The acts of collective resistance documented by the CCC—as well as by other activism-tracking initiatives, such the “We the People Dissent” Substack—span every state. They focus on advocacy for diverse constituencies and issues under attack from the current administration, including public education, Medicaid and reproductive, immigrant, Palestinian, labor and LGBTQ rights.
Their common thread is opposition to Trump’s fascistic ideology and rapid rash of likely unconstitutional executive orders, such as freezing federal budget outlays approved by Congress, the mass firing of government workers and the dismantling of institutions by the “Department” of Government Efficiency by unelected “adviser” Elon Musk.
But if you relied on articles and broadcasts from the legacy national news media during early 2025, you wouldn’t know the extent of grassroots action prompted by this discontent. A FAIR examination of five major outlets found that coverage of anti-Trump/pro-democracy protests roughly overlapping CCC’s study timeframe (January 22 to February 26) was minimal, and downplayed the significance of this opposition, especially around the inauguration.
Hope this is true and not just cope. As the article notes, though there are more marches, the marches are smaller. What that shakes out to in terms of absolute numbers of participants is unclear.
Currently, considering polling numbers, I’m disinclined to believe that public discontent is all that high compared to Trump’s first administration, but I hope I’m wrong, and I’m glad that there are orgs paying attention and recording data so we can get a clearer picture.
I guess the way to break the media blackout is to go bigger.