This week’s elections for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat and two newly vacated congressional offices in Florida have been widely viewed as a critical litmus test of the public’s support for the president. With a decisive 10-point victory for the Democratic-backed candidate in the Wisconsin race and far closer results than expected in the deep-red Florida districts, the results indicate that popular opinion may be turning against Trump.
Those results coupled with this week’s record-breaking 25-hour speech at the Capitol by Senator Cory Booker(D–NJ) — an articulate and passionate warning about the “grave and urgent… threats to the American people and American democracy” posed by Trump — have energized the grassroots opposition just days before a planned nationwide protest against the president.
This Saturday, April 5, hundreds of thousands of protesters across the country and the world are expected to take to the streets to express their outrage and disapproval of the Trump administration’s reckless disregard for the needs, values, safety, and wellbeing of average Americans, largely led by Elon Musk and his team of acolytes at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Dubbed the “Hands Off!” National Day of Action, these protests are expected to constitute the largest unified act of resistance since the beginning of Trump’s second term.
Organizers describe Hands Off! as a “nationwide mobilization to stop the most brazen power grab in modern history.” They cite the massive firing of federal workers without cause, the elimination of consumer protections, and the gutting of Social Security and Medicaid as part of the “all-out assault on our government, our economy, and our basic rights” — all with the audacious intent of stealing from the poor and middle class to benefit the ultra-rich.
More than 1,000 protests are scheduled across the country, with the largest taking place at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Buses will depart from dozens of cities along the East Coast to transport protesters to the flagship event. A spokesperson for MoveOn, a major sponsor of the event, told the Washingtonian that organizers expect approximately 12,500 protesters at the rally in D.C., and more than 250,000 nationwide.
Every American town is within 4 hours or less of at least one protest (except for in Alaska), according to political commentator and former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich.
In a show of solidarity, demonstrations will also take place abroad on Saturday, with protesters in the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Portugal, Mexico, and the Netherlands taking to the streets to express outrage at the Trump administration’s moves.
These mass protests come at a pivotal time for the administration. Polling indicates that approval for Trump has steadily declined since he took office in January, and a recent survey from YouGov/CBS found that Americans’ confidence in the current state of the economy is worsening as well.
A large coalition of pro-democracy organizations, unions, and civil rights, environmental, and faith groups is organizing and sponsoring the protests, with over 150 partners currently listed on the Hands Off! website. Some of the biggest mobilization groups involved include MoveOn, Indivisible, Women’s March, and 50501.
MoveOn and Indivisible, arguably the most prominent advocacy groups behind grassroots resistance to Trump during his first term, have continued to mobilize since he returned to the White House in January. Public interest in grassroots activism and collective action has seen a resurgence since the November election, with Indivisible and MoveOn behind mobilization efforts such as the tens of thousands of calls of concern made to members of Congress during the first several weeks of Trump’s presidency.
Women’s March is the nonprofit organization that emerged after the massive anti-Trump Women’s March on Washington the day after his inauguration in January 2017. At the time, that event marked the largest single-day protest in American history, with an estimated 3 to 5 million people participating in D.C. and related rallies across the country and the world.
The 50501 Movement is the newest of these organizations, conceived in January by activists seeking to mobilize against the incoming Trump administration. Simultaneous 50501 protests in dozens of American cities were held on February 5, February 17, and March 4 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.
Protesters rallied around a wide range of issues, including Musk’s illegal tactics and outsized role in the federal government, Project 2025, the gutting of federal agencies, and aggressive actions taken by ICE. The three 50501 nationwide protests also focused on supporting groups and causes targeted by the Trump administration, including LGBTQ rights, reproductive freedom, immigrants, and the Palestinian people.
Other key Hands Off! organizers include the biggest labor unions in the country, such as the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the National Education Association (NEA), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), United Auto Workers (UAW), Communications Workers of America (CWA), and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).
Organized labor has been heavily impacted by the Trump administration through large-scale layoffs of thousands of federal employees at the hands of the Musk/DOGE chainsaw, as well as by the recent executive order ending collective bargaining in federal agencies with national security missions.
Prominent environmental groups like Greenpeace and the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) are also helping to organize the Hands Off! resistance. Environmental activists have been rallying against the Trump administration’s moves to roll back environmental protections, dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency, rescind congressionally approved funding, cut programs, and continue with massive layoffs on top of DOGE’s termination of at least 1,000 park service employees.
Human Rights Campaign (HRC), League of Women Voters, Color of Change, and other civil rights groups are also involved, as are watchdog organizations like Common Cause and the Revolving Door Project.
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