The Protests Against Trump Are About Building a Pro-Democracy Movement

Millions of Americans flooded into the streets this past Saturday, April 5, to protest president Donald Trump; his Department of Government Efficiency hatchetman Elon Musk; the GOP’s agenda to pay for tax cuts for the richest with cuts to Medicaid; preposterous cuts to science, heath, and education; Trump’s mistreatment of trans kids and immigrants; as well Trump’s tariff blitz which is decimating their retirement accounts.

The “Hands Off” protests drew massive crowds to streets of blue cities including New York, Chicago, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. But large demonstrations also erupted in smaller red-state urban centers, like Salt Lake City, Utah, and Missoula, Montana, as well as in hundreds of conservative communities across America from Flower Mound, Texas, to Tupelo, Mississippi.

The demonstrations were organized by a broad coalition — including groups that rose to prominence in the first Trump administration, like Indivisible, upstarts like the 50501 movement, as well as established grassroots groups like MoveOn. The upswell of resistance surprised even seasoned organizers. Indivisible cofounder Ezra Levin texted Rolling Stone on Friday to predict “one of the largest single-day protests in years” adding that the public response was “kind of shocking.”

At a local protest in Portland, Oregon, attended by this reporter and tens of thousands of protesters, marchers shut down traffic crossing one of the city’s main bridges, toting signs like “Resist the Oligarchy”; “Fight Ignorance, Not Immigrants”; “Save America from the Trumpster Fire”; and (Portland being Portland) “Vulva the Resistance.” The gathering was spirited, peaceful, and surprisingly family-friendly, with small children marching with their parents. 

Contrary to dark right-wing fantasy, the protesters were there of their own volition — to defend American democracy out of an enduring sense of patriotism — and not in fact because they were being paid by liberal billionaire George Soros. (Ironically, this false claim about Soros as a protest puppetmaster has been promoted by Musk, the mega billionaire who literally pays people to show up at his political rallies, where he sorta-randomly doles out million-dollar checks.)

On Sunday, Rolling Stone caught up with Levin on the phone to reflect on Saturday’s enormous turnout, and where the pro-democracy movement goes from here. 

The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

How are you feeling about the protests?  

It was a good day. Really expensive though. [Laughs.] All those “paid protesters.”

Is the Trilateral Commission involved?

Elon actually tweeted about us when we were on the way to the rally, because I was on Maddow the night before. He [retweeted] some wacko who was talking about our “violent protests” and how it’s all “Soros-funded” and [Elon insisted] we need to be prosecuted. 

We’ll get final estimates, but the most recent turnout number I’ve heard is over 5 million globally — and as far as I can tell, not a single incident. It’s incredible. We’re just so bad at violent protests.

Shame you can’t even start a riot correctly…

What is George paying for? [Laughs.]

On a serious note, I was struck here in Portland at how much civic solidarity there was. The cops are hardly known for their defense of free speech. (They often hit protesters, or launch chemical munitions to disperse them.) But the police stood by and blocked car traffic to keep marchers safe. The protesters snarled traffic crossing a bridge. But it seemed like 9 out of 10 people stuck in their cars were smiling and honking their horns and supporting the demonstration.

I heard from New York that people were surprised they didn’t see any cops there, and there were no incidents. It was righteous and joyous and defiant and empowering — everything we wanted it to be. More than we hoped for. You never know when you announce you’re gonna have a party, if people are gonna show up.

Talk a bit about the coalition; I’m curious about the 50501 movement, which was a key organizing partner.

When we announced this three weeks ago, it wasn’t just us. It was also MoveOn. And Working Families and 50501. They’re an organic grassroots group that started on Reddit, and have got legitimate energy. (They’re called 50501 because the first thing they did was launch 50 protests at 50 state capitals.) 

A whole bunch of other organizations also joined the effort: unions, civil rights organizations, other grassroots groups. It became a big love fest in the pro-democracy, progressive organizing, grassroots space. Everybody was pushing out to their members to try to spread it as wide as possible. 

The events on the ground were largely just started by volunteers. People raised their hands and decided to jumpstart an event. On the website, we have a “host an event” link with instructions on how to do it. It was led just by normal folks. A lot of Indivisible members, but not just them. It spread pretty darn quickly. We launched on a Friday, early the next week, we had 400 events. Even at that point, we were feeling pretty good. I could not have guessed [we’d end up with] 1,300 protests. With 17 across Montana and 14 across Alaska, as well as in Brussels, and Lisbon, and London.

Were these protests abroad expats, or what was the driving force? 

Some of them are expats, some of them are in solidarity with the folks in the United States. A mix of both.

I’ve covered protests for decades, and sometimes they are dominated by strident groups or pushing more divisive, contentious issues. This had a very mainstream feeling. 

This was a Big Tent — everybody from like DSA to Matt Yglesias and Never Trump Republicans were endorsing it. I had briefly gotten excited about calling this the “Normal March.” Like the wacko, MAGA, right-wing crazies are not gonna be part of this. But if you’re a normal person, you would want to take part. Because obviously you oppose Project 2025, you oppose DOGE and the richest man in the world coming after your Social Security. 

But I’m happy we went with “Hands Off.” It served as a good rallying cry, because we all come to this for different reasons. Maybe we’re concerned about the tariffs, maybe we’re concerned about trans kids in our community being targeted, or the immigrants being disappeared, or maybe we’re concerned about Social Security. We’ve all got something to fight back on. 

Did Trump’s one-man financial crisis — tanking people’s college and retirement funds — provide extra momentum?

You bet. When we picked the date, we knew that the Supreme Court race in Wisconsin was going to be in the news. That was predictable. We didn’t know we were going to kick Musk’s ass up and down the state. But we were cautiously optimistic we would win, and that might provide a little boost: “Look, we are able to still win in what is still a constitutional republic.” 

We did not know that [New Jersey Democratic Senator] Cory Booker was going to give his big speech directly in response to constituent pressure, which inspired so many. And nobody knew that Trump was going to attempt to crash the global economy. But that confluence of events did indeed drive turnout — not just all around the country, but all around the world.

I’m struck by how many of these protests were organized in small towns in Texas or Mississippi.

So many of them! You count on big anchor cities. D.C. had more than 100,000. I think Chicago beat us with more than 250,000. And New York had a ridiculous number as well. And I like being in the big cities. That looks good. 

But I’m from rural Texas. I love seeing folks in red areas, in rural areas, demonstrate that they’re not going to put up with this shit.

A goal was having an unusual number of people in an unusual number of places — very important that we’re not just in city centers. Very important that we’re not just in blue states and not just in purple states. That opposition exists in rural and deep red communities. 

This is what we saw at the town halls in February and March. Republican voters were showing up, independents were showing up because they didn’t like veterans being fired, and didn’t like what DOGE was doing. 

There can be a tendency to characterize “the grassroots” as synonymous with Democratic or, like, “lefty.” But it’s getting ideologically diverse right now, because what they’re pushing from the White House and from DOGE is pissing off people across the spectrum. 

Even among the larger cities, some of the biggest protests were in places like Salt Lake City.

It was very cool. Look: It’s a really dark moment, and it’s also inspiring, because a lot of people are choosing courage over fear. They’re showing up at a time when there’s reason to be concerned about what this administration is doing, targeting protesters, targeting peaceful protest. 

From what I saw, there was a rebellious streak to the whole thing. And a determination not to be cowed. People bringing out their kids to protest? That’s a real act of defiance.

Bring your kids! Bring your dogs! Pro-democracy movements depend on normal people being part of them. I love activist types, but we aren’t going to build a movement with just people who self-identify as “I am an activist.” You need everyday people, and they’re not going to come if it’s a drag. You want to make it welcoming and entertaining, and that’s what it felt like to me in D.C. 

We had worried about counter-protesting. About violence, based on how Musk was trying to drum up opposition to what we were doing. But I didn’t see that materialize either. I did not see reports of MAGA coming out in support of Trump. Instead, what we saw was a joyous display of people power. 

I’m struck at how early in this administration popular protests have gotten in gear, and that they’re likely to grow. How do you capitalize on this momentum?

[Fellow indivisible cofounder] Leah [Greenberg] and I closed out the rally in D.C. I explicitly said this is not the end-point in the fascist attack on democracy, but it could be an inflection point if we make it one.

An inflection point means harnessing the energy of the protest. We’re building a muscle, and you’ve got to continually pull more people into the pro-democracy movement, give them leadership responsibility; let them tap into their own creativity and entrepreneurialism. That, in turn, will pull more people into the movement. If you don’t harness the energy, it dissipates. If you don’t direct it into productive on the ground activities, it evaporates. So that’s the urgency I feel. 

We had 5 million people around the country, around the world, who are now not just tacitly against DOGE and Musk and Trump, but actively engaged. How do you plug them in? If I could wave a wand, people would join or start their own local group. That could be Indivisible. It could be 50501. It could be the Working Families Party. It could be something entirely different. The important thing is that they engage in their own community and identify where they have leverage, and start building power to use that leverage.

The next congressional recess starts April 11. Republicans almost certainly will be in hiding still because they’re refusing to show up. Many Democrats will be leading, and we should rally around the Maxwell Frosts and the Jamie Raskins and the Jasmine Crocketts. And we should be pushing those who aren’t leading to get out of the way or start. We need more Cory Bookers than Chuck Schumers. We need folks to actually start leading — and to call out the leaders who are failing us, because we don’t have time to fuck around right now.

There is a productive feedback loop I see developing. Cory Booker credits making his history-making speech to the constituents who were pushing him to be more bold. And then at the protest I saw maybe half a dozen signs quoting Booker’s speech. Like: “It’s not a red or blue problem. It’s a right or wrong problem.” You have people creating space for their leaders. And then leaders, in turn, inspiring people.

That has been our theory of change on Democrats this whole time. Which is: No politician wants to be booed. No politician wants to be criticized by their constituents. Every capable politician understands that their path to reelection and higher office depends on convincing their constituents that they’re one of the good ones in a broken system. The fact that Booker directly acknowledged: I’ve been pushed by my constituents, and have been convinced to adopt more aggressive tactics. That is an incredible validation of that theory of change. 

Half the battle we have is fracturing the MAGA coalition and making clear that there are political consequences for supporting a deeply unpopular agenda. But the other half is convincing Democrats to save themselves, to find their spines and fight back.

I have been making the argument to Democratic electeds for months now. We’re experiencing a wave of energy that is being driven by two things. One is the heinous, DOGE agenda, Musk agenda, Trump agenda. But the other is this sense of a total lack of leadership in the upper ranks of the Democratic Party. Folks feel like, “Well, shit! The country is going down the tubes, and the Democrats are talking about bipartisan support for MAGA messaging bills on immigration.” 

That can be short-handed as people are mad at Democrats. But what Cory Booker showed is that if you fight back, people are going to celebrate. There are going to be signs in the streets days later, quoting what you said. That’s what these folks want. They are so hungry for leadership, and I hope this inspires Democratic electeds to take up that mantle. 

Are there other strategic ways to keep this momentum going?

It depends on where you are. People are going to have different opportunities based on their political geography. Somebody in rural Arkansas is going to have a different opportunity than somebody in Virginia. Throughout this year, there are going to be off-year elections in New Jersey and Virginia. There are going to be congressional recesses, and a fight over possible legislation on crypto, certainly a reconciliation bill that’s going to be deeply regressive. And there are going to be a lot of opportunities for town halls and congressional recesses to apply pressure in real time to elected officials at the federal level.

And then there’s the state level. In blue states that have a Democratic trifecta, there is an opportunity for these governors and the state legislatures to go on offense. I would like to see more J.B. Pritzker’s out there. [Pritzker is the governor of Illinois who has been confrontational to the Trump agenda.] What Saturday showed is there’s demand for that. If you’re an ambitious politician at the state level, you’re going to get a lot of support if you’re more forward-leaning. 

There’s not going to be anybody who can credibly claim to be a leader of the Democratic Party until at least 2027, when we retake the House and/or the Senate. That means every Democratic elected in the country is doing the same thing — which is licking their finger and sticking it up in the air. That’s what a good politician does. 

On Saturday, we just changed the weather.