Prospects for organized mass struggle

Two recent articles on the Tempest site – David Whitehouse’s We need to do this together and the editorial In honor of Mayday – enthusiastically welcome the emergence of significant popular resistance to the actions of the Trump regime. Whitehouse characterizes the current conjuncture as a “new moment” and the Tempest National Committee, in its editorial, suggests that mass street protests offer “immense hope for building an alternative.”

I’m in full agreement with this enthusiasm, and with the analysis presented in both articles. To take our understanding of this moment further, though, I’d like to share a more specific assessment of the resistance by offering the following observations:

There is now a very large, broad-based, alert, and energetic opposition to the actions of the Trump administration. This is clear from the size and geographical spread of the mobilizations of April 5, May 1, and others.

The resistance is diverse and often spontaneous. In early March, it took the form of  responses to specific attacks by those affected and close allies. Veterans protested cuts to the VA on the national mall; scientists organized “Stand up for Science” events against cuts to research funding; federal workers, both those laid off and those remaining, rallied outside various agency headquarters; retirees and others protested in various ways, including angrily (and often impolitely) confronting Republican congressman at “town hall” meetings in deep “red” districts; Kentucky college students protested the elimination of DEI programs, Tennesseans protested a proposed law banning the children of undocumented immigrants from attending public schools, and more.

A consciousness has emerged that effective resistance requires unity among those moved by different aspects of the Trump cuts and attacks. This is likely to cohere further throughout Trump’s term, even if Democrats “take back the House” in the congressional midterms. It therefore holds the potential for the creation of the kind of organization that Whitehouse and the Tempest NC call for.

Such an organization (or organizations) is not on the immediate horizon. And since consciousness and movement energy are almost always episodic, there is of course the chance that the moment will slip away before any lasting independent organization is created. We shall see.

As a whole, the movement has not yet learned to think strategically. We don’t yet know what will follow the street protests. It is quite possible that disruptive actions like blocking traffic or trying to physically prevent ICE from incarcerating immigrants will become common. (John Lewis’ “good trouble”, an idea with mainstream support, can be invoked here). Can this become part of a program of action, linking local initiatives with national plans?

Additional disruptive action can win real gains. Workplace actions in particular, including strikes (and, potentially, political strikes) can successfully push back against some of the Trump attacks. But so can other mass actions. If such actions begin to become common, especially when they are self-organized, people can truly get a sense of their own power, independent of politicians and staff-led organizations.

Actions in support of those detained by ICE and others are in fact being spontaneously organized, without any “outside” organizational leadership. A sense of power, at least on a local scale, is being developed already, as some of these actions prove successful. Some have occurred in perhaps surprising locations. Examples include a rally of about 1000 people called by residents of the tiny town of Sackets Harbor, New York, on Lake Ontario, when an immigrant family with three children was removed by ICE to a detention center in Texas; people in Burlington, Vermont protesting the detention of Palestinian Columbia University Student Mohsen Madawi; and rallies outside a Border Patrol office in Whitefish, Montana, where an immigrant was being held before transferral to an ICE facility in Washington State. All three were released within a few days. The pattern of people successfully defending their neighbors via such actions, without waiting for some sort of direction, can help grow this sense of power. (This does not, of course, mean foregoing the opportunity to work through the legal system, as in Madawi’s case.)

Whether Democratic politicians and/or NGO-type organizers are able to assume the leadership of this emerging movement is uncertain. As in any movement of this size, consciousness is uneven. Some activists look to Democratic politicians, or at least some subset of them, as allies in the fight against Trump. Some look to the (eventual) election of a Democratic Congress and President as the way to put a final stop to what’s happening. Others, most particularly those moved to oppose the genocide in Palestine (a refreshingly large number!), see both parties as equally bad. As events unfold, the lessons people take away will be different among different groups, but with the heightened level of awareness that now exists, the nature of our political system with its two capitalist parties will be on full display for anyone who cares to look.

A suspicious attitude towards Democratic politicians has been part of what built the protests. People were enraged with DP Congresspeople who initially attempted to deal with Trump by the usual haggling and compromising. Recent champion Kamala Harris offered neither inspiration nor answers. Neither did the Obamas, the Clintons, nor Joe Biden. Recognizing this leadership failure and its effect on potential Democratic voters, DP-aligned groups like Indivisible, Working Families Party, and MoveOn took on the role of pushing reluctant officeholders to move into action. Led by Indivisible, they called for and helped organize the largest mass actions. Part of their motivation in doing so was their view that the culmination of the protest movement would be the election of a Democratic Congress in 2026, followed by  a Democratic victory in the 2028 presidential election.

Democratic politicians have scrambled to play more of an oppositional role. Cory Booker’s endurance test on the Senate floor and the congressional “sit in” on the Capitol steps are in this category, though neither exerted any particular pressure on the administration. Politicians also jumped at the chance to speak at rallies once they were organized and massive, but the crowds did not necessarily view them as leaders. The anti-oligarchy tour of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has perhaps been more inspiring. The tens of thousands in attendance have likely been looking to see someone actually “doing something” – but Bernie and AOC have offered no plan of action. Looked at as early campaign rallies for an AOC bid in 2028 either for a Senate seat (“primarying” Chuck Schumer) or the Presidency, the crowds may be energized by that prospect. They may also believe that somehow the Sanders-AOC passion can lead to successful battles against Trump well before 2028. But it is unlikely that this vague sense of having real champions in high places will stand in the way of the (mostly young) audiences from taking matters into their own hands, and not just on the ”oligarchy”  theme.

Large masses of people are experiencing, and expressing, a sense of solidarity with the oppressed. People in no immediate danger of being incarcerated or deported are passionate in their outrage at the incarcerations and deportations that are happening. The theme of “first they came for the immigrants” (or Palestinians, etc.) appears on many signs carried at the rallies. Kilmar Abrego Garcia and Mahmoud Khalil have become almost household names. Town hall attendees in Republican districts, far from any hotbeds of leftism, demand that their representatives use Congressional means to stop illegal ICE activities. Mass awareness of what’s happening may in fact have advanced and solidified pro-Palestinian sentiment beyond just the opposition to Israel’s Gaza war.

People are learning that the US state structure and the Constitution guarantee neither justice nor the rights the Constitution is meant to enshrine. Trump has been able to evade judicial restraint on even the most clearly illegal of his actions, and immigrants, students and others have been incarcerated for their beliefs or statements in spite of Constitutionally mandated freedoms. Although many activists will continue to look to eventual judicial success and anticipate that the Constitution will weather the crisis (continuing to expect “due process” before deportations, for example) others are likely to conclude that waiting for the state to administer justice is not the way to prevent a full autocratic takeover. Will that conclusion engender an embryonic sense that the capitalist state itself cannot express the interests of working people and the oppressed? Will opposition to the rule of the billionaires combine with growing disillusionment with the state itself to produce an increasingly clear anticapitalist consciousness? Will more people begin to imagine that they can be part of creating an alternative?

The organized working class may play more of a central role as events develop. More generally, workplace issues (whether in unionized workplaces or not) may trigger responses that have a political character. Unions, particularly public sector unions, were of course leading forces in the “Mayday Strong” coalition that organized the May 1 actions. Prior to that, Federal employees laid off by the DOGE cuts protested their removals (and groups like AFGE initiated litigation); unions in higher education organized against the attacks on immigrants and on the institutions themselves; postal workers rallied against the possibility of privatization. More recently air traffic controllers at Newark Airport walked off the job as they experienced the stress and danger of staffing cuts. And we can expect more to come. The impact of Trump’s attacks on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) will affect current efforts at unionization and attempts to win a first contract, perhaps inspiring workers to “act like a union” even in the absence of an NLRB-sponsored election. There may well be resistance as the tariffs (and potential recession) take their toll on workers. And while the nationwide general strike proposed by UAW President Shawn Fain remains three years away (if it happens), continued activity in the intervening period can in fact build up to that event. The idea of nationwide labor action can potentially spark the imagination of many. In all cases, the range of Trump’s “flood the zone” attacks make it likely that working class protests will not limit themselves to immediate “bread and butter” issues (or “classwide demands”) but instead struggle to support all of those being scapegoated, including immigrants and LGBTQ+ people.

There are no guarantees. But there is every reason to maintain some optimism and keep our eyes open.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”
Featured Image credit: Alfo Medeiros; modified by Tempest.