For two months Donald Trump has unleashed an overwhelming string of attacks. Trump has moved to revoke birthright citizenship, unleashed attacks on federal employees, illegally deported migrants, defied judges, sequestered federal grants, functionally dissolved the entire Department of Education,  sought retribution against law firms and media outlets, and called for the forced expulsion of the entire Gaza strip.

Trump’s “Flood The Zone” approach since inauguration has sewn chaos and fear around the country. For many it is hard to know how to respond to any one of these actions, let alone all of them combined. 

Of course, there have been attempts to respond in a variety of ways. So what has resistance looked like in the first month of Trump’s regime? And how can we build a movement to fight back?

The Resistance So Far:

The Democratic Party

The Democratic Party has been all but paralyzed since the inauguration of Trump. 

House speaker Hakeem Jeffries said in a press conference “What leverage do we have? Republicans… control the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, it’s their government.”

This shows a total lack of will or imagination to fight back. 

Other Democratic politicians are more wise, realizing that there must be some semblance of resistance to maintain any credibility. Senator Ron Wyden from Oregon has recently started painting himself as a fighter for progressive change and a fighter against what is widely referred to as Elon Musk’s “coup.” Of course, this framing of ‘fighting for progressive change’ is merely a veneer. Ron Wyden’s politics in reality are closer to the Democratic establishment, as reflected in his receiving of money from Nike, Intel, and AIPAC.

The new chair of the Democratic Party, Ken Martin, has attempted to rhetorically reassert the Democratic Party as a party for working people, and on February 18th wrote a post to the Democratic Party’s blog talking about Trump’s anti-union policies. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t mention Biden breaking up the rail workers strike, and doesn’t mention any of the anti-worker policies enacted by Democrats in recent years like Bill Clinton enacting NAFTA or Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Wyden and Martin’s faux-progressive pandering reveals the root of their limitation in resisting Trump. Workers cannot rely on weakened, liberal capitalist politicians of the Democratic type to save them from assertive, reactionary capitalist politicians like Trump.

Street Protests

The People’s March

Before Trump took office, a nationwide event pulled together by a variety of liberal organizations, labor unions, and even some companies coalesced into the “People’s March,” which saw thousands of people across the country mobilizing against the incoming Republican president on January 18th, two days before his inauguration.

This mobilization came on the heels of over a decade of mass protest movements which were all unsuccessful in pushing lasting change. Without concrete organization, planning, and a clear strategy to win demands, the protests were almost destined from the beginning to remain a small outcry rather than a serious challenge as the fatigue of seemingly endless protests meant the wider layers were not inspired to come out against Trump.

While the movement may have had some use, the lack of independent messaging from DSA led it to effectively liquidate into what could reasonably be called a popular front formation – an alliance with the ‘progressive’ bourgeoisie to fight fascism. While the size was impressive, and the march did get nationwide attention at the time, it faded from relevance after its planned day.

The 50501 Movement

The next iteration of resistance to take the national stage was the 50501 movement.

The 50501 Movement drew its name from its original purpose and slogan, “50 protests, 50 states, 1 day.” The movement started with a very similar purpose as the People’s March, responding to Trump’s inauguration and his actions in his first week.

Going to its social media accounts, partners, and website, 50501 is shown to have largely liberal politics, no clear demands but a general vibe around defending the constitution and strict rules around no violence. The movement is attempting to uphold a bourgeois democracy where working people have very little control over decisions, campaigns, and votes.  As a result of this it has massive potential for getting co-opted by “country over party” Democrats for the purpose of mobilizing their base for the 2028 elections.

While initially planned as a one-off action, the protest call evolved into a whole series of days of action, including a general boycott for an entire day, boycotting Amazon for a week, and a national strike called for March 14. However, without direct ties with larger protests or political figures, the national strike turned into just another small day of protest. From the beginning the “national strike” demand was reminiscent of anarchists putting stickers up on street signs calling for “general strike tomorrow!” 

Indivisible anti-Musk protests

Indivisible is itself an organization which is supporting the earlier-mentioned 50501 movement, and held a demonstration against Elon Musk which gained a decent amount of attention, including from Elon Musk himself. Indivisible is a liberal organization aimed at “saving democracy”, like the 50501 movement, but with an electoral wing. We are likely to see more mass mobilizations organized by Indivisible in the future targeting Elon Musk and Tesla.

Anti-Tesla Rallies

Similar to the Indivisible-called rallies, the horizontally-organized Tesla Takedown effort has organized a series of protests at Tesla dealerships to channel the frustration against Elon Musk.

This also coincided with a series of spontaneous attacks on Tesla vehicles and dealerships, from anti-Elon stickers, to graffiti, to arson against entire dealerships.

In Conclusion

After initial weeks of disorganization, where only a small number of semi-spontaneous elements were active, it appears that the overwhelming demoralization has bottomed out and now larger layers of the progressive movement are beginning to take a fighting approach.

The Labor Movement

How has the labor movement responded to the onslaught of Trump’s authoritarian attacks?

The initial reaction of labor didn’t involve much protest or participation in the street movements. While a couple of UFCW locals participated in the People’s March, there wasn’t very much action from labor in the initial weeks of the Trump presidency. For the most part, labor focused on preparing for Trump’s policies internally by organizing against mass deportations.

However, as Trump’s actions have become more and more harmful directly to labor, especially in the public sector, certain unions have started to take action. Earlier in March a day of action named “Save Our Services (SOS)” was held by the Federal Unionists Network to protest Elon Musk’s firing of countless federal employees and slashing of federal services spending. The action was organized by the Federal Unionist Network (FUN), which seems to have formed only recently and includes many DSA members, and received support from the wider labor movement.

More recently, as discussed in the next section, academic unions have responded to Trump’s attacks on foreign-born Palestinian student activists.

The labor bureaucracy representing those not directly affected by the cuts in services like the Teamsters and the UAW have no guarantee of providing resistance to Trump’s next term. Teamsters president Sean O’Brien has been actively backing Trump’s labor secretary pick. Meanwhile, UAW president Shawn Fain has led his union to express support for Trump’s reckless tariff policies, cheerleading them as pro-worker and anti-free trade.

The positioning by Fain and O’Brien warns us that major players in the labor movement may be just as likely to curry favor from Trump as to lead mass resistance to his rule.

The Struggle on Campus

Free Mahmoud Khalil!

These protests arose out of Trump’s targeting of political enemies, saying that pro-Palestine protesters would be deported, with Mahmoud Khalil presumably being the first of many to be targeted for his opposition to the war on Gaza. This protest movement has developed with a more solidly left character than the movements previously mentioned, with mobilizations nationwide being supported and led by PSL, DSA and other similar organizations. The movement is the clear heir to last years student encampment protests.

Recently the President of Columbia University has also fired the President of the University’s student worker union. There is a massive possibility for labor to get involved in the struggle to free the pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, and it is highly likely that this is where socialists will be most visibly leading the struggle against the Trump administration.

Free Rumeysa Ozturk!

This week, a video of the abduction of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts grad student and anti-war activist, led to a mass rally in Somerville, a suburb of Boston.

A horrifying video of Ozturk being abducted by plainclothes ICE agents sparked thousands to attend a community protest led by SEIU local 509, which represents Tufts University graduate students including Ozturk.

Tasks for the Left:

Do protests work? How can we actually create a meaningful change?

The question of whether or not protests work as a vehicle for change depends on what the protest’s demands are, how many can be turned out, whether the protests are connected to labor or other wider social forces, and what tactics and strategies are employed.

Previous protests such as pushback against the Muslim ban during Trump’s first term were fairly effective in delaying and then watering-down the ban. The mass spontaneous nation-wide mobilizations against the ban,  with support from the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, as Elan Axelbank writing for Socialist Alternative notes, were able to disrupt airports and thereby force a retreat from Trump. To some degree, the student encampments which partially took over universities last year had a similar impact, at least in that they kept up the energy of the movement and conquered space in the national news cycle. 

These militant actions deploy pressure by contesting the industrial pillars of society, such as airports or university campuses. Furthermore, these kinds of mass mobilizations awaken larger layers of youth and working people as to the possibility of mass struggle to challenge power and change the course of history.

History is full of success stories of mass protests and militant direct action. From the American revolutionary Tea Party militant actions against British taxes, to the street demonstrations which kicked off the Russian Revolution in February of 1917, to the street demonstrations across the world in 1968, and as recently as last year when student activists took power in Bangladesh, militant mass action empowers the masses to seize the unfolding of history and bend it, at least somewhat, to their will.

On the other hand, many of the mass demonstrations during Trump’s first term were only able to demonstrate the disapproval of mass layers of society with Trump’s first administration. But these mostly did not disrupt the economic base of society, and the masses were directed not to engage in militant mass uprisings, but rather to “Vote Trump Out.” Not only was this not effective at blocking Trump’s agenda, but it also made many feel like protests themselves were fruitless.

Protests can work, if they take up the right strategies and tactics!

How DSA Should Relate to the Protests

The current ‘popular front’ protests like 50501 show little prospect for change, at the very least without DSA’s intervention. Like previously said, these protests are not based on demands, but vibes of defending bourgeois democracy and the constitution. They don’t appear to have strong connections to labor organizations, if any at all. They are instead partnered with a few progressive organizations such as Political Revolution and Build The Resistance. However these mobilizations have managed to achieve mass appeal, and that leads us to addressing the second question. So should we engage with these movements?

This is not the first time that DSA has been presented with the question of engaging in liberal movements. In 2021 a similar question was made regarding the women’s march, with the Socialist Feminist Working-Group answering “as socialists, we believe that in order to achieve a non-patriarchal society the capitalist system must be abolished, a view that is not supported by the Women’s March organizers.”

Our caucus’s response sided with the Tempest Collective, arguing “DSA should absolutely endorse protests that bring together a wide spectrum of people, even if the organizing groups are not socialist. Promoting our slogans, banners, and politics gives us the maximum opportunity to engage with activists to discuss how to create and promote an independent, democratic socialist message.” As Botta and Tylim from Tempest pointed out, “People do not need to be socialists to organize around defending Roe V. Wade, but some people will become socialists through that experience.”

Similarly, DSA members should not sit out protests which may contain majority liberal politics. DSA can engage with movements like 50501 with an independent socialist message, emphasizing the need to overthrow capitalism, emphasizing the need to fight a class war if we’re going to fight Trump, and ultimately emphasizing the need for a socialist party and the need for a workers’ government.

While a large amount of the protests center around defending bourgeois democracy, DSA does not need to accept that messaging if it is to engage in these actions. One example of this in practice was when comrades in Florida International University engaged in a tactical alliance with the more liberal-minded Pride Student Union to resist Ron DeSantis’s policies. FIU-YDSA managed to maintain its political independence while not isolating itself from the struggle against the far-right. This orientation is called the ‘United Front’ approach, where different groups combine forces in struggle against the enemy, without blending their ideas and identities together.

Similarly, DSA must engage with the current struggle against the Trump administration, but should do so on independent grounds. Liquidation into the liberal politics of the protests would result in a lack of real progress towards our horizon of democratic socialism, just as we saw with the Uncommitted Movement, where DSA largely liquidated into the movement’s own liberal politics of appealing to Biden in hopes of waking him up, rather than stressing the need for a new party and the overthrow of capitalism.

Taking on the Trump Regime

While protest movements like the 50501 movement provide opportunity for DSA to push for a socialist vision of society, and labor activism like that of the SOS day of action demonstrate the popular support which the public sector unions have, DSA itself needs to take on a leadership role in the resistance against Trump. There is a need for much larger and better organized protests, armed with a clear strategy for bringing pressure to bare on Trump, in order to thousands and millions to take action.

Because of the nature of the 50501 movement as a movement with appeal to liberal organizations and liberals who want to get engaged with a struggle against the Trump regime, this movement is incapable on its own of building a better vision for society, and is likely to have its energy funneled into the Democratic Party. Furthermore, its lack of engagement from established labor unions limits how much the 50501 movement is able to accomplish.

Labor has the potential to do what the 50501 movement can’t: shut down the workplace until certain demands are met. In the context of the federal government, public sector unions will be the key to resisting some of Donald Trump’s worst policies directly. However in this reform caucuses need to step up their ambition and their reform efforts massively, since the current labor bureaucracy is unprepared for a resistance which goes beyond lobbying efforts and legal actions.

Furthermore, labor unions which are able to hit Trump’s closest allies, such as the UAW if they are successful in unionizing Tesla, must step up their efforts in fighting the class struggle. Whether or not the UAW is up to the task is dependent on whether they are able to pursue a path which goes beyond fighting for a lighter capitalism. 

Finally, DSA leadership must expand from our model of the Trans Rights and Bodily Autonomy campaign, which allowed for mass national participation from DSA comrades across the country. We must work to organize a mass movement against Trump with clear support from labor as well as progressive advocacy groups, which is sharpened with clear demands such as no war, no cuts to services, and no deportations, and must develop strong protest democracy. This type of movement would be a much more effective one than those currently being led by 50501.

As Trump escalates his austerity and authoritarianism, he will provoke more protests against his specific attacks. DSA needs not only to be there, but to lead the way when that happens.

Regarding the Democrats

Any confidence in the Democrats as an institution of resistance and/or change should be discredited. Many Democrats in the near future will attempt to frame themselves as the best option for resisting the current Trump administration, and will attempt to dismiss or dodge any accountability for what they did and didn’t do when they had the majority.

Ron Wyden for instance, has made milquetoast reform on healthcare, failed to push for the codification of Roe V. Wade, and funded Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Yet when pushed on these, Ron Wyden dodges it by saying “I oppose Trump’s ethnic cleansing”, and promoting his book. Democratic socialists should be looking to emphasizing the need of breaking with the Democrats at every turn, and relentlessly fight against their genocidal and imperialist policies.

In some cases like Indianapolis City Council where DSA-endorsed candidate Jesse Brown was expelled from the Democratic Caucus, the lack of preparedness which Democrats have to fight for workers is clear. In places where it isn’t, democratic socialists must amplify a lack of faith in the Democrats by actively distinguishing themselves as separate from the Democratic Party, publicly calling out Democrats on their complicity in fighting for big business, and not ceding an inch to them when primaried. In cases where we’re launching new campaigns, we should seek to run independents who identify as democratic socialists, and who campaigns on a platform in line with that of their chapter or DSA’s Workers Deserve More platform, with a clear indication that DSA is their party, even if not officially a party.

Pointing Towards 2026

When the 2026 elections come up, there may be a tendency to want to avoid national politics given the state of our electeds. However, if DSA is to provide workers with a positive vision for the future, we must present that on a national scale. Arguably the best way to do that is with a democratic socialist slate.

Running cadre candidates in Democratic primaries around a national unified platform,  while centering messaging to join and organize in DSA, allows DSA to present its politics to as wide as possible and in a way which no external candidate like AOC has done before. The inside-outside strategy pursued by progressives like AOC has shown itself to be immensely disappointing in both its failure to organize the working masses and its failure to win reforms. Cadre candidates will be more accountable to DSA and will be campaigning on a platform openly oppositional to the Democratic Party.

Furthermore, while engaging in the Democratic primaries is a way to raise popularity for democratic socialism, it is not the only way to do so. When it is feasible to run as an independent candidate, we should do so. In cases where democratic socialists lose the primaries, socialists should attempt to enter into the general election as an independent. Campaigns which continue outside of the Democratic primary have the potential to mobilize a base of voters often overlooked by the establishment: those who vote third party or don’t vote at all. In other cases where the Democrats are weak, DSA candidates should show up as independents to show that there is an alternative which is more ambitious and which can win against both the far-right Republicans and the liberal Democrats.