This is an adapted excerpt from the March 23 episode of “Velshi.”

When Donald Trump entered office for the first time, he was quickly met with the so-called Resistance: On Jan. 21, 2017, one day after his inauguration, millions across the United States participated in the Women’s March, a protest against basically everything that Trump stood for.

Now fast forward eight years to the weekend before Trump’s second inauguration. This time, the Women’s March had become the People’s March, and the turnout was much smaller and the effort a lot more modest. The muted response in the months between Election Day and Inauguration Day had many disappointed and frightened Americans wondering if their fellow citizens just felt too defeated and impotent. Maybe they were too scared to join a protest as a wannabe authoritarian returned to power, one who promised to shut down dissent and exact revenge against his political opponents.

But as the second Trump administration quickly got down to business — and enlisted the president’s top campaign donor, Elon Musk, to help gut the civil service — Americans perked up. People began contacting their representatives. There were reports that some Congress members’ phone lines were ringing nonstop and their voicemail boxes were full. Across the country, people held protests in support of federal workers, immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community, veterans, scientists, the environment, the people of Ukraine, and the people of Gaza, and the list goes on and on and on.

Many people have also turned up at town halls, especially those held by Republicans, to voice their anger and distress about what this administration is doing and the lack of pushback from Congress. On Friday, longtime Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa was booed by his constituents at a town hall. Many members of my immediate family have either run for or held elected office, so I know from experience that town halls aren’t typically so well-attended. You’d be lucky to fill half the seats in the room. But Grassley’s town hall was packed, and that’s been the case for many other town halls recently, both for Republicans and Democrats.

On Thursday, roughly 2,000 people reportedly showed up for a town hall hosted by Democrat Rep. Kelly Morrison of Minnesota. The state’s governor, Tim Walz, held a town hall of his own that reportedly had more than 1,500 attendees. In California, about 1,000 reportedly came out for Democratic Rep. Salud Carbajal’s town hall.

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Republicans have faced such tough questions and sharp criticisms at their events — you’ve probably seen some of it go viral online — that GOP leadership has told its members to just stop doing town halls altogether. To counter that, some progressive groups have hosted “empty chair town halls.” People schedule these events and invite their representatives, and if the representatives don’t show up, the constituents voice their concerns to each other and to an empty chair that represents their member of Congress.

So while we haven’t seen a demonstration on the same scale as the 2017 Women’s March, something is happening. We’re seeing a different kind of movement building right now, one that has had steady and sustained momentum — and it’s a movement that may change the political landscape as well, as many Americans look for leaders who will show up to fight for and with them.

Nobody understands this better than Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, two progressive icons who have been pushing Democrats and the left to pursue a new path forward. In recent days, the pair have embarked on a tour called “Fighting Oligarchy,” and the turnout has been tremendous: 25,000 people were expected to attend their rally in Denver on Friday but, according to Sanders’ team, 34,000 people showed up — the largest rally of his career. It was also the largest in Denver since Barack Obama held a rally there in 2008. Another 23,000 people reportedly attended their stop in Tucson, Arizona, on Saturday, and 15,000 reportedly turned out in Tempe, Arizona.

Just think about that for a second: Tens of thousands of people are showing up for political rallies, and the midterms are still more than a year and a half away. That’s unheard of, and it cannot be overlooked.