Protests matter
Protests and creative action against the forces of fascism are growing. Millions of people celebrated Earth Day by taking to the streets. Following the Hands Off mobilizations, there is a visible shift in the opposition to Trump and his billionaire buddies.
This opposition has been growing steadily. As Waging Nonviolence documents:
Our research shows that street protests today are far more numerous and frequent than skeptics might suggest. Although it is true that the reconfigured Peoples’ March of 2025 — held on Jan. 18 — saw lower turnout than the 2017 Women’s March, that date also saw the most protests in a single day for over a year. And since Jan. 22, we’ve seen more than twice as many street protests than took place during the same period eight years ago.
These protests are increasingly punctuating a growing trend of active non-cooperation. Recently, after appearing to choose appeasement over action, more than 440 college and university and college presidents joined together to issue a clear indictment of “unprecedented government overreach and political interference.”
The heart of this resistance is a defense of intellectual freedom. The statement says:
American institutions of higher learning have in common the essential freedom to determine, on academic grounds, whom to admit and what is taught, how, and by whom. Our colleges and universities share a commitment to serve as centers of open inquiry where, in their pursuit of truth, faculty, students, and staff are free to exchange ideas and opinions across a full range of viewpoints without fear of retribution, censorship, or deportation.
Because of these freedoms, American institutions of higher learning are essential to American prosperity and serve as productive partners with government in promoting the common good.
As this resistance grows, we are finding ways to collectively determine the values we think are most essential to live freely and responsibly in our world. Ideas and practices that we have assumed would endure are in question. Through these actions of resistance, we are clarifying what matters to us in creating our futures.
The Trump world will respond. They are already shaking with the impact of such directed actions as the targeting of Tesla and the fortunes of Musk.
Trump and company will put a great deal of effort into telling us how none of this matters. We are already seeing articles that begin asking “Where is the resistance? We are starting to see phrases like “protest fatigue” appear in the media.
These rhetorical strategies, designed to disempower and dispirit people are accompanied by material efforts to diminish resistance. The administration is already considering how to revoke the nonprofit status of many organizations assisting in the mobilization of public protests. A few days after Earth Day Trump signed an executive memorandum aimed at investigating ActBlue and other fundraising platforms critical to funding resistance and election campaigns by progressive candidates.
These petty attacks are accompanied by the usual state tactics of repression long practiced in the US. Demonstrations are being surveilled, organizations are being infiltrated, disinformation is being spread, division is being fomented, and physical violence is increasing.
All of this is predictable and those of us working toward justice will need to find the best in ourselves to remain open, thoughtful, connected and imaginative. And we will need to be clear that this is because public action changes our collective understanding of social reality. People are moved to think and act in different ways.
Change comes as people take responsibility to live and act differently. Standing up in collective actions are a critical part of that process. So are acts of non-cooperation and disruption. As a culture we have a rich history to draw upon to inspire strategies and tactics. But our future depends on more than this. It depends on our ability to create and act on the values that we most cherish: the protection of life, of our people, and our planet.