WASHINGTON POST HEADLINE 26 FEBRUARY 2025
The anti-Trump resistance begins to wake in earnest
After an initial period of stunned confusion, protesters are packing meetings, states are suing, and Democrats are preparing for a budget showdown.
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At the same time, a coalition of Democratic state attorneys general is methodically filing lawsuits against Trump’s orders, and in six out of seven cases, it has been successful in persuading judges to halt them. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic Governors Association and liberal groups are seeing a surge in fundraising. And Democratic members of Congress are seizing on a budget clash as an opportunity to coalesce against the president’s plans.
Little by little, after an initial phase of stunned confusion, the broader resistance to Trump is beginning to wake up.
“There is a lot more anger building, such that we are seeing in deep-red Republican-held districts that people are coming out,” said Faiz Shakir, Sanders’s chief political adviser. “They are surprising those [Republican] members of Congress who don’t expect that when they try to defend Elon Musk they will get aggressive booing. You couldn’t manufacture this if you tried.”
Ezra Levin, co-executive director of the progressive group Indivisible, said it has grown roughly from 1,000 local groups to 1,500 since the election. Activists from MoveOn organized 60 events last week, including protests outside the offices of Republican House members, some drawing several hundred participants.
The opposition to Trump arose immediately after his election, Levin said, but it has become far more visible in recent days. “We have been seeing a surge of energy we haven’t seen since 2017,” Levin said. “It is now becoming more visible beyond the community centers, the living rooms — it’s now in the public eye.”
Many Republicans contend that such protests are minimal, predictable and orchestrated. Others, such as Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, said it is clear that federal spending must be cut, as Trump is trying to do.
“I think we all know we have a massive federal deficit or debt, and we are having deficits and that cannot continue,” DeWine said. “I mean, I don’t think that’s a secret. I don’t think too many people disagree with this. You’ve got to find the money somewhere.”
This year’s resistance is taking a different form than it did in 2017, when celebrities issued emotional statements and opponents launched mass street protests. This time, the president’s adversaries are aiming their fire more selectively, directing political and legal attacks against specific Trump policies they believe are both damaging and unpopular.
The targeted strategy is in part a response to Trump’s own shift. In his first term, he embraced populist anger, but he often struggled to implement specific policies. This time, he has been far more efficient in deploying his plans and dismantling individual government programs.
Britt Jacovich, a spokeswoman for MoveOn, said there was a recognition that the 2024 election was a very different moment from 2016. Not only did Trump win the electoral college by a wider margin and the popular vote for the first time, but many Democratic activists were exhausted after putting so much energy into the campaign only to see Republicans win unified control of Washington.
“Given what we heard from members, we believed that the opposition would awaken once the overreach happened,” Jacovich said. That overreach has now occurred in the form of a funding freeze and threats to Medicaid and other programs that affect millions of people, she said.
White House spokesman Harrison Fields said that Americans strongly support the administration’s cost-cutting efforts and that Democrats have “no plan” for how to recover from their election defeat.
“Instead of working to become a party that focuses on the will of the people, they are hell-bent on keeping their heads in the sand and gaslighting on the widely supported mission of DOGE,” Fields said, referring to Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service. “Slashing waste, fraud and abuse and becoming better stewards of the American taxpayer’s hard-earned dollars might be a crime to Democrats, but it’s not a crime in a court of law.”
Democratic Party Chairman Ken Martin said in an interview that voters are furious at the “callous, unplanned way” the administration is slashing programs.
“This energy is of course organic, but it’s coming from a place of deep, deep displeasure with the government right now,” Martin said. “It’s not only the cuts they’ve been seeing from Elon Musk and Donald Trump, but the federal funding freeze on programs that people are relying on.”
As House Republicans advance a budget blueprint that is likely to include sweeping spending cuts while extending tax cuts that heavily benefit the wealthy, Democrats are trying to replicate what they see as a successful campaign against the funding freeze, which was withdrawn amid lawsuits and political backlash.
In that battle, Democrats hammered on the risk to local programs such as Head Start and Meals on Wheels. In the budget fight, they are highlighting potential cuts that would hurt their districts, from Medicaid to national parks.
Democrats are also trying to make inroads in districts held by Republicans. Close to a million federal workers live in red states, party strategists say. Martin recently visited states including Missouri and Texas, meeting with farmers and labor leaders.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) has advised his members not to “swing at every pitch” as Trump fires off dozens of controversial actions to keep opponents off balance. Rather, Jeffries has urged members to keep the conversation focused on high costs.
“Republicans’ biggest 2024 asset — the false promise that they would stand up to the rich establishment and deliver lower prices on ‘Day One’ — can become the liability that discredits them in 2025 and 2026,” said Democratic strategist Andrew Bates, who was a spokesman for the Biden White House.
Still, Democrats are far from mounting a unified, politically effective pushback across the country. Some in the party believe that may not happen until the 2026 congressional midterms, when the party will have a crop of high-profile candidates with well-honed messages.
In the meantime, some activists complain that Democratic leaders are being too cautious as they pick and choose when to stand up to Trump.
Levin said Democrats who have adopted a strategy of “strategic silence” have little to show for it. Many voted to confirm Secretary of State Marco Rubio, for example, only to see Rubio collaborate in the destruction of the U.S. Agency for International Development and help lead the Trump administration’s abandonment of support for Ukraine.
“I disagree that the policy of strategic silence or seeking partnership with fascists taking over the government is a good strategy or even a moral strategy,” Levin said.
Despite such divisions, Democratic lawmakers throughout the country are reporting significantly larger and more raucous audiences at their town hall meetings.
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts), who has been in office since 1997, said that for the first time ever he needed an overflow room recently for one of his “coffee with your congressman” events, as roughly 700 people showed up. “Something is happening in this country — people have had enough of Trump’s cruelty and lies,” he posted on social media.
When Sanders recently visited Nebraska and Iowa to pressure Republican lawmakers there, his crowds spilled outside the scheduled venues. In Omaha, organizers were expecting a crowd of up to 1,000, but they had to switch to a bigger location and ultimately said 3,500 to 4,000 people showed up.
At least some Republican House members, meanwhile, have begun facing hostile crowds. Hundreds of residents booed and shouted at Rep. Richard McCormick (R-Georgia) about Musk’s push to slash government. When McCormick asked them to stop yelling, a woman shouted, “But we’re pissed!”
Liberals hope the unrest is a mirror image of 2010, when voters erupted in anger over President Barack Obama and his health-care reform plans. Tea party activists and other residents packed Democrats’ town halls, shouting them down, generating headlines and presaging a Republican takeover of the House later that year.
As Trump and Musk continue to wreak havoc with the federal workforce, Democrats clearly see town hall meetings as a way to reflect outrage. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wisconsin) recently taunted Republican colleagues for not holding more town halls. Sanders urged his audiences to demand that their GOP representatives hold public sessions with their constituents.
Polls suggest that some Americans are beginning to sour on Trump’s initiatives, with particular frustration aimed at Musk, an unpopular, swaggering figure who recently wielded a chainsaw at a conservative gathering to showcase his cost-cutting moves.
In a recent Washington Post-Ipsos poll, 48 percent of respondents said they opposed what the president has done so far while 43 percent said they supported it. Strong opponents outnumbered strong supporters 37 percent to 27 percent.
Other indicators also suggest an awakening buyer’s remorse, if a limited one so far. House and Senate offices report their switchboards are being swamped by upset callers. Progressive and Democratic groups say their contributions are on the rise.
But if the resistance ignited instantly during Trump’s first term, this time it is coalescing more slowly. Musk’s efforts, especially the funding freeze that was rescinded on Jan. 29 after provoking a furor, appeared to be a galvanizing moment.
“Last time it was different because it came right at the jump, right at the inauguration,” Shakir said. “Here you didn’t have it initially right at the outset. There was a fatigue and an exhaustion. You didn’t quite have the same fire in the belly right out of the box. But as soon as Musk got to work, that changed the conversation.”
Another flash point looms in less than three weeks. The federal government will shut down on March 14 unless Congress passes a bill to keep it open. Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress, face enormous pressure to cut spending — potentially slashing popular programs — while also advancing Trump’s plans for at least $4.5 trillion in tax cuts.
That would be difficult under any circumstances. But now Democrats are so furious with Trump’s onslaught that they are unlikely to provide House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) with additional votes to pass a bill, as they have in the past.
Democrats hope this spending battle gives them a platform to make a case that has been largely drowned out so far — that the president is destroying programs that help ordinary Americans while embracing tax cuts for his billionaire friends.
Many Democrats say Trump’s cuts will hurt Republican-leaning states as well. They hope that some GOP leaders begin speaking out against the president’s moves, even if they must be more circumspect than their Democratic counterparts.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat who chairs the National Governors Association, said severe cuts to Medicaid, for example, would jeopardize rural hospitals and other health-care providers.
“If the House’s [proposed] level of cuts went through, 400,000 Coloradans would lose coverage — and we’re a wealthier state,” Polis said. “This affects a lot of the red states and poorer states even more, where high percentages of people are on Medicaid.”
A photo caption in a previous version of this article gave the wrong party affiliation for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The caption has been corrected.
Trump presidency
Follow live updates on the Trump administration. We’re tracking President Donald Trump’s progress on key campaign promises and lawsuits challenging Trump’s executive orders and actions.
U.S. DOGE Service: Elon Musk and his team have moved to dismantle some U.S. agencies, push out hundreds of thousands of civil servants and gain access to some of the federal government’s most sensitive payment systems. But many of these moves appear to violate federal law, according to several government officials.
Trump’s Cabinet: Several of Trump’s Cabinet picks, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth have been confirmed. We’re tracking the nominations here.
Tariffs: Trump imposed 25 percent tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. The move came a week after Trump’s 10 percentage point increase in tariffs on Chinese goods took effect, prompting retaliatory measures from Beijing. Previously, Trump granted Mexico and Canada a 30-day reprieve on tariffs. Here’s what could get more expensive with Trump’s tariffs.
Federal workers: Trump targeted federal workers in his opening act — putting federal diversity, equity and inclusion employees on leave; banning remote work; and stripping employment protections from civil servants. In its latest move, the White House offered a “deferred resignation” to federal employees.
Naftali Bendavid came to The Washington Post in January 2019 after stints at the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune and other news organizations. He was the Post's White House editor during the Biden administration
Maeve Reston is a national political reporter for The Washington Post covering the 2024 presidential race and the politics of the West. She joined The Post in 2023 after covering politics and five presidential campaigns at CNN, the Los Angeles Times, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Austin American-Statesman.
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