The resistance to President Donald Trump and his efforts to impose austerity by decree has been rather muted, and even reported as dead, liberals shell-shocked by November seemingly burned out before the second term even got underway. In Congress, Democratic leaders — acting on the premise that “kitchen table” issues will connect with voters more than appeals to their better nature — have talked more about the price of eggs and the need for bipartisan solutions than the president’s assault on the separation of powers and the republic itself.
That there is a constitutional crisis has been obscured by design, the flurry of executive orders leading not just to a freeze in federal spending but inertia among a bewildered opposition.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., head of the Senate Democratic caucus, told Semafor over the weekend that his strategy is to essentially wait for Trump to “screw up,” urging his fellow Democrats not to engage in every bit of outrage and focus instead on trying to derail the president’s most unqualified Cabinet picks while letting the likes of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent get confirmed with broad bipartisan support. That comment came after The Washington Post reported that Schumer, immediately following Trump’s inauguration, received a letter from an interim U.S. attorney suggesting he could be targeted for an investigation by the Department of Justice.
But after two weeks of chaos, capped by a South African billionaire seizing control of the Treasury Department’s payments system — what critics have described as a “coup,” enabled by Bessent — opponents are finding their voice and issuing a call for action. And they’re not waiting for Democrats, and certainly not for Democrats in the Senate.
“Solidarity is the antidote to fascism, because they only thrive when we’re divided and not working together and blaming each other for how we got here,” organizer Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson said on a Sunday night conference call hosted by progressive groups, including Indivisible, MoveOn and the Working Families Party.
The groups are calling for a two-pronged approach to dealing with Trump and Elon Musk, the de facto administrator of his slash-and-burn agenda: Protesting those who are abrogating Congress’ power of the purse and protesting those in Congress who aren’t yet treating it like an emergency.
“Musk is inside the Treasury right now with his cadre of flying monkeys and we don’t know what they’re doing,” Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin said on Sunday’s call, referring to reports that the Tesla CEO has brought in a group of 20-somethings from his private businesses to help him slash apart the federal budget.
What Trump and Musk appear to be doing, Levin said, is “not just cruel and corrupt and chaotic and unconstitutional, it’s also deeply unpopular — and as long as we live in a democratic republic, doing deeply unpopular things for an extended period of time is really hard to sustain in the presence of organized opposition.”
The plan, accordingly, is to show up and protest at the Treasury Department on Tuesday night, 5 p.m. local time, to draw attention to Musk’s control over the federal government’s payment system — control that Musk claims he has already used to illegally suspend congressionally authorized payments to religious groups that assist with refugee resettlement and to completely dismantle USAID, the federal agency responsible for international humanitarian assistance.
But protests can’t just take place in the streets if it’s to be meaningful; opposition also must be galvanized in the halls of Congress.
“Over the last two months, we’ve seen a real lack of leadership and spine from many of these congressional Democrats,” Levin said on Sunday’s call. Schumer and his colleagues in the Senate, in particular, are misreading the moment and what it calls for, Levin argued, saying they should seek not to achieve bipartisan solutions but total gridlock in Washington.
The model for liberal resistance, he continued, is a Republican from Kentucky.
“Here’s my goal for Senate Dems: Pretend like you’re Mitch McConnell. Ask what he would do. Think about the tools you can use to block, obstruct, raise the temperature, deny quorum, block unanimous consent, max out debate time — blanket opposition to nominees.”
An accompanying guide published on Indivisible’s website spells out in even more simple language what progressives want from Democrats in the upper chamber: “Seriously, just vote ‘NO’ each time. Every nominee, every vote.” To that end, the group is also calling for supporters to demand just that from their Democratic senators, urging them to spend this week not just calling their offices but showing up at them in real life to demand action via obstruction.
Yelling at Democrats, from the left, is also a means of pushing back against those voices urging the party to embrace bipartisan collaboration and a pivot to the center.
Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., joined Sunday’s call and made the argument that demanding more from elected Democrats is the first step toward resurrecting the Democratic Party.
“This is a difficult moment we’re in. People are appalled. Many people are confused, wanting to know what to do, where to go and how to fight,” the 28-year-old lawmaker said, noting that there are mornings when he himself struggles to find hope. But the party that’s a pair of seats away from controlling the House of Representatives is not powerless, nor are its tens of millions of voters, he said.
“It’s going to be hard. I’m not going to say everyone’s going to be ok, because not everyone’s going to be ok. However, together, we can build our movement, come out stronger, and ensure — and not to get too much into partisan politics — but ensure that the Democratic Party does not repeat the same mistakes and ensure that we build a coalition that’s actually worth fighting for.”
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