Gone are the days of a constant churn of protests in response to everything Donald Trump does.
Public dissent was a fixture of the first year of Trump’s administration. But now that Trump’s been elected a second time, many of the groups that were at the helm of some of the most visible protests back then are not quite sure what round two looks like for them. What they do know is it will be different.
“We are not expecting, nor are we trying to build, frankly, a repeat of last time,” said Mary Small, Indivisible’s chief strategy officer. “This is a moment that’s going to require new analysis and fresh tactics and different ways of engaging.”
“We’re going to see an absolute avalanche of some new shit happening every day, and being really disciplined and strategic about how we pick our fights, how we all go in on those to make sure that they break through … is going to be a necessity,” she continued.
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Small expects the pushback to a Trump administration to look different this time, with activist organizations needing to “move in unison” in a way that Small said they didn’t initially after Trump was first elected.
Organizers say they’re seeing some of the energy after Trump was elected the first time and are hoping to channel it productively.
“We are getting very strong feedback from the base that they want to take action,” said Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of the Women’s March, a national group started in the lead-up to Trump’s first inauguration. “Women across the country are activated by Trump’s election and want to begin protest movements as soon as possible.”
A coalition of activist organizations, including MoveOn, the Working Families Party and the Indivisible Project, organized a mass call to “lay out concrete actions” that can be taken in the wake of Trump’s victory. Tens of thousands of attendees have signed up for the panel, which will be moderated by Rep. Pramila Jayapal and other progressive leaders.
Sunrise Movement, an environmental group worried about Trump’s impact on climate policy, has already started planning for the new political reality.
“We’re going to be taking action in the coming weeks, bringing in thousands of young people to get ready to stop Trump in his tracks,” said Stevie O’Hanlon, a spokesperson for Sunrise Movement.
O’Hanlon said the climate change-focused group is hoping to use the lead-up time to Trump returning to the White House to push President Joe Biden to take more action on climate while he’s still in office.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment when asked whether it had seen an immediate increase in requests from outside groups in the days after the election.
Other issue-based advocacy groups are thinking of the time between now and Inauguration Day in a similar way.
“[We are] organizing a strategy, trying to prepare for the worst, in a way,” said March for Our Lives spokesperson Ryan Barto. “We’re going to be prepared on day one of his presidency to continue to march for our lives, to continue to advance gun safety legislation — and [be] prepared to also face any pushback that we might receive from this administration.”
What the protest scene will look like is also unclear. After Trump was first elected in 2016, crowds took to the streets across major U.S. cities. Thousands of people wore pink pussy hats during the Women’s March the day after Trump’s inauguration. Migrant workers across the country went on strike on A Day Without Immigrants in 2017. And later that year, March for Truth, where thousands demanded an independent investigation of Russia’s involvement in Trump’s campaign.
There were congressional hearing watch parties, and obscure public officials were crowned #Resistance heroes. Now, there’s some expectation of a backlash to such mobilization.
“When you look at the way some of the white women voted, I don’t think this is time for Women’s March 2.0,” Linda Sarsour, one of the former leaders of the Women’s March movement, told NOTUS on Wednesday.
Still, there were clear signs of anger and disappointment on the left about what happened and an instinct to push back, especially among some of the anti-Trump firebrands that emerged from deep blue districts during his first term.
Rep. Eric Swalwell, one of those #Resistance heroes who went on to serve as a manager during Trump’s second impeachment trial, said in a social media post that he is “Not. Going. Quietly.” He encouraged his followers to “get loud” and “get going.”
He was among the dozens of California officeholders who tried to put sand in the gears of Trump’s administration the first time around. Los Angeles Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove said she expects California to resume its role as a chief Trump antagonist when he returns to office.
“I want the state legislature here and the attorney general and the governor to go hard in the paint against him,” Kamlager-Dove told Politico, adding that, “They will have the backing of the California delegation.”
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Mark Alfred, Amelia Benavides-Colón, and Samuel Larreal are NOTUS reporters and Allbritton Journalism Institute fellows. Evan McMorris-Santoro contributed reporting.
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