Blockade
Week of December 12-18, 2025
Welcome to TRACKING THE CRISIS, a weekly round-up from The Democracy Collaborative tracking the administrative, legislative, and other actions of the Trump Administration as well as the many forms of legal and movement response from across a broad range of social, political, and economic actors. TDC is providing this service for collective informational purposes, as a tool for understanding the times during a period of disorientingly rapid flux and change in the U.S. political economy. TDC should not be understood as endorsing or otherwise any of the specific content of the information round-up.
TRUMP TRACKER: Administration actions
Trump Administration escalates Venezuela military confrontation with ‘complete blockade’ on oil tankers; follows War on Terror script by designating fentanyl as WMD. On Tuesday, December 16, Trump posted on Truth Social ordering a ‘complete blockade’ of sanctioned oil tankers leaving Venezuela. The partial blockade – only targeting ‘ghost ships’ carrying ‘black-market’ oil shipments – aims to turn the economic screws on Maduro by cutting off the clandestine revenue that has been a safety net for the sanctioned government. In a Truth Social post Tuesday, Trump announced his intent to designate the Maduro regime as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization’, adding the demand that Venezuela “return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.” Trump doubled down on his claim as he spoke to reporters, saying: “You remember they took all of our energy rights. They took all of our oil not that long ago, and we want it back” – a reference to Venezuela’s nationalization of its own oil reserves in the 1970s, which expanded under Chavez in the early 2000s. Most of Venezuela’s oil fields have been managed for the last half-century by state oil company PDVSA; U.S. oil company Chevron continues to operate its oil fields unperturbed under an output-sharing agreement with PDVSA and a special exemption from U.S. sanctions granted in 2022. On Tuesday and Wednesday, three non-sanctioned ships carrying petroleum products departed Venezuelan ports flanked by a naval military escort as PDVSA asserted the “legitimate exercise of their right to navigation.” The escort “took Pentagon officials by surprise”; top brass “scrambled to figure out the U.S. military’s role” as sanctions enforcement is generally left to law enforcement agencies like the DEA and Coast Guard (under DHS). White House chief of staff Susie Wiles told Vanity Fair that Trump’s intent was simply “to keep blowing up boats until Maduro cries uncle”; another official close to the White House said the escalation was an "opportunistic that became systematic” decision. The blockade moved sanctions beyond the more legally defensible realm of “nonviolent economic coercion,” posing a riskier “alternative scenario” where an open confrontation with the Venezuelan navy could be interpreted as an illegal ‘act of aggression’ under international law.
Trump’s emphasis on ‘lost’ U.S. claims to Venezuela’s sovereign resources underscored widespread speculation that his months-long campaign against ‘narco-terrorists’ that has claimed 99 lives so far was really about oil and regime change. Stephen Miller echoed the claim that “Venezuelan oil belongs to the U.S.” given that U.S. oil companies originally ‘created’ the industry. Taking a page from George W. Bush’s Iraq War playbook, Trump also officially designated fentanyl as a “Weapon of Mass Destruction” (WMD) on Monday, citing the roughly 48,000 American lives lost to fentanyl overdoses last year as a pretext for military action. Also true to the Iraq War parallel, no actual evidence of fentanyl coming from Venezuela has been found – not on any of the 26 boats destroyed by U.S. military forces since September, nor in any of the 19 drug seizures made by the Coast Guard and DEA in the Caribbean over the last year; DEA and DHS data show that over 90 percent of fentanyl is manufactured in northern Mexico and smuggled over the southern border. A Democrat-led War Powers resolution aimed at stopping Trump’s march to war narrowly failed in the House on Wednesday, but two Republicans crossed the aisle to vote for the resolution, including Rep. Thomas Massie, who denounced Trump’s attempts to drag the United States into yet another illegitimate war for regime change, citing past failures in Iraq and Libya and insisting that “Congress should vote before American lives and treasure are spent on regime change in South America.”
Trump repeated his insistence that land strikes in Venezuela will commence ‘very soon’, which, according to CNN, is the 17th time he has said so since September. Even as he said Maduro’s “days are numbered,” interviews with other officials and lawmakers suggested that finding the Trump version of a ‘coalition of the willing’ may be easier said than done. Even after the largest U.S. military buildup the Caribbean has seen in a generation, no sizeable ground force stands ready to be mobilized in the region; and doing so would entail significant logistical challenges. Officials close to the White House admitted that the threats are “a designed strategy to pressure Maduro to leave,” based on a “collective belief that Trump’s rhetoric – bolstered by his sudden bombing of the Iranian nuclear program this summer – could be enough to convince Maduro to step down.” Politico reports on the Trump Administration’s efforts to engage U.S. oil companies offering a return to Venezuela, which have so far encountered hard “no”s from the industry which sees little profit and too much risk given the current low price of oil. Truthout reports that Venezuelans opposed to Maduro will not back regime change engineered by the United States. Trump’s claim to the oil reportedly set off nationalistic reactions among Venezuelans that transcend political division, with many “non-Chavistas and anti-Chavistas” now signing up to join local defense militias.Latin America, and Venezuela in particular, is hardly a stranger to U.S. interventionism; military analysts have warned that although Venezuela lacks the capacity for ‘conventional deterrence’ against the United States, the depth and embeddedness of civilian-military defense structures established through Plan Zamora, ideologically rooted in anti-colonial struggle, suggest that Venezuela “retains enough asymmetric capacity to make any foreign intervention prolonged, costly, and politically fraught.” Popular organizations reiterated their vows to resist in the face of this week’s escalation, and the unity of Bolivarian forces, forged through successive fights to fend off multiple U.S. intervention attempts in the years since the two-day coup against Chavez in 2002, appears to have remained intact. Venezuelan Defense Minister Padrino Lopez delivered a speech that ripped Trump’s ‘delirious’ claims that Venezuela ‘stole’ its own oil from U.S. companies, and vowed to ‘defend the homeland at any cost’, reiterating the official position that U.S. seizures of sanctioned oil tankers amounted to “piracy.” Maduro condemned Trump’s “warmongering and colonialist pretense,” and said U.S. ambitions to “install a puppet government in Caracas” and turn Venezuela “into a colony” will “simply never happen.”
Some observers have pointed to reasons beyond oil for the recent belligerence against Venezuela. Trump’s National Security Strategy, released last week, signaled a major shift in the United States’ geopolitical approach as he pulled back from hotspots like the Middle East and South China Sea in favor of securing the immediate ‘neighborhood’ of the Americas as a coherent sphere of influence in the Western hemisphere. Journalists have labeled it the “Donroe Doctrine” for its resemblance to the Monroe Doctrine of the nineteenth century; and at the heart of the NSS is a pledge to “assert and enforce a ‘Trump corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine” – seeking to dominate the Western Hemisphere and declare it ‘off limits’ to powers from further abroad, but in a way that allows the United States to coexist as a ‘great power’ with Russia and China in their own “garrisoned spheres of influence.” Given MAGA’s other priorities to keep America First and immigrants out, Trump’s vision appears less imperial per se and more along a uniquely Trumpian line that treats Southern governments as more like a collection of vassal states: one where he envisions rewarding friends with U.S. contracts and trade aimed at securing energy supply and reindustrialization capacity for the United States; and on the other hand, making a big show of punishing his enemies with military might. Also in the mix is Marco Rubio, for whom, like other anticommunist hawks, the fall of Cuba is his ultimate prize; his goals can align with Trump goals as well as methods of intervention and regime change insofar as it plays out in a kind of regional ‘domino theory’ process, wherein the United States systematically defeats Left governments and encircles Cuba with compliant and conservative-aligned regimes.
Stephen Miller quotes McCarthy as FBI watchlists of ‘Antifa’-related ‘domestic terrorist’ organizations, activists submitted to Bondi; Trump Administration ‘won’t rule out’ drone strike assassinations on domestic targets. Thursday, December 18 marked the first ‘deadline’ – set forth in Pam Bondi’s Justice Department memo to over 200 FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces that was leaked earlier this month – for federal law enforcement agencies to ‘coordinate delivery’ of intelligence files related to ‘Antifa’ and ‘Antifa’-related activities to the FBI. Bondi has directed the agency to create ‘watchlists’ that will identify a broad array of left-wing and left-leaning activists, organizations, and foreign nationals as targets for investigation into anything the Administration views as ‘threats of political violence’ coming from the left. According to the National Security memo (NSPM-7) released in late September, this could include any person or organization that espouses one or more beliefs identified as potential ‘indicators’ of terrorism, including “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism,” “anti-Christianity,” “opposition to law and immigration enforcement,” “radical gender ideology,” and “hostility toward traditional views on family, religion, and morality,” which could implicate up to half of the U.S. population based on opinion polls. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who appears to have an unusually broad spectrum of powers at his disposal to actualize Trump’s domestic agenda, has also suggested that using ‘heated’ rhetoric such as “fascist” or “authoritarian” to describe Trump and/or his supporters could be construed as tantamount to ‘domestic terrorism’, and trigger an investigation by agents of the well-funded, secretive, AI-powered, multiagency counterterrorism security apparatus that could not possibly give anyone the impression of being anything other than the normal law enforcement arm of a free and democratic state.
On Monday, December 15, Miller made an announcement on X that revived the McCarthy-era term “fifth column” to describe the networks of “violent domestic terrorists clandestinely operating inside the United States” that federal law enforcement agencies have now been ‘unleashed’ to root out and dismantle. Bondi has given guidance for counterterrorism task forces to utilize the new ‘cash reward system’ for public informants with a particular focus on transgender people and/or “promoters of radical gender ideology.” After rumors proliferated online about the transgender identity of the roommate of Tyler Robinson, Charlie Kirk’s assassin, the FBI announced plans to classify transgender people under a special domestic threat category called “Nihilistic Violent Extremists” or NVEs, which is a slight variation on the threat category “TIVE (Transgender Ideology Violent Extremist)” proposed by the Heritage Foundation in Project 2025. Bondi has reportedly directed Joint Terrorism Task Forces to utilize the cash reward system to offer bounties for this particular category of ‘extremists.’ According to the Intercept, the White House has refused to ‘rule out’ summary executions of domestic targets, akin to the drone killings of over 100 ‘alleged’ drug smugglers in the Caribbean or the threats Trump made against six Democratic lawmakers last month. In a candid admission before the Senate Armed Services Committee this week, Gen. Gregory Guillot of U.S. Northern Command, commander of the arm of the U.S. military responsible for President Donald Trump’s illegal military occupations of American cities, said he is willing to conduct attacks on so-called designated terrorist organizations within the United States. Meanwhile, FBI National Security Director Michael Glasheen appeared before Black Caucus members of the Homeland Security Committee last Friday, ‘utterly embarrassing’ himself as he sat slack-jawed and unable to answer simple questions about ‘Antifa’ posed by Rep. Bennie Thompson to prove that such an ‘organization’ existed, like “where is it located?” and “how many members are there?
Activists and Trump opponents are already getting a glimpse into how such an apparatus will operate. Federal authorities announced on Monday that they had foiled plans for a New Year’s Eve bomb attack by four members of Los Angeles-based “anti-capitalist and anti-government group” Turtle Island Liberation Front, who were charged Monday with conspiracy and possession of an unlawful explosive device. No one in the group has any priors and few details on the case are available at this time, but FBI officials touted the bust on social media as emblematic of their new mission to “Protect the Homeland and Crush Violent Crime.” However, the Intercept reports that the case against the four young activists rests almost entirely on the testimony of two undercover FBI agents who participated, assisted and advised the group at multiple points in the plot, invoking echoes of COINTELPRO and raising questions about entrapment. The National Lawyers Guild raised alarms this week regarding the case of four Dallas activists labeled by DHS as belonging to a “North Texas ‘antifa’ cell.” Arrested over the summer following the shooting of a police officer at a Dallas ICE facility, they were the first to be charged under the new domestic terrorism law. Lawyers for the four defendants say that during the ongoing proceedings, prosecutors have “sought to create a criminal enterprise” among separate individuals who were not involved in the shooting, or with each other at the time. One of the defendants, Daniel Sanchez, was not even present at the protest, but simply drove his wife to and from the protest; he was arrested days later for having anarchist literature in his car. NLG Director for Mass Defense Javier de Janon warned that “It should concern everyone else in the country, because their community, their circles, might be next… this precedent could result in people facing terrorism charges for doing very simple mainstream activism.” An AP survey of 100 people charged with felony assault against federal agents during anti-ICE protests in four major Democratic cities found that 55 ended up having their charges either lowered to a misdemeanor or dismissed outright; and another 23 were able to plead out with little to no jail time.FBI documents obtained this week by the Guardian reveal that it has launched extensive ‘criminal and terrorism’ investigations into the widespread anti-ICE movement, having established operations in 23 regions across the United States. According to the document, small incidents of property damage have been the norm so far, but note that recent incidents may indicate an ‘escalation in violence’. The report also outlined general factors that flag individuals for investigation, among which is “discussing ICE” on encrypted apps like Signal, “stockpiling or distributing firearms” and also “conducting online research” about agents. Earlier this month, the FBI received a directive to expand the definition of ‘terrorism’ to include ‘doxing’ and/or ‘impeding’ federal immigration or law enforcement officers. Court proceedings in New York reveal that an FBI agent had hacked into the Signal chats of “courtwatch” protestors escorting and protecting migrants at court appearances, which in many places has resulted in tense moments between the community and ICE. A U.S. citizen detained by ICE reported that a biometric scan was performed on him, suggesting that the highly powerful but opaque and largely unaccountable Mobile Fortify surveillance infrastructure is at a functional stage. Privacy advocates said the document confirmed their fears that the NSPM-7 document would be used to crack down on dissent. An ACLU advocate opined that “[The FBI document] is infused with vague and overbroad language, which was exactly our concern about NSPM-7 in the first place… People who are entirely innocent of any wrongdoing can be subjected to surveillance or investigation. That imposes stigma. It can wrongly [enmesh] people in the criminal legal system.”
Congresswoman Ilhan Omar struck out at ICE over the weekend, delivering a letter to DHS saying her son was racially profiled and pulled over by ICE agents on the way to the store last Saturday. DHS denied the incident on Tuesday in a post on X accusing Rep. Omar of a ‘publicity stunt.’ The Guardian ran a profile of Omar this week, who discusses Trump’s “unhealthy and creepy obsession” with her and the Somali people, and reveals the added peril of being in Washington as a Black and Muslim Democratic member of Congress in the Trump era: Out of the over 9,400 threats and concerning statements received by members of Congress this year – a rate that has more than doubled since the first Trump era – Omar has received the highest number of death threats of any politician on the Hill. Noting that threats dropped to “almost zero” when Biden was president, Omar sees a “clear correlation between his presidency and the political violence that we see and the political danger that a lot of members of Congress and electeds feel across the country.” Despite reports of an increase in incidents of political violence attributed to the left in 2025, the vast majority of political violence acts committed over the last 20 years have come from the right.
Trump Administration expands travel ban, issues ‘denaturalization’ plan for foreign-born U.S citizens with a goal to revoke citizenship from 100-200 immigrants per month. The Trump Administration expanded its travel ban to 39 countries this week, including Laos, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan and Syria in the latest round. It also included partial restrictions for 15 more countries: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Dominica, Gabon, The Gambia, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Tonga, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The Trump administration also moved to bar travel for immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, international adoptions, and travel for Afghan nationals in general, giving no explanation at all for its decision. In support of banning U.S. citizens from obtaining visas for their children, spouses, and parents, President Trump declared that, “Familial ties can serve… as unique vectors for fraudulent, criminal, or even terrorist activity through means such as the domestic or international financing of such activity,” and therefore family of U.S. citizens should not be exempted from broad visa bans.
Immigration authorities also began implementing “an aggressive new phase” in the Trump Administration’s immigration crackdown this week, implementing plans to strip naturalized U.S. citizens of citizenship. Guidance issued to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on Tuesday, December 16 asked that the service begin “supplying the Office of Immigration Litigation” with a quota of at least 100-200 cases per month. (For comparison, only 120 such cases were processed in the 8 years between 2017 and 2025.) Legal experts, as well as USCIS officials, doubt that such a feat will be possible, as denaturalization cases are quite lengthy, requiring a full civil or criminal trial and ruling from a federal court, and are held to a very high standard of proof. Newsweek revealed that the administration began exploring if it had the legal authority to strip citizenship after two National Guard servicemembers were shot by an Afghan national and ex-CIA asset last month. USCIS can initiate denaturalization procedures in cases of fraud or false information, but legal experts say the president does not have the power to strip citizenship on his own, and others say the way in which the White House wants to proceed will likely violate their constitutional rights. Denaturalization is only available via court order, and the individual involved must have full due process; and immigrant status tends to revert to permanent resident status after denaturalization and does not generally warrant deportation. The Brennan Center for Justice reviews the notorious early decades of the 20th century, when denaturalization was used as a weapon to expel an estimated 22,000 foreign-born citizens for their political affiliation, race, or gender between 1907 and 1967; including the high-profile denaturalization cases of radical movement leaders such as Emma Goldman and Harry Bridges. Denaturalization reached a peak during the Red Scare of the 1940s and 1950s; widespread abuses of the practice during this time period eventually led to the Supreme Court determination that revoking citizenship without a person’s consent violated their 14th Amendment rights, imposing the current restrictions in 1967.The Justice Department plans to ‘maximally pursue’ criminal cases first, such as gang affiliation, drug or violent crimes, and then move on to cases of fraud and misrepresentation. Immigrant rights groups are sounding the alarm, saying that “requiring monthly quotas that are 10 times higher than the total annual number of denaturalizations in recent years turns a serious and rare tool into a blunt instrument and fuels unnecessary fear and uncertainty for the millions of naturalized Americans.” Others wonder if the bureaucratic process matters, and if “sowing fear and terror” among immigrant communities is the point. It is of note that Sebastian Gorka, currently the Trump Administration’s Senior Director for Counterterrorism, is a Hungarian national that has documented ties to Hungarian neo-Nazi organization Historical Vitézi Rend, a reconstituted version of the WWII-era antisemitic Nazi collaborator group whose members are classified as inadmissible to the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act. Gorka, who also served Trump in his first term, was accused in 2017 of having lied about membership in the group on his immigration application, prompting 55 House members to call for his resignation. Gorka appeared on TV this week to defend the expansion of Trump’s travel ban, as well as the executive order Trump signed last week designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
House Republicans pass healthcare bill without extending ACA subsidies as GOP moderates revolt. The clock officially ran out this week on any hope of avoiding a dramatic spike in Obamacare premiums after ACA subsidies expire on December 31st. Speaker Johnson sent the House into holiday recess Friday without a solution on subsidies after Republicans narrowly passed their own proposal along party lines. The GOP bill, which has been characterized as a ‘greatest hits collection’ of Republican wishlist items, purports to offer a ‘solution’ to lowering premiums mainly through provisions allowing small businesses and the self-employed to ‘band together’ on group plans and take advantage of bulk discounts, and providing ‘cost-sharing subsidies’ to lower-income people on the benchmark Silver plan, lowering their premiums (which will still double from current rates after the 1st) by 11 percent. The bill also implements new pricing transparency requirements for drug makers, and codifies the ‘choice accounts’ model introduced during the first Trump administration which allows employers to provide tax-free healthcare stipends to employees to help with costs. The CBO estimates that the new rates under the GOP bill would result in 100,000 more uninsured Americans per year over the next decade. Johnson continued to rebuff attempts to address ACA subsidies before the deadline, at times devolving into shouting matches with his fellow party members behind closed doors. Ultimately, Johnson could not contain a ‘revolt’ from four GOP moderates – all from swing districts and facing tough headwinds in the midterms – who broke with party leadership, invoking the ‘nuclear option’ to force a vote on a three-year extension by providing the final signatures on Hakeem Jeffries’ discharge petition. The petition now triggers a seven-day timeline before a vote is held; Jeffries implored Johnson to keep the House in session until Christmas Eve, when a vote could be actualized. Johnson elected to send the House home for the holidays after session on Thursday, December 18, delaying the vote until after the chamber reconvenes on January 6th.
What this means for the 22 million Americans enrolled in ACA Marketplace healthcare plans depends on their income: lower-income people (>$23,000 per year) will receive a modest subsidy, going from full subsidy to paying around $40-66 per month; people earning between $23,000 to $63,000 will see their premium go up by anywhere from $70-$100 or more on a silver plan; and those earning above $63,000 will lose subsidies altogether and will see premiums increase by as much as $500 for someone around age 40 earning the median wage of $84,500, and by as much as $1,000 or more for someone around age 60. Some older enrollees making around the median wage could expect to pay up to $24,000 more for health insurance next year. The rates are locked in for the entire calendar year after enrollment closes on December 31st, so any modifications made by a January vote will have to take effect in 2027. The CBO estimates that as many as 4.3 million Americans could go uninsured as a result of the spike in premium rates, as people choose to forego healthcare in order to meet other basic needs. The House goes into recess bitterly divided over the vote; Sen. Mark Kelly likened the delay to “the Administration giving a middle finger to the American people,” and Rep. Chip Roy trashed his own party’s bill as ‘milquetoast garbage.’ Democrats spent the time hammering home the messaging that placed blame for the higher prices squarely on the shoulders of Republicans whose categorical opposition to Obamacare could end up being a political liability in 2026.
House GOP, Trump Administration releases blitz of new regulations criminalizing gender-affirming care for transgender minors; RFK Jr. cuts children’s health funding after row with American Association of Pediatrics. House Republicans also passed two measures this week criminalizing providers and parents who provide gender-affirming care to transgender youth under 18. The first bill, passed on Wednesday and introduced by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in one of her final acts as a U.S. legislator, makes providing gender-affirming care to minors a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Three Democrats – Henry Cuellar (TX), Vicente Gonzalez (TX), and Don Davis (NC) – voted with Republicans to get the bill over the line. The second bill, introduced by Rep. Dan Crenshaw and passed on Thursday, bans the use of Medicaid dollars to fund gender-affirming care for youth under 18. The bills are considered unlikely to pass the Senate, where 7 Democrat defections will be needed to pass them. The Trump Administration and HHS introduced additional punitive rules on Thursday that would “eject medical providers from major federal health insurance programs if they provide services including hormone therapy or procedures such as mastectomies to children and teenagers.” The FDA also sent warning letters this week to manufacturers of chest-binding materials, accusing them of ‘illegally’ marketing the breast-reduction garment to children. The proposed rules also ban the use of Medicaid and CHIP to fund gender-affirming procedures, and threaten to pull Medicare/Medicaid funding from any hospital that provides gender-affirming care to youth as a means of forcing hospitals nationwide to stop the practice altogether. Nearly every hospital depends on Medicare/Medicaid funding to operate; administrators say the rules would be a ‘death sentence’ for any hospital even suspected of providing such care, and amounts to an effective ban on gender-affirming care for youth nationwide.
The barrage of anti-trans rules, coming right before the holidays, outraged trans advocates and families who slammed the bills as “dangerous” for trans youth, whose suicide rates are more than double that of their cisgender peers. An NIH report estimates up to 82% of trans children under 18 have contemplated suicide at least once, and at least half have “seriously” considered ending their own lives. The ACLU vowed legal challenges to the new rules as well as the House bills if they pass, calling Greene’s criminalization bill “the most extreme anti-trans legislation ever considered by Congress.” New York Attorney General Letitia James, fresh from her own victory against the Trump Administration, vowed to “use every tool at my disposal to fight this proposal and protect transgender Americans and their families.” Rep. Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender member of Congress, blasted House Republicans for scheduling two votes on anti-trans bills while avoiding ACA, upbraiding them for focusing energy on “a misunderstood and vulnerable 1% of the population instead of focusing in on the fact that they are raiding everyone’s health care in order to pay for tax breaks for the wealthiest 1%.” She called out the fact that “all Republican politicians care about is making the rich richer and attacking trans people. They are obsessed with trans people,” and disclosed that she – knowing some of her fellow Democrats might ‘betray’ trans consituents – quietly lobbied moderate Republicans to break with their party and oppose the legislation.Some of the strongest pushback came from professional medical organizations such as the American Psychological Association, who expressed their concern in a statement that the new rules will potentially jeopardize the human rights, psychological health, and well-being of transgender and nonbinary individuals," and the Children’s Hospital Association, whose CEO said the rules set a dangerous precedent that politicizes care in a way that would “make it possible for all kinds of specialized health care treatments to be withheld based on government-mandated rules." The 67,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics said the policies “misconstrue the current medical consensus and fail to reflect the realities of pediatric care and the needs of children and families," and on Thursday called on RFK Jr. and Dr. Oz to reverse course on the rules. AAP president Dr. Susan Kressly warned that “allowing the government to determine which patient groups deserve care sets a dangerous precedent, and children and families will bear the consequences.” RFK Jr. pushed back on the AAP, calling the association’s support for trans youth “malpractice.” On Wednesday, HHS, which clashed with AAP several times this year over its new stance on vaccines, abruptly canceled several multi-million dollar research grants awarded to the American Academy of Pediatrics, including funding for research into sudden infant death syndrome, fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, and early detection of autism along with other unrelated yet vital children’s health issues, saying the awards “no longer align with the department’s mission and priorities.” AAP chief executive Mark del Monte condemned the arbitrary withdrawal of funding, saying the “sudden withdrawal of these funds will directly impact and potentially harm infants, children, youth, and their families in communities across the United States,” and indicated that AAP was looking into mounting a legal challenge against the cuts.
MOVEMENT TRACKER
Towards a general profile of ‘latter-day Cassandras’ who saw fascism coming, and the liberal ‘anti-alarmism culture’ that silenced them. This week, the New Republic profiles what they call ‘latter-day Cassandras’ – activists who saw the signs of fascism coming on as early as 2015, but had been dismissed or ignored until the problem grew too big to ignore. The article surveyed 37 people, nearly all within the Democratic base, and noted several patterns among those who ‘saw it coming’: they were mostly women, more likely than not to be Black, more likely than not to be trans, nonbinary or gender nonconforming, and – even if they currently lived in a big city – had lived or spent significant time in rural conservative areas. There were a variety of income levels and professions, and a full spectrum of personality types. But universally, all the ‘Cassandras’ interviewed had a strong sense of their own values. Also nearly universal was the ability to recognize the manipulative dynamics of Trump’s speech and behavior, and observing people’s reactions to him led them to take what was happening more seriously even when others dismissed it as a distraction. Because many respondents were women, their warnings about the political trajectory were either dismissed, or actively maligned by media institutions and people who found their warnings “annoying” or “alarmist.” The article explores the elements of “anti-alarmism culture” in centrist and liberal spaces that associated civility with authority, and urgency as hysteria. People “heard the ‘Cassandra song’, coded it as ‘female’ and ‘annoying’, and dismissed it on that basis.” It is a fascinating exploration of a particular social ‘blind spot’ in American political culture that, in various ways, risks letting fascism get inside the door.
Gregory Bovino returns to Chicago; communities mobilize in response. After a week of conducting immigration raids in New Orleans, Gregory Bovino returned to Chicago this week with 200 Border Patrol agents in tow, putting the city back on high alert as residents grabbed their whistles, turned on their cameras and Signal chats, and mobilized quickly to meet them with resistance. After six months of sustained confrontation and resistance, one Chicago organizer said “we never stopped being ready.” Evanston mayor Daniel Biss confronted Bovino at a gas station after they detained a man on the street, resulting in a tense standoff when Bovino refused to acknowledge city rules. Mayor Brandon Johnson blasted Bovino for lying about having received assistance from Chicago PD after Bovino tweeted thanking the Chicago and Evanston police departments for helping them “with the mobs.” (Per an emergency order signed by Johnson several months ago, police are prohibited from assisting federal immigration agents.) Bovino left Chicago on Thursday as suddenly as he had come back, leaving residents puzzled and relieved. Reuters reports on how student journalists at Loyola University have developed a unique ‘pin system’ for verifying and tracking ICE raids.
The week in anti-ICE movements. In Louisiana, protests erupted across the state on Saturday, December 13 in reaction to the ‘indiscriminate’ nature of the raids as community members got ‘fed up’ with being racially profiled. On Tuesday, December 16, 42 San Francisco activists and faith leaders were arrested after chaining themselves to the door of the ICE office in downtown. TIME profiles how the ‘No Sleep for ICE’ tactic, a move pioneered in Los Angeles where crowds would gather outside a hotel where ICE officers were staying and make noise all night long to disturb their sleep, is being adopted in cities across the country, including in Minneapolis. The City of Denver rejected a contract with Key Lime Air, a budget airline that was found to be contracting with ICE. Street art in New York shows the Statue of Liberty being arrested by ICE. Portland high school students staged a walkout at Lincoln High School, marching downtown to protest deaths in custody. More high school student walkouts were reported in Apple Valley, MI and on the 252nd anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, over a thousand people rallied downtown and dumped ice in the harbor, making connections between the Revolutionary War and today’s resistance. Mother Jones describes what it’s like to wake up in an organized neighborhood that utilizes the power of sound – whistles, car horns – to alert the neighborhood and meet ICE raids with deafening sounds. A Los Angeles truck driver who was accused of towing an SUV during the ICE raids in June was found not guilty by a jury; one of a string of victories in the courts against ICE overreach. A coalition of immigrant rights groups rallied outside the San Bernardino ICE facility for International Migrant’s Day to call attention to human rights issues within the facility.
State/local mutual aid, resilience, and resistance. Right-to-repair advocate Fulu (Freedom from Unethical Limitations on Users) has launched a program that offers cash ‘bounties’ to people who are able to crack proprietary hardware or software on common electronics – usually included to enforce planned obsolescence — to allow the user to repair it themselves or even invent “unsanctioned device modifications’ to improve the device. The group offers an incentive for people to learn how to fix, restore, and improve everything from iPhones to Nest cameras and HVAC filters. In Washington, Cascadia Journal has posted a mutual aid link for anyone who would like to help communities after heavy flooding hit the whole region. Many states, even deep-red ones, are quietly bucking the Trump agenda through legislative means. 22 states will be raising their minimum wage in 2026; and 11 states are implementing disaster resilience programs that either replace FEMA programs that were cut this year, or provide redundant services in the event of federal delays. Several states are enacting policies to protect immigrants, including provisions for data privacy, access to legal services and local law enforcement policies that explicitly ban them from cooperating with ICE. Trump and the Treasury Department are pressuring states to enact a slew of tax cuts for individuals, tips and businesses that conform to the big beautiful bill’s overall agenda; but several states have actually passed measures to block the BBB’s corporate tax breaks within their states.
#TeslaTakedown takes on the fight to save online free speech. The Tesla Takedown movement is now espousing a new cause to determine the fate of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, Known as the “First Amendment of the Internet,” Section 230 was passed in the 90s during the early days of the internet, intended to shield startup tech companies from liability over third-party user generated content, which in turn protected the free speech on large social media platforms. As legislation over sunsetting Section 230 makes its way through the House, activists warn that Democrats are largely in favor of repealing Section 230, as they think it could make Big Tech more liable and careful for allowing certain types of content. Activists argue that if companies were made to be liable, they would more likely censor the user’s speech than risk liability, which works to chill free speech on platforms and leave the arbitrary regulation of internet speech up to people like Mark Zuckerberg, who would “bend the knee to the Trump administration and delete people and posts as he sees fit – or else, allow violent threats and intimidation against activists like us to rain down with no repercussions.” Tesla Takedown activists are calling on Democrats to reconsider sunsetting the measure and hold Big Tech accountable at the same time.
Upcoming Protests, Actions, and Events.
Columbus, Ohio area: Community organizers are making a call out for area residents to help defend against ICE as a wave of raids have come to the city. More information can be found on the Columbus 50501 Bluesky account.
December 18-24: The Mass Blackout Coalition has announced a “Seven Days of Givemas” campaign challenging participants to commit to one mutual aid practice per day over the seven day period before Christmas. Several resources and a primer on mutual aid can be found on their website, including an ‘Acts of Solidarity Wheel’ to help people decide which practice they can do for each day.
Tuesday, January 20: The Women’s March is calling for people and communities to stage mass walkouts from work or school to “walk out on fascism and toward a free America.” More information and a pledge form can be found on Mobilize.
Tuesday, February 17: FLARE and the Citizens Impeachment Coalition are organizing a National Day of Action to coordinate mass in-district lobbying at the district offices of all 435 members of Congress and 100 Senators to demand impeachment proceedings be brought against Donald Trump. Organizations interested in leading a lobbying action in their district can sign on to the Citizens Impeachment Coalition at this link.
Note to Readers on our Holiday Schedule: Tracking the Crisis will not be publishing next week, Friday December 26. Instead, we will have a double issue the following week, Friday, January 2, 2026.
