Across the country, Americans are gearing up for another round of mass demonstrations against Donald Trump and his administration. Protesters in over 30 states will take to the streets on Saturday for the “Fight the Trump Takeover” to push back against the Republican redistricting efforts.
The nationwide mobilization effort comes on the heels of a showdown in Texas over electoral maps. Democratic lawmakers fled the state after Trump asked Texas Republicans to guarantee the party five more congressional seats ahead of next year’s midterm elections, even though the maps are only supposed to be redrawn every 10 years after the Census.
“Trump is trying to steal the 2026 election by rigging the system and changing electoral maps,” the “Fight the Trump Takeover” website states. “He started in Texas, but he won’t stop there. We are fighting back.”
Saturday’s rallies are backed by a coalition of organizations, including Move On, Planned Parenthood, the Human Rights Campaign and Indivisible.
Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, spoke to Antonia Hylton on Thursday’s “All In” about the planned protests. “Look, my expectation is that courage is contagious, and we’ve seen a lot of courage out there,” Levin said, referencing Texas Democrats’ decision to leave the state and deny Republicans the quorum needed to pass the gerrymandered maps.
“That took guts. That was courage. And the question is, how do you make that contagious? It can’t all be on the Texas [Democrats]. We’ve got to do our part. Saturday is the part where we make it contagious.” Indivisible was also one of the organizations behind the record-breaking “No Kings” protests. Organizers estimated more than 5 million people came out for the June 14 event, making it one of the largest single days of protest in United States history. When Levin was asked if he expected Saturday’s rallies to draw similar numbers, he told Hylton: “In the fight against authoritarianism, not every single protest, not every single action, needs to match the scale or the breadth of the one before it. That’s not how you build a successful opposition to authoritarianism.” According to Levin, the success of an opposition isn’t just dependent on the size of the movement, but also the ability of activists to sustain pressure: “What we’ve learned from overseas fights against autocratic rule, historical fights against autocratic rule in the South and elsewhere, is that you gotta keep on building. It is a muscle, and you gotta keep on working it.”
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW.
Latest Post
Recommended
