He deserves to be shamed for this'
After a spate of contentious townhalls gained media attention last month, National Republican Congressional Committee leaders told House Republicans not to hold in-person meetings. Members of Congress blamed liberal provocateurs for the high pressure events.
"Democrats are trying to distract voters from their abysmal approval ratings and out-of-touch records with manufactured productions organized by far-left activist groups who are funded by billionaire mega-donors. Voters see through their pathetic charade," NRCC Spokesman Mike Marinella said in a statement.
Instead of in-person public meetings, several members of congress, including Kiley are holding virtual townhalls with prescreened questions and no chance to push back. Kiley, whose district stretches along California's eastern border from south of Death Valley to north of Lake Tahoe, did not respond to requests for comment.
Local activists are changing their strategy in response to the NRCC directive: dozens of groups have scheduled meetings in the next few weeks to talk about what is happening in Washington, and how President Donald Trump's administration may change their community. Each meeting will feature an empty chair in an attempt to shame their member of Congress for not holding an in-person town hall, open to every constituent.
'Honestly, he deserves to be shamed for this. He absolutely does," Heather Meaney-Allen, who leads an Indivisible chapter in Williamsburg, Va. said of her congressman, Rep. Rob Wittman. "He is too much of a chicken to actually show up and face the people that put him in office, or even those of us who didn't vote for him ever, but he still represents us. He's still supposed to be our congressman."
Williamsburg JCCC Indivisible has had a contentious relationship with Wittman since the first Trump administration. Their townhall, scheduled for March 23, will feature a cardboard cutout of the Republican and the chicken dance more commonly seen at weddings.
Wittman will not attend because his staff did not organize the event, his office said.
"I look forward to answering these constituents' questions during our next telephone town hall – I hope they will sign up and participate," Wittman said in a statement.
Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin called the empty chair townhalls, 'Organizing 101.'
'If they show up, great, then you've succeeded in creating a town hall. But if they don't show up, then you have something to represent them, cardboard cutout, a person in a chicken suit, a live chicken on stage I've seen before, whatever it may be,' he said.
More: The Donald Trump resistance is ready for when Democrats are done grieving
National Indivisible organizers aren't involved in setting up the local town halls, they are just promoting the idea, he said.
'It is up to you to do," Levin said of the hundreds of Indivisible chapters across the country. "I'm not flying into any district with even my least favorite Republican member of Congress to set something up. Either folks in the district do it or it doesn't happen."
Meaney-Allen, who expects more than 140 attendees next week, said participation in her group's weekly protests at the local courthouse have skyrocketed since Trump's election, with energy unlike anything she's seen in nine years of activism.
'We have a huge amount of retired military here, and they showed up. They are livid. They took an oath to our Constitution, and they are still living that oath to our Constitution. These were true Americans out there,' Meaney-Allen said. 'It's been building. It's increased every single week.'
Thousands of protests
For weeks, protests have taken place on small town street corners, in major cities, state Capitols and in Washington. Some have focused specifically on supporting federal workers, LGBTQ rights, immigrant rights, Palestinian self-determination or Ukraine, while others have demonstrated against Trump's agenda generally.
Some have been led by the progressive groups like Indivisible that formed the "resistance" during Trump's first term. Others were organized by labor unions, special interest groups, fired federal workers or just frustrated Americans.
Hundreds gathered outside the Stonewall Inn in New York City on Feb. 14 to protest the Park Service deletion of the word 'transgender' from its national monument website.
Starting March 1 and continuing since, thousands have shown up at national parks to protest staffing cuts that have resulted in fewer services for the public.
On March 13, almost 100 protesters were arrested during a sit-in at Trump Tower in downtown New York City. Organizers Jewish Voice for Peace, called for the release of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist with a green card detained by federal immigration agents.
In El Paso, on March 16, activists hung a massive upside down American flag from an overpass.
Indivisible, Women's March, MoveOn and more than a dozen other national and local activism groups have teamed up for a "mass mobilization" April 5 to bring together thousands of people at hundreds of protests and marches in Washington as well as spread across nearly every state.
More: Thousands travel to Washington for People's March ahead of Trump inauguration
'More people are becoming alarmed'
Indivisible's local numbers are growing every day, Levin said. And each month exceeds how many people joined in the first months of Trump's first term in 2017, he said.
'More and more people are becoming alarmed,' Levin said. '... maybe it's the 17th time they've heard some story about some egregious thing Musk has done, and that 17th time was too much, and so now they're going to show up at their meeting until things start to get better. I think we're going to see more and more people get active, and I so far don't see it slowing down.'
Tabitha St. Bernard-Jacobs, chief partnerships officer at Women's March, said a flood of people are coming forward to join existing groups or create new ones. Women's March organized the mass protests in Washington and across the country the day after Trump's first inauguration where many local activists first met and formed groups.
'There was this narrative at the end of the last year that the resistance is dead and people aren't mobilizing, and that's just not what we're seeing or hearing from our base, and that's also not what we're seeing and hearing from people around the country," St. Bernard-Jacobs said.
She said the key is that more people are willing to take on leadership roles in their local community and are mobilizing and organizing without relying on national groups.
People aren't just showing up for a march and then going home, she said. They are looking for ways to get involved locally.
'We want people to envision mobilization going forward like Yes, show up, yes. Make your sign, yes. Put on your slogan T-shirts, and (then) think about day two and day 30 and day 100 afterwards," she said.