Rally in support of Greenland in front of Trump Tower in New York. Photo AFP
Washington and New York. Religious leaders, union members, community activists, students, and artists across the country are part of a growing wave of opposition and resistance to the right-wing policies and agenda of Donald Trump, whose manifestations throughout his first year as president are the largest popular protests in U.S. history.
“Go out and march against fascism,” chanted high school students who walked out of their classrooms on Tuesday in the nation’s capital to mark the president’s first anniversary, while in Minnesota, state unions, churches, small business owners, university students, and community organizations have called for a statewide walkout this Friday, and protests are multiplying across the country, from vigils and marches to actions in defense of immigrants.
In Minneapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles, Charlotte, and New Orleans, among other cities, whistles—a symbol of resistance—can be heard daily to warn of raids by federal agents.
“In the year since Trump returned to office, the number of protests in the United States has already surpassed those that occurred during the same period of his first term,” The Guardian reports this week, based on calculations from Harvard University. “There were more than 10,700 protests in 2025, a 133 percent increase from the 4,588 recorded in 2017, the first year of Trump’s first presidency.” Experts add that at least one protest has been recorded in almost every county in the country, including hundreds that Trump won.
These manifestations of resistance have included the largest national marches ever recorded under the banner of “No Kings” last summer, with between five and seven million people participating in a single day in actions across thousands of towns and cities, as well as in small but consistent symbolic acts almost every week.
And this resistance has not been limited to demonstrations and marches in the streets and squares, but has extended to everyday acts. Teachers, along with parents, have coordinated to protect students from threats by federal agents; volunteers have trained with their neighbors to establish local immigrant protection committees in their communities; mutual aid projects deliver food and other assistance to neighbors who are afraid to go out.
In the trenches against the right-wing offensive against education and culture, unexpected people are joining the resistance: librarians, museum curators, nurses, scientists, and more are confronting attempts to censor books, exhibits, and historical narratives, as well as attacks on education and public health.
New ecumenical coalitions are emerging, with people of Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, and other faiths fueling resistance and creating new expressions of opposition and ethical advocacy—from nativity scenes condemning the persecution of refugees like Jesus, to vigils outside detention centers, to contingents in marches. A new American pope has appointed cardinals to defend immigrants and refugees in New York City and Palm Beach, where Trump has his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Artists Support Migrants
Famous and lesser-known artists are joining the chorus against Trump’s policies, from his attacks on culture and promotion of censorship to his attacks on immigrants: Bad Bunny; Bruce Springsteen, who this week called on immigration officials to “get the fuck out of Minneapolis!”; the band Green Day shouting “fuck immigration officials!” in Spanish; as well as actors like Jane Fonda, Mark Ruffalo, and Susan Sarandon, and countless other artists adding rhythm, lyrics, and a touch of beauty to the resistance.
This isn’t just limited to shouts of anger and acts of defense and solidarity; it’s also translating into political changes in the electoral arena. The victory of the new democratic socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani in the nation’s capital and largest city, New York; the election of another democratic socialist, Katie Wilson, as mayor of Seattle; the re-election of the exceptional progressive Michelle Wu as mayor of Boston, among others, demonstrate the emergence of a new progressive generation in the face of the right’s shadow. The direct confrontations with the Trump administration by more centrist opposition politicians, such as the governors of Illinois and California, the mayors of Chicago and Los Angeles, Charlotte, and even New Orleans, along with electoral victories by Democratic candidates in recent races in Miami and for governor of Virginia and New Jersey, are partly perceived as responses to the right’s attempt to gain power across the country.
The White House tries to control the narrative, through its media strategy, that it has absolute control of the country, but every day it becomes clear that this is false. In fact, the president has had to deploy armed forces in Los Angeles and has threatened to do the same in Seattle, Chicago, New York, and now Minneapolis, even invoking the old Insurrection Act to impose military and political control on those cities, although he has had to back down due to a combination of internal opposition and court rulings.
From the outset, Trump has accused every opponent, critic, and adversary of being “radical leftists” and declared that protests and acts of civil disobedience are promoted by “anarchists” and “communists” who want to destroy the country. Some warn that he seeks to provoke in order to justify the repression and control of cities and states led by his opponents and/or to create a constant spectacle that he believes will benefit his allies in the electoral arena. The fact that he and members of his cabinet are willing to beat, arrest, and even kill American citizens, including white ones, sends chills down the spines of some who conclude that this administration is capable of anything.
But the fact is that despite the threats, assassinations, arrests, and abuses of basic rights and civil liberties, he has not only failed to impose silence, but the response is growing louder as his first year in office approaches.
The whistles can be heard.
Original article by Jim Carson and David Brooks, La Jornada, January 21st, 2026.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.