The People’s March in New York City drew hundreds of protesters against Trump and his Project 2025 agenda, significantly taking place before the inauguration. Street protests may become rare in favor of other, new forms or resistance © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
By Karen Rubin, editor@news-photos-features.com, news-photos-features.com
The pink pussy hats are back, though not nearly the sea of pink of the 2017 Woman’s March, the largest mass protest in history. This time, the hats and the signs demanding reproductive freedom and women’s rights were mixed in with the litany of protests that marked Trump’s first term.
As many as 1000 turned out for the Peoples’ protest at Foley Square in front of the U.S. Courthouse to hear demands for women’s rights, protection against mass deportation of immigrants, workers’ rights, climate action – just one of about 300 protests around the country including one in Washington D.C. that drew thousands. They railed against the rising oligarchy – capitalism run amok – fascism and White Christian Nationalism, spiced with a return to imperialism and colonialism – in essence, they were protesting the entire Trump Project 2025 Agenda and his handpicked sychophants and henchmen.
The timing was significant – Saturday, January 18, before Trump is inaugurated by his accessory, chief Justice John Roberts, despite being an insurrectionist ineligible to hold federal office. instead of January 21, the day after, as in 2017. Could it be because Trump has indicated he would order protesters shot, as he wanted to do to the Seattle protesters demanding justice for George Floyd, but was told then by one of his “guardrails” that it would be illegal. Trump 2.0 no longer has “guardrails” or even restraints – his pick to run the Defense Department, sex abuser Pete Hegseth, would not say he would refuse an order to shoot protesters and Justice Roberts and his Imperial Supremes have granted Trump virtual immunity from criminal activity as long as Trump, even retroactively, labels it an “official act.” “Could he assassinate a political rival?” his attorney was asked? “Well, why yes,” was Trump’s lawyer’s reply.
It may be the last gasp of street protests as the lived reality of Trump’s Project 2025 agenda, and a “lameduck” president who has even less interest in actually doing anything to benefit Americans (he only ran for president to stay out of prison for the laundry list of crimes), unbounded by “guardrails” and with a Supreme Court “get out of jail free” card no matter the offense, seeps down into communities, neighborhoods and households.
Trump will use any sort of protest to call out the National Guard with instructions to shoot, beat up, arrest, prosecute, imprison – or worse, seize powers under the Insurrection Act and declare martial law, which would give him further excuse to clamp down on the press along with protest, dissent of any kind. Because that is who he is and who is backing him, the Heritage Foundation and ChristoFascist authors of Project 2025.
Protesting for women’s reproductive rights at the People’s March in New York City, January 18, 2025 © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
And while there is a right to be skeptical about what such protests even accomplish. After all, millions turned out in 2017 and over and over again during the course of his four years, protesting his family separation policy, his refusal to address climate change and his disdain for science, the explosion in gun violence literally promoted by his hate speech and call to violence and his nod to NeoNazi White Christian Nationalist Fascist extremists (he calls them “evangelists”), and politicians have proved they cannot be shamed and no longer even care what constituents want or need, only that the oligarchs continue to back them - there is still an important reason to show up: it is to build community, to know you are not crazy for feeling your head will explode and the earth has tilted off its axis, to form new coalitions, and yes, to find new, better, more effective ways to resist.
The strategy now seems to be for all the movements – women’s rights, gender and trans rights, workers rights, climate and environmental justice activists, gun control activists, criminal justice and immigration reform activists, and those who oppose autocracy, oligarchy, fascism and White Christian Nationalism – to unify.
(My question is: where were they BEFORE the election, instead of bad-mouthing Kamala Harris and the Democrats, almost as if they wanted a return of Trump in order to be relevant again?)
What will happen when – as Trump promises as soon as the day after inauguration – he unleashes “the biggest mass deportation in history,” with “shock and awe” uprooting parents and siblings from the 4.4 million U.S. citizen children who live with undocumented family? What will happen when raids are unleashed in workplaces, factories, hospitals, churches, courthouses, funerals, schools? And what will happen when Trump starts arresting Democratic Mayors in cities like Chicago and San Francisco who do not cooperate (but not New York City, where Mayor Eric Adams seems perfectly happy trading complicity for a pardon). At the protest, there was a call to stand up, stand together “with our siblings,” but how, exactly?
When Hakeem Jeffries says “If they do this, there will be a massive backlash.” Really, what is that exactly?
Trump’s Heinrich Himmler, Holman, and his Adolph Eichmann, Steve Miller, have threatened to prosecute elected officials who do not cooperate with their mass deportation – so Governors Kathy Hochul and Gavin Newsome are probably on that list (maybe not NYC Mayor Eric Adams who is kowtowing for a pardon to make his indictment go away, and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who is pining for a job in the Trump administration or maybe New York State Governor, is chomping at the bit to unleash his private militia to assist in raiding homes, schools, workplaces, hospitals, churches.)
Trump used immigration to win election – he torpedoed Immigration reform in order to keep it as an inflammatory issue and, then, when Biden still managed to cut the flow of migrants to levels of the Trump administration, lied about the “open borders” and “invasion” and “13,000 murderers let free on the streets” and Haitian immigrants with legal status “eating pets” (lies repeated by his pick for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem). Trump (and Kristi Noem) made clear they will continue to refuse to actually do what should be done: people are only “undocumented” because there is no functioning legal mechanism for them to become documented, and now, Trump wants to shut down the methods asylum-seekers were using to make appointments, so that he can shut the border. There are so many undocumented (illegal) migrants because the Republicans have had no interest in creating a functioning legal system. Seeking asylum is protected by international and federal law. He wants to unleash cruelty – a new version of family separation – because he has said he wants to rule by instilling fear.
NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams at the rally in Washington Square Park, New York City, urges continued vigilance and resistance to the White Christian Nationalist autocracy Trump seeks to impose © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
At the rally in Washington Square Park, NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams pointed out that Hitler, who was democratically elected Chancellor and within 53 days had turned Germany into a fascist dictatorship, started with mass-deportation of Jews. Jews had lived in Germany for 1000 years, but it took just 10 years for Hitler to go from election to his Final Solution, the extermination of 6 million Jews.
What will people do when they see their neighbors being hauled out of their homes, from their workplaces, from church?
Trump is also itching to bring back his Muslim Ban (consider that Biden created the first office to address anti-Semitism and Islamophobia), and while the progressives who attacked Biden for supporting Israel, Biden is the one who worked to win the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, demand humanitarian aid for Gaza, and pave the way for the two-state solution, while Trump could care less about Palestinians.
When Hakeem Jefferies says “push back”, “protect” for veterans, Medicare, Social Security, a woman’s right to choose, how is that going to happen, when Trump thinks with the stroke of a pen or a tweet, he can do whatever the hell he wants, starting with effectively banning abortion nationwide, and the Congressional Republicans have proved they will follow like sheep and Democrats like Laura Gillen and Tom Suozzi are bending over backwards (Trump’s preferred posture) to appear “bipartisan.” Actually Joe Biden attempted that – succeeding for the first time with landmark legislation including the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act since 1994 when Newt Gingrich unleashed his fiat for Republicans to never compromise with Democrats and Mitch McConnell’s “My Way or the Highway” definition of “consensus”. But notably “bipartisanship” only occurred when Democrats controlled Congress, and ceased as soon as Republicans regained control of the House in 2022 with a vow to obstruct, hold government, society and the economy hostage with multiple threats of shutting down the government and refusing to raise the credit ceiling. And yet, those young progressives who attack Democrats, never hold Republicans responsible, or see that Democrats, in fact, have been doing all that has been done for social, environmental, economic, gender, political and criminal justice.
What happens when, as President Biden has warned, the checks-and-balances and equal-and-independent branches (executive, legislative, judicial) have collapsed, when courts have already been taken over by Trump’s hand-picked judges? The Trump resisters are vowing court challenges but it may well be that the only effective defense against Trump and Project 2025 will happen at the state level (just as Blue states worked together to preserve the elements of the Paris Climate Accord, gun safety and abortion rights). Indeed, Democratic Governors and Attorneys General should do what the Republicans have done so successfully during every Democratic administration: SUE. That’s how Republicans constrained Obamacare, DACA, cancelled Biden’s student loan forgiveness.
(Here’s a bold idea: Blue (Donor) States withhold federal tax money just as tenants do to force landlords to provide mandated services.)
President Joe Biden, in one of his last acts as the most progressive, transformative, effective president since LBJ (read Biden Legacy), declared the Equal Rights Amendment to be part of the Constitution. But the abortion bans, banning women from obtaining emergency health care or any health care, prosecuting women for miscarrying or doctors for prescribing abortion medication should already be “unconstitutional” under the 8th , 13th and 14th amendments. (A criminal like Trump can evoke the 5th Amendment against self-incrimination 400 times, but a woman can’t obtain medical care to save her own life; a mass murderer has more protections against “cruel and unusual punishment” than a pregnant woman undergoing a medical crisis.)
But I am skeptical whether Trump and the Republicans will “accept” the ERA or just dismiss it. Indeed, Trump has said he intended to tear up the Constitution, and he has learned that there is really no such thing as the Rule of Law, equal justice, or the quaint notion that “no man is above the law.” Trump said he intends with an executive order, to end Birthright Citizenship, despite its plain language in the 14th amendment. (The 14th amendment also bars insurrectionists from holding federal office, but no matter.) He is also dismissive of the separation of church and state in basically banning Muslims from entering the United States, not based on any actual crime. He also intends to deport people who have legitimate right to seek asylum, without due process (yet he had no problem manipulating the system so that he got more than his share of “due process” in order to ride it to election and then benefit from a sitting president’s protection from prosecution, as he did, as Individual 1, in the Mueller Report.)
And Trump has been successful in taking over the courts – most notably the Supreme Court which seems to elevate a Unitary Executive only when a Republican occupies the White House, but restricts executive power when a Democrat is in office, in advancement of the Majority’s own Christian Nationalist Fascist agenda. This court has no interest in precedent or, heaven forbid, civil rights, voting rights, women’s rights, freedom of the press or separation of church and state. And three states – Missouri, are beating a path to anti-abortion activist notorious Texas Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, despite being outside his jurisdiction and the fact the Supreme Court already overturned his previous attempt, because he has granted them permission to revive the suit to ban the abortion drug mifepristone.
It is too late, but resistance should have begun by questioning the election results in the seven swing states and challenging the voter suppression tactics (mathematically impossible for Trump to have won all seven). And Kamala Harris and state Attorneys General should have sued for a ruling that would have disqualified Trump from holding federal office under the 14th Amendment’s ban on insurrectionists.
Standing up for civil rights, human rights, climate justice, criminal justice at the People’s March in New York City, January 18, 2025 © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
And there will be no way, as some protesters suggested, of throwing Trump out – not when the Senate refused to hold him accountable for waging a deadly insurrection, committing election fraud, and preventing the peaceful transfer of power, as required under the Constitution.
The Democrats’ strategy seems to be to let the Trump policies do such damage to the economy, to society, to the culture, that voters will restore them to power in the 2026 midterms and 2028 presidential. But the Democrats who think they are so smart by appearing so accommodating and willing to work with the administration, will be (as always) blamed for the bad things that happen (Republicans are never blamed), and, as in 2024, will stay home rather than vote for the Democrat.
The new resistance must develop a more effective messaging ecosystem – that is where Trump and the MAGAs won the election, through disinformation, misinformation, propaganda and outright brainwashing. If Democrats think that people will even recognize how miserable things have gotten by 2026 midterms, they have another thing coming, just as voters believed they were miserable, the economy was collapsing, inflation was at record highs, and millions were invading through open borders.
The new face of resistance has to come through organizations that actually know what they are doing.
“We. Will. Not. Stop.” writes the Center for Reproductive Rights. “Our team of lawyers, advocates, and our broad coalition of allies are already preparing to do what we do best,” the organization promises. This includes: challenging harmful government actions in court to protect access to care; tracking and countering harmful policies and appointments that put health at risk; defending patients, helpers, and providers facing investigations or prosecution; and protecting interstate travel rights and shield laws.”
Indivisible is promising a strategic plan of attack to replace elected officials to take back political power.
As Sarah Dohl, Chief Campaigns Officer, Indivisible, wrote after Trump won election, “He's made his agenda crystal clear: dismantle democracy, consolidate power, and punish anyone who dares to stand in his way. Period.
“I won’t sugarcoat it. The stakes are higher this time around:
- We’ve got billionaire egomaniac Elon Musk pulling the strings on Capitol Hill (when not too busy on the phone with Vladimir Putin).
- Donald Trump and Stephen Miller have promised the “largest deportation operation in American history,” which will mean tearing families apart and targeting immigrant communities.
- We’re staring down round two of MAGA’s attacks on the Affordable Care Act, its push to gut workers’ protections, its continued war on reproductive freedom, and its plans to double-down on massive corporate tax giveaways -- shoveling billions to billionaires and giant corporations while leaving working families to struggle.
- Trump and his handlers are pushing unqualified extremists for key roles, like Pete Hegseth, who’s facing sexual assault allegations; Kash Patel, a Trump loyalist who’s openly vowed to use the FBI to target political enemies; Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorist to oversee public health; and Linda McMahon, who allegedly enabled child sexual abuse during her tenure at WWE, nominated to oversee our children's education.
“This is the MAGA circus coming to town -- a coalition of grifters, chaos agents, and unqualified yes-men. And this is their plan: running this country into the ground with their Project 2025 vision of the rich getting richer, the powerful getting more power, and the rest of us fighting for scraps. If we let them.
“In 2017, resistance meant standing up to Trump’s cruelty and blocking his worst policies. It meant flipping the House in 2018 and sending Trump packing in 2020. We were playing defense then. This time, defense won’t cut it. Resistance isn’t enough.
“In 2025, the fight is about defiance - about refusing to let Trump consolidate power, refusing to let his agenda crush our communities, and refusing to give up on the democracy we’re fighting to protect.
“Defiance means exposing the cruelty of every policy, the extremism of every nominee, and the consequences of every MAGA scheme. It means standing in Trump’s way, staring down his authoritarian agenda, and building a movement big enough to take him and all of MAGA down.”
But that also means winning elections, she stated. “Because defiance also means taking back power where we can -- flipping seats, winning elections, and making sure Trumpism doesn’t stand a chance.
“This is the fight of our lives. It’s going to take all of us working together to defy Trump and win. And that fight starts now. Let’s get to work.”
Support organizations that are in a position to take on Trump and the rightwing extremists that have infected every level of government, from school board to governor’s mansion to the Capitol and White House. In addition to messaging, rallying support for candidates, they can also organize pressure individual legislators to let them know they are not going to get a “pass” and are excellent at keeping us informed about what is going on in face of the takeover of media
Among them (there are many more, including more local, grassroots groups):
Indivisible (indivisible.org) and subscribe to their newsletter
Center for Reproductive Rights and Planned Parenthood
The ACLU
EarthJustice and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC.org)
Everytown and Moms Demand for Gun Safety
Citizens for Responsible Government, Brennan Center for Justice, Common Cause, Public Citizen, People for the American Way, Moveon.org
If their efforts under a rule-of-law, free-and-fair elections regime don’t work to a government that works for the people, the pendulum will swing again and smash the ruling oligarchs and autocrats. Hopefully it won’t take 50 years of tyrannical rule or 13 years of civil war and a million dead rebels.
See also:
New York Takes to Streets to Protest Trump & Project 2025 Agenda
New York, Blue States Take Action to Block Trump’s Project 2025 Anti-Democratic Agenda
______________________________
© 2025 News & Photo Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. For editorial feature and photo information, go to www.news-photos-features.com, email editor@news-photos-features.com. Blogging at www.dailykos.com/blogs/NewsPhotosFeatures. ‘Like’ us at facebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures, Tweet @KarenBRubin Threads: @news_and_photo_features
