Up against a far worse assault on government and the basic components of democracy than in 2017, an opposition force to Donald Trump and Elon Musk may be cohering.
At a rainy protest in front of Senator Chuck Schumer’s office in midtown Manhattan Thursday, the target could be identified by the chants: “Elon Musk has got to go.” Organized by Indivisible, a volunteer-driven group of progressive Democrats and part of a larger nationwide effort to pressure senators, especially Democrats, to do more to stop Musk, an unelected billionaire, and his unauthorized interference with the very operations of government — probably unprecedented for a private citizen whose specific job in the administration has never been approved by Congress.
After an eerie silence during the first weeks of the second Trump administration, something like “the resistance” feels like it’s slowly coming back to life. And while we are in its earliest days, the effort seems more focused and politically mature, more informed by an understanding that oligarchy is the main enemy of the American people. Gone, thankfully, are the “pussy hats,” the childish name-calling (remember “Orange Man” and “Drumpf”?), and the paranoid anti-Russia conspiracy theories.
This pushback, though so far smaller in scale than at this time during Donald Trump’s first term, has been targeted and savvy in calling attention to the administration’s worst appointments and in its focus on Musk. Jacobin readers might roll their eyes at liberal groups like Indivisible, but they are the ones doing the work of opposition right now. And they’re not letting Democrats off the hook.
“Chuck Schumer, grow a spine,” the Midtown protesters threatened. “We won’t vote for you next time.”
As one of the signs at the Midtown protest pointed out, “No one voted 4 Musk,” and he isn’t popular. Democratic polling, even before his recent antics, found over half the population viewing him unfavorably. That anti-Musk sentiment is growing and is not limited to fervid MSNBC watchers.
At times, even many supporters of the MAGA movement have resented the condescension reflected in his comments on immigration, in which he implied that American workers weren’t good enough for tech firms to “keep winning” without the H-1B visas and invited anyone who disagreed with him to “F–K YOURSELF in the face.” His incursions into government are also troubling to many Republicans. Just after Trump’s election, 47 percent of Republicans wanted Musk to have “a lot” of influence in Trump’s White House; according to a poll taken this week, that number has tumbled to 26 percent.
As the richest man in the world assaults the US government without our consent, we must recognize the situation as class war from above — and fight back. His visible and concerted project of destroying that government while flouting basic legal and democratic controls on his power is a brazen insult to the country. Fighting Musk and getting him out of the government should be a top priority for every left-of-center citizen and organization in America right now.
Indivisible has been the most organized nationwide group. But equally crucial are federal workers who have been sharing information with the public, rallying to call attention to the abuses like Musk’s unauthorized access to Treasury Department data and picketing and at times preventing Musk minions from entering buildings.
Other unions rightly focused on Trump’s abrupt disabling of the National Labor Relations Board. But they are starting to respond to the larger situation. The AFL-CIO has created the “Department of People Who Work for a Living,” organizing a response to Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE).
The labor movement is right to move quickly on this, and all socialists should join them, union members or not. The Musk takeover is a wholesale assault on the working class and anyone who is not a billionaire. That such a takeover could happen at all shows how deeply our system has been captured by the capitalist class and is a potentially fruitful point of attack against a president who is trying to portray himself and his party as fighting for workers.
Initially, the flailing of the national Democratic leadership was remarkable (although some on the Left like socialist congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been leading from the beginning). Despite pressure even from Democratic governors to do more to resist, Schumer made bewilderingly weak statements like, “We are picking the most important fights and laying down on the train tracks for those fights,” a strategy I’m calling the Anna Karenina approach to politics (after Leo Tolstoy’s unfortunate character who, spoiler alert, does not survive this move). And most of Trump’s nominees were being approved with bipartisan support.
But the protests by Indivisible and federal workers do seem to be helping the Democrats to find their footing. They have filed lawsuits to stop Musk. By Tuesday, even Schumer declared that Democrats should oppose all of Trump’s appointments. Democrats have also been rallying in front of the relevant offices, and a few have publicly shown the extent of Musk’s coup by demanding to enter government buildings that he’s taken over.
Senator Ed Markey, who authored the Green New Deal with AOC in 2019, went to the Environmental Protection Agency — where a thousand employees received a threatening letter this week suggesting that they could be fired — to demand a meeting with Musk’s minions. The sitting senator was turned away and has been making strong public statements: “No business as usual. No votes for nominees. No illegal funding freeze. No workers left behind.”
On Friday, Congressman Maxwell Frost and several dozen other members of Congress attempted to enter the Department of Education and were also prevented by armed federal officers. Frost wrote in a letter to supporters that day, “I’m not going to put up with this fascist b.s., and you shouldn’t either.” These confrontations show seriousness by elected officials, especially if they continue. They can disrupt and impede the work of Musk and his boys, while also exposing DOGE’s antidemocratic nature and shady intentions. After all, what is Musk hiding?
It’s good that the resistance is more disciplined and focused this time, because this Trump administration is already far worse than the last one. Musk is preventing actual elected officials and employees from entering federal buildings. He is interfering with the distribution of federal funding in countless areas, including federal funding for Lutheran organizations that provide services to the poor and many Head Start programs. It is disturbingly unclear what he and his team are doing at the Department of Veterans Affairs and many other agencies that directly provide help to Americans every day.
And while it’s hard to distinguish between Trump and Musk, it’s clear that even without Musk, Trump’s agenda is much more dangerous this time. He has already reversed many of Joe Biden’s climate policies and is working to eliminate the Department of Education and eviscerate the Environmental Protection Agency beyond recognition. If you hate cancer research and public schools but love toxic chemicals, poverty, and sickness, you’re going to love this government.
Musk himself seems to be getting a bit unsettled. It’s clear that the narcissistic billionaire wasn’t expecting much public objection, if he had considered its possibility at all. He fired — and then reinstated — a member of his team over the revelation of overtly racist social media posts (despite the fact that he has made many of his own). After a rally and lawsuit by labor unions on Wednesday, he moved a meeting of his minions from in person to virtual, the AFL-CIO said.
Progressive Democratic leaders, thankfully, seem to smell blood in the water and held a press conference yesterday with a sign that read “FIRE. ELON. MUSK.” If the protests continue and Democrats keep escalating, Trump may become weary and envious of all the attention Musk is getting. Trump may also resent the implication that he isn’t in control of his own government. The opposition should play on his vulnerabilities and press him on this point as much as possible.
The situation is dire, but as AOC has been reminding her followers, there are more of us (the working class) than of them (billionaires). Musk is a broadly uniting enemy, and the networks of opposition that people are building now can aid in fighting more of the next four years’ horrors.
In Midtown Thursday, most bystanders walked by without slowing their pace. The weather was unpleasant, and it’s not friendly turf for the workers’ side of the class war. But one man stopped, curious, and asked what the protest was about. “We’re trying to stop Elon Musk from taking over our government,” I replied. He paused to consider the goal and answered pessimistically but without sarcasm: “Good luck with that.”