Rage Against the Obscene: The Totally Organic Movement Confronting Trump

You’ve seen the posts. Vast expressions of support for Ukraine. Friends you didn’t think were particularly political suddenly railing against Elon Musk and swearing to dump their Teslas. Ordinary people worrying about Republican cuts to Medicaid. Fear of flying under the DOGE-reduced Federal Aviation Administration. The stock market posts. The Putin memes. Hockey fans rooting for Canada. That arch #FAFO hashtag. Slogans scribbled on the dusty hoods of pre-scrapyard Cybertrucks.

The quiet and depressive resignation of January has exploded into vast organic anger as spring nears and the daffodils poke through the chilly soil. And it’s very different indeed than the Resistance movement of 2017. 

Trump’s first election ignited a large-scale reaction that put vast crowds into the streets, and kicked off what became the well-organized (and too often mocked) “Resistance” movement that stymied the clueless administration and built toward the “blue wave” midterms in 2018 and Trump’s convincing defeat two years later. One of my favorite accounts of that success was American Resistance: From the Women’s March to the Blue Wave by sociologist Dana Fisher, who exulted: “The election of Donald Trump has been a shot in the arm of democracy in the United States. People are no longer bowling alone; they are marching, yelling and working together.”

Well, this winter they were bowling alone again.

The first Resistance was one of the most successful in modern American history, but it withered away with Joe Biden in office and a global pandemic threatening the world. Now, in the early spring of the first year of Trump’s second term, the challenges are much greater. Trump narrowly won the popular vote, and scored a decisive Electoral College win. The Trump team came to office with a detailed plan for destroying what they view as the coercive administrative state (and we see as liberal democracy and civil society). There are basically no more traditional Republicans in positions of power in Congress, so even a slim majority holds. The conservatives dominate the Supreme Court. Elon Musk is running amok through government hallways. And the culturally caustic aspects of the MAGA movement seem ascendant.

Yet, I’m seeing definite signs in the garden of democracy. 

First, of course, there are the many legal cases (and almost as many court victories) chronicled here on Democracy Docket. These are the leading edge of the early offensive against the abuses of the Trump administration, and they are garnering both winds and building a fighting spirit. As Democracy Docket founder and voting rights attorney Marc Elias said: “I will litigate to defend voting rights until there are no cases left to bring.”

That fighting spirit is generally absent in the organizational Democratic Party and its congressional leaders — at least for now. And our national prestige media has generally either abandoned the field, or thrown in with the enemies of democracy. Nor is there a broad top-down movement with successful large-scale rallies and meaningful economic boycotts. Instead, what’s driving the green shoots through the cold March soil is pure rage.

And rage is a good thing.

Let’s take a look at my local region of the lower Hudson Valley in New York. Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, just a few months ago seen as a rising national star widely talked about as a gubernatorial candidate next year against Democratic incumbent Kathy Hochul, now faces a withering backlash over his support for Trump’s radical and destructive agenda. Almost every day, a new action to protest Lawler is announced on one of the many Facebook groups now dedicated to his political defeat. His district offices face loud and effective protests every weekend.

The organic nature of these actions creates the basis for strong opposition in the months and years to come.

The major reason is his vote in favor of the House budget resolution that targets Medicaid for deep and destructive cuts, including for children, the chronically sick and the elderly. Approximately 145,400 (23%) of Lawler’s constituents in New York’s 17th District are on Medicaid or CHIP, and over 18,000 people in the district have used SNAP. “Lawler has enabled cuts that will gut Social Security and Medicaid. He’s responsible for this, and while his voters are struggling to afford groceries and health care, they won’t forget Lawler’s betrayal,” said Nico Delgado, spokesman for American Bridge 21st Century.

Last Friday, more than 3,000 people packed a minor league baseball stadium in Rockland County to protest the Republican Medicaid cuts. When Rep. Lawler showed up, they booed him loudly, and activists have taken to pasting “Missing Congressman” posters to telephone poles in towns around the Hudson Valley district. “Have you seen Mike Lawler?” they ask, demanding an open town hall meeting with the Republican legislator. 

Rep. Lawler told me in an exchange on X that he’s done over 1,200 in-district meetings since being elected, and has announced a series of upcoming town hall meetings. That’s good to see, and frankly, any attempt to defend the radical cuts of Elon Musk and Trump’s unhinged behavior toward, for example, Ukraine and Canada, will make for an interesting exchange, to say the least. That Rep. Lawler feels the need to respond — in short, some political heat — is a direct result of the organic outrage and organizing taking place in his district.

But Lawler is hardly the only target of rage here in the Hudson Valley, a crucial swing region for New York State politics that had shown Republican gains last cycle. After Trump himself, billionaire Elon Musk is public enemy number one and also a more convenient and potentially vulnerable target. As the DOGE gangs slashed their way through the federal agencies that provide public services to millions, that organic rage among voters is targeting the major source of his wealth —Tesla and its vast market capitalization. 

Protestors have hit Tesla showrooms and even electric vehicle charging stations in recent weeks with angry and explosive pop up demonstrations. The widespread protests track closely with the latest polling. A Siena College Research Institute survey released Monday showed big movement in Trump’s approval numbers in the downstate suburbs — in late January, he was plus-17 — now he’s underwater at minus-six, a swing of 22 points in a month. People are getting the message.

What I find so interesting is that the leaders of these protests are not necessarily the leaders of the Resistance in Trump’s last presidency. I know many of those folks personally, and while they’re involved, they also express both surprise and joy at the number of formerly non-political neighbors who are joining — and in some cases, organizing — angry protests out of sheer rage. This is a very welcome development that we’re seeing in many places around the country.

Correspondent Corine Lesnes described in the French newspaper Le Monde: 

Every day, or almost, protests are taking place in the US against the brutality of Donald Trump’s executive orders. They’re small-scale, not very visible, sometimes made up of a few individuals at a crossroads (‘Planet over profit!’) or in front of a Tesla dealership. The “resistance” of 2025 is a fragmented phenomenon. Here, in Des Moines, Iowa, several hundred demonstrators showed their solidarity with transgender people. There, in Vermont, a thousand residents protested the arrival of JD Vance and his family: ‘Go ski in Russia!’

The organic nature of these actions creates the basis for strong opposition in the months and years to come. As we know, this is a long battle and it began in defeat. 

Meanwhile, institutional Democrats are doing what they can to throw sand in the gears of the Trump machine — and it’s working, both in court and in some cases, in Congress. The disastrous Medicaid vote and the pushback on the heinous Musk DOGE evisceration of functioning government are two examples. As Washington Monthly’s Bill Scher noted in his incisive column this week, “Moving public opinion is what Democrats must prioritize because that will lead to electoral victories, and electoral victories are what will bury MAGA—Make Authoritarianism Great Again—for good.” 

So there’s reason for long-term optimism even as we know there is no short-term magical victory. And the biggest reason is the most obvious: people are finding their voices. Please use yours.

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Tom Watson is a veteran consultant to nonprofits and civil society organizations, and an instructor in the nonprofit management graduate program at Columbia University.