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La Via Campesina expresses its solidarity and condolences to Via Campagnola and the Condéfération Paysanne for the murder of the Corsican peasant activist Pierre Alessandri.

The post La Vía Campesina stands in solidarity with Via Campagnola and the Confédération Paysanne after the assassination of peasant Pierre Alessandri appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Q'eqchí women, members of the Peasant Unity Committee (CUC), commemorate their struggle for land and territory in an act of resistance and unity where they reaffirmed their role as guardians of their ancestral territory.

The post Guatemala: Indigenous women mobilized for their right to a full life and for their right to land and territory appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

For example, in the state of Mato Grosso, research conducted by the Federal University of Mato Grosso (UFMT) identified a high incidence of cancer in municipalities that produce agricultural raw materials, associating it with the intensive use of pesticides.

The post Brazil: Peasant Women Highlight Health Impacts of Pesticides and Demand Public Policies for Diversified, Local Production appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

The women of Fensuagro have denounced the lack of access to land, which remains one of the greatest barriers to their autonomy. Although they represent 40% of the agricultural workforce, only 26% of rural women in Colombia own the land they work.

The post Colombia: Only 26% of rural women own the land they work appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

A collection of articles covering the #8M25 mobilizations worldwide.

The post Catch up on all the #8M25 mobilizations worldwide appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

We strongly condemn the approval of the amendment to Law 27692, the Law on the Creation of the Peruvian Agency for International Cooperation (APCI), passed by Congress on March 12. We categorically reject this so-called "Gag Law," a sinister maneuver aimed at stripping us of our rights and subjecting Indigenous peoples to even greater oppressive control.

The post Peru: Indigenous organizations demand the government to reject the “Gag Law” (APCI) for violating Indigenous Peoples’ Rights appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

At dawn today, the Israeli occupation resumed its genocidal war on Gaza, launching a brutal wave of airstrikes that have now massacred over 412 Palestinians and injured at least 562 in just a few hours. This is genocide. It is an organized, systematic attempt to erase the Palestinian people, and the world is allowing it to happen.

The post La Via Campesina Statement: Day 527 of Genocide, Israeli Occupation Continues Massacres in Gaza appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

By Jeremy Brecher,
Senior Strategic Advisor, LNS Co-Founder

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Trump’s MAGA juggernaut has many vulnerabilities. But these will not automatically lead to its downfall. That will require an active struggle to defend society against the MAGA assault — it will require in short, “social self-defense.” How can MAGA’s vulnerabilities be utilized to defend society, terminate Trump’s rule, and in the meantime limit the damage he can do?

Day Without a Woman San Francisco attendees stand on the steps of City Hall, holding various signs and a banner reading “Resist”. Photo credit: Pax Ahimsa Gethen, Wikimedia Commons, CC by-SA 4.0.

French Prime Minister George Clemenceau once warned that “generals always prepare to fight the last war, especially if they won it.” Conditions in 2025 differ in many ways from those of 2017. Social Self-Defense against Trumpian autocracy in the new MAGA era will fail if it is simply a rerun of the first Trump Resistance. Its strategy will have to pay continuous attention to what the Trump regime is doing, how people are reacting, and what opportunities for action those developments open or close.

Trump’s actions and popular response are highly unpredictable, so his opponent’s strategies will have to be highly flexible. Further, Social Self-Defense will unfold in the context of the global polycrisis, which is likely to be marked by “unknown unknowns” like unanticipated wars, pandemics, and climate catastrophes. We can, however, look back at past experiences and see what examples might be worth drawing on and what pitfalls need to be avoided.

The first Trump Resistance was not based on an overall plan or strategy for the anti-MAGA movement as a whole. It largely grew out of diverse responses to what was happening – people’s immediate feelings and needs. With benefit of hindsight, we may be able to be more intentional today, but we still must recognize the importance of how people respond to their lived reality.

Social Self-Defense against today’s MAGA assault is already emerging in many forms, from organizing to protect immigrants from deportation raids, to noncooperation by government employees with DOGE commands, to daily lawsuit planning Zooms by Democratic state Attorneys-General, to raucous confrontations at politicians’ town meetings. Such pushback has already slowed or halted some early Trump initiatives, such as the freeze on government grant payments. How can these beginnings develop into an effective strategy for defending society against the MAGA onslaught?

The Unfolding of Social Self-Defense

Cult of red hats, August 15, 2019. Photo credit: Marc Nozell from Merrimack, New Hampshire, USA, Wikimedia Commons, CC by 2.0.

It is possible that Trump’s actions and the broader MAGA agenda, despite the harm they are doing to individuals, constituencies, and society as a whole, will not provoke sufficient opposition to significantly undermine MAGA power. Induced fear and helplessness, combined with entertaining circuses and the promise of bread “just around the corner,” may demobilize even a population being ravaged by Trumpian devastation. Other factors, known and unknown, may further help Trump to perpetuate his rule.

Trump’s greatest vulnerability is the harm he is doing to individuals, groups, the American people, and the global future. The cold reality of harm is the chink in the MAGA armor. In the abyss of Nazi rule, the exiled German writer Bertolt Brecht wrote the poem “In Times of Extreme Persecution”:

Once you’ve been beaten
What will remain?
Hunger and sleet and
Driving rain.

“Who’ll point the lesson?
Just as of old
Hunger and cold
Will point the lesson.[1]

It is up to those harmed by MAGA to create the means for translating the experience of harm to people and society into Social Self-Defense. Defeating Trump requires a shift in power away from him and his supporters to his opponents. That process depends on cumulative disillusion and repudiation. Social Self-Defense can play midwife to that process.

Social Self-Defense is not an organization – it is a set of practices to be engaged in by myriad organizations, hopefully in close cooperation with each other. It can draw on both established and newly emerging organizations, as the first Trump Resistance incorporated thousands of local self-organized groups, newly emerging national networks, and long-established national organizations. Social Self-Defense need not become a single organization or umbrella group. But it requires that issue- and constituency-based groups expand beyond siloed practices to act in concert with each other to resist the Trump agenda.

The success of Social Self-Defense will depend on combining civil resistance in social institutions and the streets with political resistance in the institutions of governance. It will take months or years for the Trump regime to eviscerate, coopt, or eliminate all the institutions that might resist it. There are still courts, legislatures, local and state governments, legal, medical, educational, labor, media, and other civil society institutions. Social Self-Defense can be pursued in part through supporting and strengthening those institutions willing and able to resist Trumpian tyranny. While there is at present little opportunity for an “inside game” that attempts to influence the Trump administration from within, cooperation with anti-Trump politicians and institutional leaders where they exist is essential to the success of Social Self-Defense.

The Trump regime started with a furious flurry of actions designed to provide red meat to followers and put opponents off-balance. Social Self-Defense needs to respond in ways that make it clear that Trump cannot simply have his way unopposed. Even if many of his initial moves can’t be halted, it is important to show that they cannot be imposed without opposition. As his intentions become manifested in actions, it is necessary to oppose them and show the harm they are wreaking, by means of legislative action where possible and through action in the streets. It is necessary to pressure Democrats to expose and fight MAGA policies and to present an alternative to Trumpism that has wide popular appeal rather than just representing the interests of a different faction of the plutocratic class. Opponents based in civil society outside the electoral system can strengthen their performance of these tasks by drawing together a non-electoral opposition, the subject of a later Commentary in this series.

MAGA forces will undoubtedly continue and expand their longstanding efforts to cripple opposition in the electoral system through voter suppression, intimidation, gerrymandering, and similar anti-democratic techniques. These efforts will continue to be challenged in the electoral system, in the courts, and by direct action. The success of the two sides will be hanging in the balance. The result of successful resistance may be a period of dual power, in which Trump remains in office but is unable to implement his agenda because of popular opposition.

In the event that the electoral system is still functioning as more than a rubber stamp for MAGA power, the 2026 elections will provide a major opportunity to end MAGA hegemony, as I will discuss in a later Commentary in this series. Both direct and electoral action should aim to dramatize the harm MAGA is doing, expose the illusion of its invincibility, and project a positive alternative. The aim is a massive repudiation of Trump and the MAGA agenda. If the Republican Party loses control of one or both houses of Congress, that will put a powerful brake on the MAGA juggernaut.

Conversely, if the Republican Party remains in control of the presidency, the Supreme Court, and both houses of Congress, it may be well on its way to establishing a long-lasting authoritarian para-fascist regime led by an autocratic dictator. Under those circumstances, Social Self-Defense will depend primarily on action taken outside the electoral arena.

Sometimes those in power come to be despised by a large proportion of the population, but political repression and the gutting of the institutions of democracy make elections and other normal democratic procedures ineffective as vehicles for eliminating them. Under such conditions, people in many parts of the world have turned to mass nonviolent popular uprisings, sometimes referred to as “people power” or “social strikes,” as I will discuss in a later commentary. Such mobilizations have removed authoritarian regimes in such countries as Poland, the Philippines, Serbia, and most recently South Korea. They represent the ultimate power of Social Self-Defense, with an entire society withdrawing cooperation and support from a regime and making its continued rule impossible. They often grow out of previous forms of Social Self-Defense. The developing resistance to MAGA para-fascism should aim to lay the groundwork for such action should it ultimately become necessary.

The end-game? Sooner or later replacement of para-fascism by democracy will need to be ratified by free elections.

The next commentary in this series will discuss strategic guidelines for Social Self-Defense.

[1] Bertolt Brecht, “In Times of Extreme Persecution,” in Poems 1913-1956. Methuen New York:, 1976.  https://threefoldpress.org/booksandquotations

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The post A Strategy for Social Self-Defense first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

In commemoration of March 8, International Working Women’s Day, the organizations that are part of CLOC-Vía Campesina in the Dominican Republic, along with other social movement organizations in the country, gathered for a march through the streets of Santo Domingo.

The post Dominican Republic: “Persist, resist, transform for Women’s Rights” appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

On March 8, 2025, in honor of International Women’s Struggle Day, Haitian peasant organizations Mouvman Peyizan Papay (MPP) and Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen, both members of the CLOC – LVC in Haiti, raised their voices to denounce the violence, discrimination, and inequalities faced by women. Amid a severe political and social crisis, they are calling for mobilization to recognize and defend the rights of Haitian women.

The post Haiti: Women call against domination, discrimination and violence appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

The work of rural women, their role in building food sovereignty, and their daily lives in the territory are some of the key issues addressed by Carolina Llorens from the National Peasant Indigenous Movement (MNCI-ST). Ahead of another March 8, she highlights the specific challenges of rural struggles and issues a call to action: "Feminisms need to become peasant-like."

The post Argentina : “Without land and water in our hands, hunger advances” appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

March 8 is not just a date for commemoration, but a day of struggle and demand for the rights of working women worldwide. From feminist economy to food sovereignty, from resistance to capitalist expansion to the defense of bodies and territories, the global organizations and social movements that are part of the Nyéléni process leading to the 3rd Global Forum converge in their demand for justice and equity.

The post 3rd Nyéléni Global Forum : Women in struggle for systemic transformation #8M25 appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

March 8 is not the sum total of women’s struggles, but it reaffirms our capacity for organization, resistance, and commitment to revolution. Building 8M connects us with working women across the globe, united in the fight for a free, equal, abundant, and solidarity-driven society.

The post Landless Women’s Day denounces violence in agriculture and proposes an alternative to the environmental crisis appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

By Jeremy Brecher,
Senior Strategic Advisor, LNS Co-Founder

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As we grapple with how to live through and ultimately terminate the nightmare of the second Trump regime, we can gain a lot from examining the myths and the realities of the resistance to the first Trump regime. 

Activist group SumOfUs’s Projection of “Resist Trumpism Everywhere” on London’s Marble Arch as part of protests during Trump’s July 2018 visit. Photo credit: SumOfUs, Wikimedia Commons, CC by 2.0.

During the first Trump presidency there was an outpouring of resistance to his rule that was 

unique in U.S. history in the range of issues it addressed, the diverse constituencies it engaged, and the multiple forms of action it exhibited. In some ways it resembles the movements resisting dictators in eastern Europe and Latin America, which encouraged citizens to engage in every kind of resistance action available to them. It was, to borrow a term from the eastern European democracy movements of the 1980s, a form of “social self-defense.”  [1]

Because the conditions prevailing in the second Trump regime differ in many ways from the first, the first Trump resistance is not something to be imitated today. But it can provide us with lessons, both positive and negative. And it can provide inspiration that social self-defense can blunt and eventually overcome Trumpian juggernauts.  

There are three myths circulating about the resistance to the first Trump regime that are both false and deeply demobilizing. 

• Myth 1: Demonstrations, marches, and other big national mobilizations detracted from a focus on local organizing. In reality, big national mobilizations like the Women’s March, the student gun control demonstrations, and Black Lives Matter saw a synergistic interaction between gatherings of millions of people and the formation of tens of thousands of local organizations.
• Myth 2: The resistance movements failed to wield power. In reality, they exercised enormous though often dispersed power through the expansion of participation in electoral politics, the definition of Trump’s policies, and direct actions like the government worker sickouts and the threatened general strike that halted Trump’s efforts to shut down the federal government.
• Myth 3: The resistance movements failed or were ineffective in countering Trump and ending his rule. In reality, they had a great impact, for example by preserving Obamacare and limiting the expulsion of immigrants; containing and eventually dethroning Trump and Trumpism in the 2018 and 2020 elections; and laying the basis for blocking Trump’s attempted coup after his 2020 election defeat.

The first Trump resistance had genuine weaknesses from which we need to learn. Although it exhibited a great deal of cooperation among different movements and constituencies, it was unable to form a visible, unified opposition that could present a common alternative to Trumpism. Of necessity it initially emerged primarily as a spontaneous response to what people were feeling and the conditions they faced; but it did not develop from a series of spasmodic uprisings to a continuous visible opposition. And it remained primarily an expression of outrage more than a movement based on strategic foresight regarding future possibilities, such as Trump’s impending coup attempt. 

From the day Donald Trump was elected president, millions of people began to resist his agenda. Demonstrations against Trump broke out in U.S. cities; police chiefs, mayors, and governors declared they would not implement his attack on immigrants; thousands signed up to accompany threatened immigrants, religious minorities, and women; and technical workers pledged that they would not build databases to facilitate discrimination and deportation. Discussion of how to resist the Trump regime broke out at dinner tables, in emails among friends, on social media, and in community gatherings. Resistance involved every level of society from grassroots to governors and judges. 

These actions and others that followed may well represent the greatest outpouring of civil resistance in U.S. history. They targeted nearly every aspect of Trump’s devastating and wide-ranging agenda—and succeeded in blocking much of it. Over the first years of the Trump presidency millions of people engaged in various forms of protest, including the Women’s March, the March for Science, the People’s Climate March, Black Lives Matter, the Fight for Fifteen, the March for Our Lives, the May Day immigrant rights marches, #MeToo, the red state teacher rebellions, the mass sick-outs against government shutdowns, and more. They constituted a mass popular intervention in the political arena. 

From the day after Trump’s inauguration, a public interest group led by social scientists called the Crowd Counting Consortium began collecting data on protests. The consortium estimated that in 2017 there were between 6 million and 9 million protesters, and that nearly 90 percent were protesting Trump or his agenda. The largest single-day demonstrations in the first year of Trump’s presidency, with tens of thousands joining each, included the airport protests against Trump’s proposed immigration ban; the Day Without an Immigrant; the Day Without Women; the March for Science; the March for Truth; the LGBTQ pride marches; protests and rallies in support of the Affordable Care Act; gatherings to oppose white supremacist violence; and protests against the Republican tax bill. The early months of 2018 saw three mobilizations with well over one million participants each—the second Women’s March, the national student walkout, and the March for Our Lives. Between 2.5 million and 4 million people participated in more than 6,000 protests in March 2018 alone. 

There was a widespread recognition of commonality among the diverse concerns that animated the Resistance. In the lead-up to Trump’s inauguration, prominent environmental, trade union, civil rights, progressive, women’s, gay, and other groups initiated a United Resistance Campaign based on a pledge of solidarity and resistance against Trump: “We pledge to stand together in support of racial, social, environmental, and economic justice for all, and against Islamophobia, xenophobia, racism, homophobia, sexism, and all those forces which would tear apart a democracy of, by, and for all the people.” Signers pledged to “act together” in solidarity, whether in “the streets,” in “the halls of power,” or in “communities every day.” They concluded, “When they come for one, they come for us all.” Signers included Communications Workers of America, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Indigenous Environmental Network, MoveOn, NAACP, NARAL, National Domestic Workers Alliance, People’s Action, People for the American Way, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Public Citizen, Sierra Club, and dozens of others. [2]

This tendency toward convergence persisted, and the actions around issues like gun control, abortion, and immigrant rights won wide “crossover” support. Such convergence did not, however, develop into a unified opposition outside the electoral arena. Rather, the elements of the Trump Resistance were rather like “periods of mass strike” as portrayed by Rosa Luxemburg, in which forms of struggle “all run together and run alongside each other, get in each other’s way, overlap each other; a perpetually moving and changing sea of phenomena.” 

LGBT Solidarity Rally, Feb. 4, 2017. Photo credit: Mathiaswasik, Flickr, CC by-SA 2.0.

The Resistance helped block many Trump initiatives, ranging from the gutting of the Affordable Care Act, to the Muslim Ban, to the building of a wall on the Mexican border. Perhaps its most dramatic success was forcing an end to Trump’s shutdown of the government and using the threat of a general strike to keep the government open. When president Trump refused to sign any appropriations bill that did not fund his proposed Mexican border wall, the result furloughed 400,000 government workers without pay, forced 400,000 others deemed “essential” to work without pay, and put over 500,000 federal contract workers out of work. It was the largest lockout in U.S. history. The shutdown continued for 35 days. 

Trump and the Republican Congress were forced to reopen the government when TSA screeners stopped showing up for work, air traffic controllers called in sick closing major airports, and opponents of the shutdown mobilized to occupy airports and congressional offices. As the flight delays spread, President Trump unexpectedly reversed himself and agreed to a Congressional resolution to fund the government for three weeks—without his border wall. 

When Trump threatened another shutdown three weeks later, the president of the flight attendants union Sara Nelson announced that her members would demonstrate at major airports around the country on February 16. She hoped that all airline workers and the public would take part. Airline flight attendants announced a new website called “generalstrike2019.org.” Its headline read, “Imagine the Power of Working People Standing Together to Demand That Our Government Work for Us.” It called on all Americans to “join us in protest at our nation’s airports to show what workers united can achieve.” At the last minute, Trump backed down and allowed the government to remain open.

The Trump resistance helped expose the illegality, corruption, and antidemocratic intentions of Trump and his allies. It helped show the breadth and continuing power and conviction of those opposing the Trump regime. But it was unable to prevent military aggression, accelerated climate destruction, terrorizing of immigrants, erosion of labor rights, and intensified injustice to women, people of color, and other disadvantaged and vulnerable groups. It slowed though it did not halt or reverse the erosion of the right to vote and other democratic principles. 

In the first Trump era, direct action and political action often became synergistic. People working inside and outside the system often worked together. The same people might vote one day and participate in a sit-in the next. As the 2018 congressional elections approached, much of the energy of the Trump Resistance flowed into electoral campaigns. That mobilization played a significant role in the election of a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives and the ending of one-party rule. It also contributed to the election of a new breed of Democratic representatives, primarily women and people of color, who viewed popular mobilization outside the conventional political arena as essential to countering the Trump agenda and establishing an alternative one. 

According to an article in the Guardian, “The single most important player in the midterm elections may well have been the grassroots resistance to Trump.” The paper reported that there had been “more protests over the past two years than during any comparable period in U.S. history.” The Democratic sweep was due to “extraordinary and historic levels of volunteer engagement, for which the resistance can take much of the credit.” The millions who had marched in protest turned to “phone-banking, text-banking, and canvassing door-to-door in record numbers,” generating record voter turnout. “Local resistance groups” had formed “crucial nodes” and created “thousands of pop-up canvassing headquarters in homes and offices”—in what may have been the largest get-out-the-vote operation in U.S. history. 

The momentum from the Trump resistance was ultimately successful in defeating him in the 2020 presidential election and in defeating his January 2021 attempted coup.

Of course, today’s conditions are in many ways different from the first Trump regime. 

• The global polycrisis has deepened, exhibiting unrestrained Great Power conflict, proliferating wars, economic nationalism and trade wars, further gutting of democratic institutions, galloping para-fascism, and burgeoning climate catastrophe. 
• It has been widely noted that Trump is better prepared this time for the realities of politics.
• Trumpism has evolved from a generic right-wing program and a bundle of personal hobbyhorses toward a fully para-fascist program. 
• There is now a committed, hardened, armed para-fascist movement.
• Trump has formed a partnership with Elon Musk and a clique of tech billionaires, and has supported Musk in seizing control of government agencies and critical governmental technology.
• Trump and the Trumpians have a greater claim on legitimacy because they were legally elected, though only by a minority of the enfranchised electorate. 
• There has been a general rightward shift in popular attitudes, with increased sympathy for many of Trump’s themes, particularly anti-immigrant and anti-women sentiments.
• Trump is conducting a far more radical attack on all obstacles to autocracy, including Republicans and Congress.
• Trump’s state of mental and physical health makes a full term less likely.
• Trump appears even less sane and more out of touch.
• Trump has surrounded himself with an even weirder collection of accomplices.
• Media are more concentrated and more dominated by MAGA supporters.
• Many early accounts suggest that those who oppose Trump, however outraged they may be, are also discouraged about the prospects for action to counter or remove him.

The strategy for Social Self-Defense proposed in my upcoming commentaries will take these factors into account.

[1]  For a fuller account of the first Trump Resistance, with references, see Jeremy Brecher, Strike! 50th Anniversary Edition (Oakland, PM Press, 2020) Chapter 12. https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1085

[2]  United Resistance Campaign, “Unstoppable Together,” United Resistance Campaign, January 2017. http://www.unstoppabletogether.org ; Nadia Prupis, “Groups Nationwide Create Campaign of ‘United Resistance’ to Trump,” Common Dreams, January 10, 2017. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/01/10/groups-nationwide-create-campaign-united-resistance-trump

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The post What Really Happened in the First Trump Resistance? first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

By Jeremy Brecher,
Senior Strategic Advisor, LNS Co-Founder

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The previous Commentary in this series laid out the unknowns – known and unknown — that will characterize the Trump presidency. But amidst the uncertainty, the main thrusts of the Trump regime are increasingly clear.

Protester against Trump, July 13, 2017. Photo credit: Alisdare Hickson, Wikimedia Commons, CC by-SA 2.0.

Within the context of the larger unknowns, it is evident that the presidency of Donald Trump is ushering in a period of chaos, impoverishment, cruelty, and war. MAGA will attempt to intimidate and silence all who attempt to hold Trump and Trumpism accountable for the horrors they bring about. Like other efforts to impose tyranny, it will attempt to eliminate all potential barriers to the policies and whims of Trump and his followers.

We can reasonably expect that Donald Trump will continue to be a self-aggrandizing person pursuing his own wealth and power. We know that the Trump administration will continue to be filled with people pursuing their personal interests and those of a mélange of political cliques, corporations, industries, and foreign countries. Trumpism also incorporates a broader rightwing vision of restructuring the institutions of American society to eliminate all barriers to the self-aggrandizement of the rich and powerful. When Trump feels vulnerable, we can count on him to resort to “alarms and diversions” intended to distract from any tendency of the people to awaken to reality – witness his ludicrous claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were eating their neighbors’ dogs and cats, his absurd assertion that the climate change-caused fires in Los Angeles were actually caused by measures protecting endangered fish, and his proposed annexation of Greenland and perhaps even Canada. 

Based on the statements and records of Trump and those around him, we can expect four main foci of MAGA action: 

• attacks on anything that might potentially limit MAGA power;
• scapegoating and oppression of stigmatized groups; 
• redistribution of wealth upward; and 
• attacks on the world and its peoples, ostensibly designed to increase American wealth and power, but often in fact aiming to aggrandize Trump’s ego and political support and to create wealth for a favored few. 

Attacks on barriers to MAGA power

Crowd of Trump supporters marching on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, ultimately leading the building being breached and several deaths. Photo credit: TapTheForwardAssist, Wikimedia Commons, CC by-SA 4.0.

• Democratic institutions are likely to be under continuous attack in what will amount to a “creeping coup.” The plans for crippling and even dismantling all limits on presidential power have been laid out in detail in The 2025 Project, which Princeton professor Kim Lane Scheppele described as a blueprint for autocracy. “It’s a direct copy of the plan that Viktor Orban used to take over the Hungarian government in 2010.” It includes placing all independent government agencies, including the FBI and Department of Justice, under direct presidential control; purging government employees considered “disloyal” to the president; and deploying the military against American citizens under the Insurrection Act [1]. Trump’s creeping coup is already galloping along with such measures of executive usurpation as the shutting down of Congressionally-mandated agencies, the assertion of presidential control of government spending, and opening of US Treasury records on millions of Americans to the agents of Elon Musk.  
• Republicans, especially in the US Senate, have been one of the first targets of the incoming Trump administration. The unsuccessful attempt to appoint Matt Gaetz – scourge of Republican Senators – as Attorney General illustrates Trump’s preoccupation with bringing Republicans to heel, as well as their intermittent resistance to his doing so. 
• Congress, as a Constitutionally mandated “check” on presidential power, is already a prime target, as indicated by Trump’s failed demand that cabinet appointments not be subject to Senatorial “advise and consent.” There has been some initial effort to preserve some of the institutional prerogatives of Congress, indicated by the pushback against a few of Trump’s nominations; Congressional power is likely to be a continuing arena of contestation throughout the Trump regime.   
• The military also is emerging as a prime Trump target, as indicated by his militarily-ludicrous appointment of a totally unqualified, virulent critic of the top brass as Secretary of Defense and the threat to fire and even court-martial top generals. (It is an intriguing historical parallel that Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who foreshadowed Trump in so many ways, similarly made the US Army one of his leading targets.)        
• Civil servants and other government employees have been identified as a primary target. Project 2025 proposed to make thousands of civil servants subject to firing without just cause by the president, and Trump’s first executive orders have already implemented that proposal. Trump nominees have threatened to fire as many as one-third of federal employees. 
• Organized labor is a prime target for much of Trump World. Elon Musk is suing to have the National Labor Relations Act, the foundation of American workers’ rights, declared unconstitutional. The 2025 Project includes numerous proposals to weaken unions and make them easy prey for employers who wish to gut or eliminate them. Some conflict may ensue around these objectives, since organized workers have means of power rooted in their workplace organizations and Trump feels some need to curry favor with some labor leaders, as indicated by his designation of Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer as Secretary of Labor, in part on the recommendation of Teamsters’ president Sean O’Brien. 
• Science, and rationality more broadly, has been and is likely to remain a prime target. The appointment of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and other advocates of bizarre anti-scientific doctrines and practices, may seem merely ridiculous, but in fact a belief in science and reason is one of the greatest barriers to MAGA’s ultimate power. Flouting science, reason, and reality is likely to produce implausible weapons systems that are promoted as means of global domination but in fact will have as their primary achievement the enrichment of Trump’s cronies. Scientifically invalid responses to diseases may cause large numbers of deaths.  
• Limits on violence have been a specific Trump target. Trump’s pardoning the January 6th insurrectionist criminals, his celebration of vigilante violence, and his appointments for Attorney General and FBI director give little indication that there will be any attempt to maintain even a limited amount law and order, rather than “law enforcement” to enforce the will of a tyrant. 

Attacks scapegoating stigmatized groups

Day Without a Woman San Francisco attendees stand on the steps of City Hall, holding various signs and a banner reading “Resist.” Photo credit: Pax Ahimsa Gethen,  Wikimedia Commons, CC by-SA 4.0.

• Immigrants have been a consistent Trump target since his first rise to prominence. He says he will find and expel the 11 million undocumented immigrants who live in the US. While he says this will apply first to “criminals,” under MAGA doctrine all 11 million people living in the US without legal papers are in effect criminals. The cost and chaos of expelling even a small percentage of those 11 million people, and the disruption to the US economy, the food chain, and employers’ profits, will undoubtedly lead to multifaceted conflict around any such policy. But Trump’s commitment to expulsions ensures that an effort will be made to expel tens of thousands if not millions of them. 
• LGBTQ+ people, and above all transexuals, have been another prime target. These attacks are nothing more than transparent appeals to bigotry against denigrated groups. New anti-trans policies are already being implemented.
• Women have been a constant and particularly denigrated Trump target. The idea that women have no rights that men are bound to respect has been embodied in the denial of women’s right to control their own bodies, Trump’s flaunting of his sexual abuse of women, and his many nominations of sexual abusers to high positions. New embodiments of female de-liberation may well be in the offing. 
• People of color have been a Trump target from his first foray into the political arena with his false claims against the so-called “Central Park Five” to his asking why the military couldn’t just shoot Black Lives Matter demonstrators in the legs. Legal protections against discrimination are already being rolled back.
• The Left – or whatever Trump chooses to characterize as “the Left” – has been a continuous target for his entire political career. Vilification as “Leftists,” vigilante attacks, harassment, persecution, prosecution, and police and military violence are likely to be mobilized to a greater or lesser extent against any Trump opponents. Such actions are already being perpetrated against opponents of Israeli genocide in Palestine, and top Trump nominees advocate even more extreme measures. 
• Not-yet-identified scapegoats will predictably become the targets of future Trump assaults. 

Redistribution upward

• Massive tax cuts for the wealthy are among Trump’s first priorities, and they are likely to meet little resistance from purportedly conservative Republican “budget hawks” in Congress.
• Deregulation will enrich the haves and impoverish the have-nots, as well as fomenting market chaos. 
• Government agencies and services, ranging from the Weather Bureau’s forecasts, to public health measures like vaccinations, to provision of education, food, housing, healthcare, and many other benefits have been singled out for cutting or elimination by Project 2025 and Trump appointees, and are likely to also be targets for Congressional action. Gutting of poverty reduction and healthcare programs will lead to sickness and death for the non-affluent.
• Crony capitalism, oligarchy, and kleptocracy will utilize innumerable opportunities to use autocratic government power to enrich those with access to it.
• Economic chaos is likely to result from Trump’s incoherent, self-contradictory, and illusion-based economic policies, notably his obsession with tariffs. The result will be impoverishment for working and poor people, along with opportunities for vast kleptocratic enrichment by those close to power. 

War on the world

• International institutions that offer some degree, however fragile, of collective security and collective problem-solving are priority targets of Trump’s wrath. His regime will attempt to disempower or even destroy the United Nations, the World Court, the International Court of Justice, the international climate protection regime, cooperative international public health efforts, international trade and financial agreements, and similar alleged impediments to “putting America first.” He has already withdrawn the US from the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization.  
• Unexpected verbal, economic, and military attacks are a normal part of Trump’s playbook, as his out-of-the-blue attacks on Mexico and Canada illustrate. Their motivation is rarely national wellbeing but rather proving by intimidation and bullying that he is “putting America first” and “making America great again.” They enact short-term political, financial, and ego interests, not long-term national interests. This may be deeply harmful to the American economy and American imperialism in the long run, but that is unlikely to deter them.
• Weird shifts of alliances are another Trump likelihood. His attacks on NATO and the European Union and his support for territorial concessions to Russia by Ukraine, indicate the likely gyrations of his international alignments. 
• Colossal military spending is likely to be high on both the Trump and the Congressional Republican agendas. These are likely to include new weapons systems based on imaginary fantasies of global military domination, like Trump’s revived version of Ronald Reagan’s discredited “Star Wars” missile defense. Far from establishing global US domination, they are likely instead to provoke unlimited arms races. Whatever its military futility, this will contribute substantially to the enrichment of military-industrial oligarchs on all sides.
• Global redistribution upward will no doubt be a hallmark of the Trump era. Even the very modest programs currently attempting to fight global poverty will be gutted – witness the abolition of the Agency for International Development. Perhaps even more seriously, aspects of the global economy that have made it possible for many nations (notably China) to “bootstrap” their way to economic wealth are likely to be undermined on the grounds that such countries are “robbing America.”
• Climate denialism will continue to be a constant Trumpian theme – and his policies will both gut the modest current efforts to restrain climate destruction and radically expand the extraction and burning of climate-destroying fossil fuels. Escalating climate catastrophe will be the inevitable result.

Of course, what will happen in the MAGA era will be determined not just by what Trump does, but also by what various other actors do. That is crucial but also uncertain. Will lawyers, judges, corporate executives, doctors, civil servants, military brass and soldiers, union members, politicians, and others simply go along with greater or less enthusiasm? Or will they at some point, out of social responsibility or self-interest or both, become impediments to the MAGA juggernaut?

Most important, what will those affected as individuals, as constituencies, and as members of society do — and when? The key to defeating the MAGA juggernaut is popular mobilization. But when people will become disaffected and what actions they will be willing to take is not predictable. Some estimates are highly optimistic; others stress the fatigue and defeatism of Trump opponents. Strategy must be based on the possibility of mass resistance; tactics must recognize the real state of popular sentiment at any one time while nourishing its future development.

We have no way to know how long it will take to overcome Trump and Trumpism. His regime and its successors could last for a decade or more – consider Orban or Sisi. Alternatively, they could rapidly succumb to popular disenchantment and internal contradictions. While elections two and four years from now provide important milestones, the timeframe for the struggle against Trump will depend primarily on the gradual or rapid development of buyer’s remorse – or even a Great Repudiation — in which the American people decide to act decisively to eliminate him.

[1] Thomas B. Edsall, “This Is What You Get When Fear Mixes With Money,” New York Times, April 10, 2024.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/10/opinion/trump-donors-project-
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The post The Four Expectable Axes of MAGA Action first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

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Rich Kowalczyk

Richard (Rich) Kowalczyk was voted to be the first president of AFSCME Local 3599 when it was started in 2018 and continues to serve in that capacity.  Rich had also been active as an executive board member at the chapter level for many years prior to Local 3599 being started.

From mountain tops to city limits, Local 3599 represents over 300 New York City Department of Environmental Protection technical and professional employees who work throughout the upstate communities of the NYC watershed. We are responsible for the critical mission of ensuring the delivery of the world’s most precious resource to the residents and visitors of New York City.

Rich takes pride in ensuring that the brothers and sisters of Local 3599 are represented in any way needed, from the bargaining table to disciplinary hearings, and everything in between.

The post LNS Spotlight: Rich Kowalczyk first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

On February 14, more than 360 government employees and their supporters joined an on-line meeting organized by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Council 238, which represents workers in the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Labor Network for Sustainability. The purpose was to bring together environmental and climate advocates with the workers whose job is to protect the environment and the climate – and who are currently threatened with mass firing by the Trump administration. LNS Director of Strategic Campaigns Sydney Ghazarian explained:

We face an existential risk from the climate crisis. But the Trump administration’s priority is clear: helping corporations do whatever they want no matter the cost. It’s the Environmental Protection Agency that protects us from corporations poisoning our air, our water, and our environment. Every day thousands of dedicated EPA workers are standing up to big business and cleaning up toxic waste, enforcing the Clean Air Act, and facilitating the transition to clean energy.

Joyce Howell, executive vice president of AFGE Council 238, who was an attorney enforcing hazardous waste law, explained that the purpose of mass firings is largely to get money to extend the tax cut for the rich that is about to sunset:

The target that’s been set by DOGE is one-third to one-half reduction in the number of EPA employees. They are looking for a way to pay for a billionaire tax cut. And to do that, they have to offset it with trillions of dollars of cuts in other parts of the budget.

Justin Chen, president of a AFGE Local 1003 representing EPA workers in Texas, is an EPA inspector and enforcement officer working to enforce the Clean Air Act. He portrayed the attack on government workers as an attack on American democracy and the American people:

The EPA, indeed the entirety of the federal Civil Service, basically are public servants, and as servants, basically we serve you. We serve the citizens of this country and it’s under attack by billionaires. It’s very obvious what is going on over here. They basically want to treat the rest of us just as their own playthings, as their servants, returning us back to a way worse time where you had no voice in your democracy.

These attacks on public service mean they just want to privatize everything. They want to make it so that every flow of any amount of money or resources has to go through them, instead of being democratically accountable through your government.

We have a tyrant who is stating, hey, I can do whatever I want to whomever I choose, and I can also refuse service to the citizens of this country. And that’s not the democracy that we built. This is not the democracy that thousands of people have given up their lives for so that we can have the freedoms that we enjoy and the lives that we enjoy and expect for our children.

Ultimately the people that are going to save us are ourselves. We have to rely upon each other, we have to get the word out, and we have to plan and take action. It’s going to be a tough road, but something stronger and more beautiful may come out of this at the end as long as we hold together.

The post LNS Joins AFGE to Fight for Climate Workers first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Photo Credit: https://jacobin.com/2025/02/trump-musk-federal-workers-unionize

Government workers are on the move to fight the MAGA assault on public services and public workers. They need and deserve the support of the entire labor movement and of the public they serve.

On February 19, federal workers and supporters rallied to “Save Our Services” at over 30 “Save our Services” rallies around the country Wednesday, including in New York, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Philadelphia, Denver, Boston, Boise, Chattanooga and Chicago. The rallies were organized by a new group, the Federal Unionists Network (FUN), composed of members of many different unions of federal workers who organized the rallies primarily through phone calls. The rallies were held at federal offices like the Department of Health and Human Services, at Tesla dealerships and public space. Many of the rallies were endorsed by local or national chapters of federal worker unions. Chris Dols, president of IFTPE Local 98 at the Army Corps of Engineers, told a New York rally:

The only way we have out of this is if the federal workforce on the front lines puts out a call to the broader labor movement and enters the streets and makes this a political crisis that they cannot manage.

The FUN was working in collaboration with another new labor network, Labor for Higher Education. Its rally in Philadelphia had 300 participants. At the University of Washington in Seattle, 500 demonstrators backed by Auto Workers Local 4121, the University of Washington Academic Workers, demanded an end to federal cuts and funding freezes for research.

AFGE has been holding rallies with workers marching around their agency buildings in locations around the country. They invite supporters to join them. The union says it had gained more than 20,000 members since January 1. That compares to 7,400 new members in all of 2024.

NBC News reports that:

At events from Georgia and Wisconsin to Oklahoma and Oregon, House Republicans faced sometimes-hostile crowds furious about the sweeping budget cuts and mass firings of federal workers that President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency are carrying out. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/town-halls-republicans-feel-heat-trump-musks-firing-cutting-spree-rcna193164

And on March 4th educators, students, parents and community allies will hold a “Protect Our Kids” day of action against assaults on public education and on opportunity for America’s youth, led by the American Federation of Teachers.

For more information and to connect:

American Federation of Government Employees 

American Federation of Government Employees EPA council

Federal Unionists Network (FUN)

A group of federal workers have created a new website called “We the Builders” to provide a secure outlet to share anonymous stories and technical expertise about the dismantling of government agencies.

For on-going coverage of government worker organizing and action follow Labor Notes.

For a perspective on strategy, see “How Federal Workers Can Defeat Musk’s Coup” by Eric Blanc.

The post A Call to Action: Protect the Workers Who Are Protecting Our Climate first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

By Richard Kowalczyk, AFSCME Local 3599

It’s not just federal employees who protect our environment and our climate. State and local government employees are also part of that protection force – and are similarly under attack. — editor

As a public servant, I am a member of AFSCME Local 3599, the Upstate Environmental Protection Technical and Professional Employees, part of District Council 37 of New York City. Our local’s highly technical and professional members ensure approximately ten million people receive high quality drinking water.

Public service unions are currently under attack from anti-union organizations under Project 2025 initiatives. But without public service, how do we properly run and maintain a water supply, especially with the ever-increased challenges of climate change?

The severe weather that stems from climate change has impacted the work our members do. Our members respond to emergencies, taking water samples under adverse conditions, testing to ensure the water is safe and meets all water quality requirements.

Carbon emissions have increased climate change on a global scale. This has disrupted weather patterns, which has led to extreme weather events, which has negatively affected our drinking water. Too much precipitation coming all at once can stir up suspended particulates and increase nutrients which can lead to biological impacts such as phytoplankton growth, leading to possible cyanobacteria and harmful algae blooms. Droughts lead to less water to draw from. Dry conditions lead to the risk of forest fires that negatively impact the environment, including the water supply.

Our environment is at risk. That risk, if unchecked, will continue to deteriorate and will negatively impact future generations, our children and grandchildren. The way we use fossil fuels is assaulting our planet.

DC37’s motto is “We Run New York” and our workers are the core of providing vital services to millions of people living and visiting NYC. We will continue to step forward and provide vital services to the public, regardless of the continued threats made against us from organizations that do not have the best interests of our neighbors at heart.

The post A Government Environmental Protector Speaks Out first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.