Across the country, an anti-Trump movement is finally beginning to pick up speed and coalesce. Young people in many major cities have held weekly protests against Israel’s renewed bombing of Gaza and the state kidnappings of Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk and other immigrant students by ICE. In mid-March, the Federal Unionists Network—a rank-and-file grouping of workers from across different federal unions—held a meeting on how to fight DOGE’s attacks that was viewed by over 60,000 people across the country.
On April 5, the movement against Trump took a qualitative step forward as millions across the country poured into the streets at over 1,200 rallies for what was the biggest day of nationwide protest action against Trump 2.0. Socialist Alternative members across the country energetically built for the April 5 Hands Off protests in the weeks leading up to it. We passed out fliers at protests, on college and high school campuses, and on street corners in working-class neighborhoods. Our union members brought contingents of their coworkers out.
Organized by the Federal Unionists Network, 50501, SEIU, the AFT, and other unions and left groups, these were the largest protests since the George Floyd rebellion in 2020, with the New York Times estimating that 5.2 million people participated across the country. At least 100,000 marched in New York City alone, and even in small towns, protesters turned out in the thousands. Socialist Alternative members attended in over 20 different cities and towns across the country. We spoke with hundreds of people about what it’s going to take to defeat Trump, and how to escalate the struggle, including talking to union teachers about defying ICE raids in their workplaces and students about organizing walkouts against Trump’s authoritarian crackdown on college campuses.
While the April 5 Hands Off protests were a positive step forward in uniting the different struggles against Trump—which have so far been more disconnected—it was noticeable that there weren’t a lot of young people there, compared to other recent protests. Young people are often the first to take action against the exploitation and oppression produced by capitalism, from the campus encampments last spring that reignited the struggle against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, to Black youth leading the George Floyd rebellion against police brutality and repression. Many times in history, the courage, creativity, and radical demands of young people have inspired the confidence of the wider working class to move into struggle, which is necessary to actually shut down society.
Our movements are strongest when workers and youth, many of whom are already workers, stand shoulder to shoulder. Young people, and their dynamic fighting spirit, have a crucial role to play in the fightback against Trump and the far right. Organizations like 50501 should take up demands that bring them out into the streets, like ending U.S. military aid to Israel and campus repression against anti-war protesters, and trans-inclusive Medicare For All—all also important demands for the workers’ movement as a whole.
Many of the speakers at the “Hands Off” protests put forward the idea that voting for Democrats is the key way to stop Trump, and pointed protesters towards the midterms in 2026. But it has never been more clear that the Democratic Party cannot save us from Trump. They spent the last four years in office breaking strikes, attacking immigrants, massively expanding oil drilling, and sending our taxpayer dollars to bomb houses, hospitals and schools in Gaza. The Democrats will never build the kind of fighting movement necessary to defeat Trump because they’re afraid the movement will eventually turn on them when its demands conflict with the Dems’ own billionaire backers. To be effective, any fightback against Trump and the right wing needs to be connected to the fight for a new party for working people.
The midterms are also a full 18 months away! In only a month and a half in office, Trump has scrapped the collective bargaining agreements for thousands of federal workers, rounded up and deported thousands of immigrants, and slashed social services. Clearly we cannot afford to wait 18 months to fight back! Thousands upon thousands of people at the Hands Off protests were looking for concrete and immediate next steps. That’s why Socialist Alternative, other left groups, and unions are calling for the next day of coordinated, mass protests against Trump to be on May 1, International Workers Day.
In addition to building more unity between the different anti-Trump struggles, May 1 should become a launching pad for democratic structures that can bring working people and youth together in our schools, workplaces and communities to debate and discuss the strategies and tactics needed to defeat Trumpism. These democratic structures could be used to plan escalatory actions to ratchet up the pressure on Trump and his billionaire backers—we think the next step should be building for a national one-day strike!
