Protests in the USA | Where is the resistance?

When people talk about fascist tendencies in the US, it's not primarily about Donald Trump receiving 49.8 percent of the vote in the elections. Rather, they refer to a right-wing hegemony that permeates all areas: parliaments, the media, business, religion, and education. If an anti-fascist countermovement is to be successful, it must encompass all of these areas. It must change everyday life and professional life, ways of communicating and receiving information, feelings and ideas. What is needed is nothing less than a movement similar in ambition and scope to the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Despite the protests of recent days, there's little sign of such a movement in the US. Given the extreme measures the Trump administration has implemented since January, one would expect the topic of fascism to be omnipresent, at least in liberal strongholds. But mass civil disobedience and strikes have failed to materialize; theaters, museums, and cinemas are avoiding the issue, and even some of the richest and most powerful universities have capitulated to Trump. So, is the situation hopeless?

The situation isn't quite as depressing as it may seem at first glance. Just because something isn't visible doesn't mean it isn't happening. Since the pressure of repression is much greater than during Donald Trump's first term, much is done in secret today. Institutions risk losing their funding for even the slightest dissent. Activists face long prison sentences, detention, or deportation. Some counteractivities, such as organizing abortions or protecting people without secure residency status, are illegal from the outset and therefore go unreported. Others, such as networking among university professors or coordinating staff at cultural institutions, take place behind closed doors for strategic reasons. It would therefore be a mistake to measure resistance only in visible terms. What might a more nuanced assessment of political actors look like?

First, there is the Democratic Party, about whose establishment there isn't really much to say. Its failure in the face of this historic moment is colossal and unforgivable. It has nothing to counter Trumpism, neither ideologically nor strategically. The progressive wing of the party, led by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is at least attempting to offer opposition, mobilizing hundreds of thousands with their "Fight Oligarchy" tour in the spring. Grassroots initiatives close to the party, such as "Indivisible" and "50501," also function as a melting pot of a classically democratic spectrum. Although this public articulation of opposition is important, it often has more of an election-campaign feel—and is met with an audience that is increasingly disillusioned by the persistent assurances that the next Senate or mayoral elections could change things.

While many workers supported Trump last year, dissatisfaction is now growing among them.

-

A second important protest spectrum is civil rights activists. Their main organization, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), has not only been flooded with donations in recent months, but has also become significantly radicalized. Their lawyers do vital work to protect vulnerable groups such as immigrants and transgender people. However, the legal framework also represents the structural limit of this form of activism: What good is it to have the law on your side if no one recognizes it anymore?

An interview that ACLU President Anthony Romero gave to The New Yorker magazine in February received considerable attention in the civil rights community. If Trump started ignoring court rulings, Romero declared, the entire country would have to be shut down. But Trump has since ignored countless court rulings without bringing the country to a standstill. And that's because lawyers have relatively little power outside the courtroom.

The situation is different for the third major player, the unions. While many workers supported Trump last year, dissatisfaction is now growing among them. Elon Musk's clear-cutting has cost tens of thousands of jobs in Washington alone, and Trump's tariffs have further fueled inflation. As a result, many of the major unions have now taken a stronger stance against the government. This became particularly clear last week when union leader David Huerta was arrested in Los Angeles during protests against a deportation raid.

More and more trade unionists are no longer just fighting for higher wages and better protection against dismissal, but also for the rights of their migrant colleagues. However, a key limitation to these struggles is that unions primarily organize wage earners—and thus offer little support to the growing number of unemployed and precariously employed workers.

Finally, fourthly, the communities. It is the groups most threatened by Trump and his movement, and among them especially the migrants, who are currently organizing the most far-reaching resistance. The riots in Los Angeles began in a migrant working-class neighborhood and were directed against deportations by the immigration enforcement agency ICE. In other cities, such as San Diego and New York, deportations are now only possible with highly militarized units due to resistance from the local population. Nevertheless, the protests are by no means just a spontaneous expression of outrage; they are embedded in an infrastructure that has been doing important solidarity work long before Trump: mutual aid in neighborhoods, know-your-rights workshops, cultural centers, and tenants' associations. These structures combine concrete commitment to the families in the neighborhood with a radical political program that goes beyond immediate group interests: the abolition of ICE is demanded, as is the protection of workers' rights and access to education. Much more clearly than other interest groups, these activists also make explicit connections to other struggles, such as Gaza solidarity, the climate movement, and feminist campaigns. Ultimately, the uprisings emerging in these communities most clearly challenge the realpolitik framework. Waymo, which offers self-driving taxis in LA and San Francisco, had to temporarily suspend its service because cars were repeatedly called in to be set on fire. These fires are spreading from the West Coast to the entire country.

No single actor can carry the resistance against Trump's fascism—they must all come together in a broad coalition. This cannot, however, mean agreeing on "against Trump" as the lowest common denominator and forgoing more far-reaching demands. At a recent demonstration in New York, a group of trans activists stood with a banner reading: " Get In Loser, We're Building a Popular Front! " If a popular front against fascism wants to succeed today, it must be prepared to fundamentally question the conditions in which it arose. That is, it must be led by groups that no longer have anything to gain from restoring these conditions.