‘Protest shapes the world’:

Rebecca Solnit on the fight back against Trump

Demonstrations against the US president have been underplayed and dismissed, but a lifetime of activism has taught me how powerful collective action can be.

They influence public opinion, make exploitation and destruction and their perpetrators more visible, shift what’s considered acceptable and possible, set new norms or delegitimise old ones. Because politics arises from culture, if culture is our values, beliefs, desires, aspirations shaped by stories, images – and yeah, memes – that then turns into politics as choices and actions that shape the world.

Erica Chenoweth and colleagues at the Crowd Counting Consortium, write: “And since Jan. 22, we’ve seen more than twice as many street protests than took place during the same period eight years ago … In February 2025 alone, we have already tallied over 2,085 protests, which included major protests in support of federal workers, LGBTQ rights, immigrant rights, Palestinian self-determination, Ukraine, and demonstrations against Tesla and Trump’s agenda more generally. This is compared with 937 protests in the United States in February 2017.”

May Day Protests

According to Democracy Now, "Unions and immigrant rights groups led rallies in every state against the Trump administration’s attack on labor protections, immigrants and asylum seekers, diversity initiatives and federal employees.