Growing Grassroots Resistance to Trump Outpaces Democratic Party and Its Leaders

Behind closed doors last month, House Democrats expressed their frustration at an unexpected target: their own base. 

At a February 10 Steering and Policy Committee meeting, Democratic representatives complained about “activist groups like MoveOn and Indivisible” facilitating “thousands of phone calls to members’ offices,” according to Axios. The calls were from Americans demanding that Democrats do more to fight broadside attacks on federal services and the Constitution by President Trump and Elon Musk.

One House Democrat told Axios that “people are pissed,” referring not to the tone of constituents’ calls but to Democratic lawmakers’ reaction to the volume of calls. Over a dozen Democratic lawmakers and aides interviewed by Axios in early February reported that their offices are receiving “historically high call volumes.” Longtime Representative Jim McGovern (D–MA) said, “People [are] disgusted with what’s going on, and they want us to fight back.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D–NY) was reportedly also “very frustrated” with these groups and their demands for more aggressive resistance from his party. At the beginning of February, Jeffries spoke in favor of a strategy in which the party picks its battles. “We’re not going to swing at every pitch. We’re going to swing at the ones that matter.” 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–NY) seems to have adopted a similar approach, noting in an early February interview with Semafor that Democrats were “not going to fall for” far-right provocateur Steve Bannon’s “flood the zone” strategy for overwhelming Democrats and the media during Trump’s first-100-day blitzkrieg. 

And when asked by NPR what Democrats can do right now to fight back against Trump, the newly elected Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin said, “The best way to punch back and to fight back is to roll up your sleeves and help us build the infrastructure so we can win elections again.”

But the Democratic base is having none of it.

Recently published CBS/YouGov polling from the first week of February shows that 65% of surveyed Democrats want their congressional representatives to “oppose Trump as much as possible,” with only 35% still suggesting that they “try to find common ground” with the president. The survey also revealed that respondents’ confidence in the ability of congressional Democrats to “oppose Trump effectively” has decreased, with 48% now expressing “not much” or no confidence in the efficacy of party legislators fighting back. 

Frustrated with the inability of the party and their congressional representatives to mount a meaningful resistance, voters are taking matters into their own hands and fueling a surge in direct action protests against Trump. 

Mobilizing the Resistance

Indivisible and MoveOn, the same groups Democrats griped about at their February meeting, were arguably the most effective progressive activist organizations during Trump’s first term. Now that Trump 2.0 has introduced an even more radical authoritarian agenda — and one that is being implemented at lightning speed, thanks in part to the Project 2025 playbook — the two grassroots groups remain key oppositional forces. 

Both organizations focus on local, community-based advocacy. Indivisible’s website offers advocacy resources for pushing back on various priorities of the administration, including the budget resolution in March, bigger tax breaks for billionaires, and illegal overreach by Musk and DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), among others. Recommended tactics include visiting congressional district offices, “empty chair” town halls in which voters meet without their congressional representatives, and templates for phone calls to legislators. Notably, tactics are separately tailored for Republican and Democratic members of Congress, highlighting growing demands for Democratic representatives to put forth a more formidable resistance.

MoveOn also organizes virtual trainings, along with a volunteer, community-based program for grassroots resistance. 

Public interest in grassroots activism and collective action appears to be taking off. A January 19 Facebook post from Indivisible announced the addition of 200 new local Indivisible groups since the election, marking the biggest jump in local group numbers since 2017. In addition, an Indivisible spokesperson said that members of the group had made 31,400 calls to senators and just under 4,000 to House members in the first two weeks of Trump’s second term. 

Another influential force to emerge is the 50501 Movement, which has started organizing a series of “50 protests [in all] 50 states [as] 1 movement” to “uphold the Constitution and end executive overreach.” Kay Evert, an organizer involved in the movement, told USA TODAY that the idea was conceived on Reddit, with several activist organizations then joining in to assist with organizing and promoting periodic protests in every state. 

Simultaneous protests were held on February 5 and 17 in cities across the country as a “decentralized rapid response to the anti-democratic and illegal actions of the Trump administration and its plutocratic allies,” according to the 50501 website. Drawing thousands of people in an estimated 88 cities, the rallies at state government buildings offered participants the opportunity to protest a wide range of issues, including Musk’s outsized role as an unelected powerbroker, the roadmap laid out in Project 2025, the illegal defunding of government agencies, and aggressive actions taken by ICE officers. Protesters also showed their support for trans rights, reproductive freedom, DEI initiatives, immigrants, and the Palestinian people, among other causes under attack by the Trump administration.

One protester who participated in the February 5 event at the Boston State House told the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) that she was there because she was a “mother of two teenage girls” and needed “to protect their autonomy and reproductive rights.” Another Boston protester listed Trump’s cabinet picks, mass deportations, and the gutting of the Department of Education as just a few of the many reasons why he took to the streets, adding that he had not participated in a public demonstration of this kind since 2016. 

The second 50501 nationwide protest on Monday, February 17 was billed as “No Kings on Presidents’ Day.” Demonstrations were held in dozens of cities, including Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Nashville. Nearly 3,000 people protested in Denver, while thousands more marched in Washington, D.C., New York, and Boston. 

During a 50501 mass training call on February 19, Indivisible co-founder Leah Greenberg compared this moment to what happened after Trump first won the White House. “We actually didn’t write the Indivisible guide [in 2016] because of Trump’s election,” Greenberg said. “We wrote it because we were incredibly alarmed by the lack of leadership on the Democratic side of the aisle right after [that] election. You had people talking about compromising on infrastructure, while Trump was talking about internment camps. And we knew that the grassroots was going to have to be the one that stepped up to change that equation.”

The call also featured representatives from Build the Resistance, NoVoiceUnheard, Political Revolution, and Voices of Florida, all of which are grassroots partners of the 50501 Movement. 

A third 50501 day of action is scheduled for March 4, and the American Federation of Teachers, Moms Rising, and other unions are planning nationwide “Protect Our Kids” actions that day to protest cuts to education funding and the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the Department of Education. 

In the aftermath of the 2024 election, there was serious concern in left-leaning circles that “anti-Trump burnout” among voters and even institutions would be a significant drawback to resistance in his second term. However, a swell of progressive mobilization and engagement in response to the unbounded excesses of Trump 2.0 shows promise, despite a perceived lack of leadership among key Democrats. 

Numerous groups and activists are using online platforms like Action Network, Mobilize, and Build the Resistance to spread the word and coordinate scores of actions. And progressive members of Congress have joined angry protests against DOGE’s indiscriminate cuts at government agencies in D.C. in recent weeks.

Noted American civil rights activist Heather Booth commented on the power of a national movement in the current political context, telling CMD, “When we organize, we can change the world. We have done it before and we will do it again. We can organize… and with love for people at the center… we will win.”

Whether the Democratic Party and its leaders will rally and rise to meet the moment remains to be seen. However, what is evident is that effective resistance against Trump, Musk and their race to embrace fascism will not be achieved solely within the two chambers of Congress or the courts. Instead, it is going to have to come from the same type of grassroots mobilization and collective action that won major victories for the civil rights, labor rights, and anti-war movements of years past.