Shutdown
Week of September 26-October 2, 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
Military top brass summoned to ‘urgent’ meeting sit in silence as Hegseth attacks ‘fat troops’ and ‘woke’ ideology, Trump gives chilling directive to focus on domestic cities and the “war from within.” On Tuesday, September 30, over 800 of the Armed Forces’ top brass were summoned to Quantico, Virginia on short notice for a mysterious meeting called last week by ‘Secretary of War’ Pete Hegseth. The highly unusual order to attend the ‘urgent’ meeting stirred much speculation as well as concern over the national security risks of putting the entire U.S. military command in one place. Once assembled, top commanders sat in silence as Hegseth, a former member of the Army National Guard who served in Iraq for 12 months and never progressed past the rank of major, proceeded to lecture career generals and admirals on embracing a ‘warrior’ ethos. In an awkward meeting that was encapsulated by the viral phrase “this could have been an email,” Hegseth announced a series of sweeping reforms to military fitness and grooming standards via what many described as an ‘embarrassing rant’ that excoriated ‘fat troops’ and ‘woke’ DEI ideology. Hegseth also announced a return to hazing recruits and an end to safe channels for reporting whistleblower and discrimination complaints; he rehashed misogynistic attitudes against women in combat roles as he outlined his vision for a more aggressive and ‘lethal’ military and dismissed international laws against war crimes, laying out an ultimatum for military leaders to get on board or ‘resign’. Trump, who joined the lineup in a last-minute announcement, followed Hegseth, asking for applause from the audience before launching into a wide-ranging, hour-long, factually questionable political speech that took an ominous turn around 44 minutes in as he elaborated on his decision to send the military into U.S. cities, telling generals to ‘prepare’ for a war against “the enemy from within,” using a direct quote from Joseph McCarthy as he announced his intent to use U.S. cities as ‘training grounds’ to target ‘domestic enemies’.
Journalists were hard-pressed to find a single command officer who thought well of the presentations many of them had flown halfway around the world to hear; others slammed the speeches as an ‘ominous sign’ of Trump and Hegseth’s willingness to use the military as political pawns. Ahead of the meeting, top military leaders had already voiced serious concerns to the Washington Post over the radical reordering of defense priorities under Trump and Hegseth’s direction; veterans and retired officers slammed the new policies as ‘deeply un-American’, an ‘illegal’ corruption of the military’s traditionally non-partisan role and a ‘dangerous slippery slope’ inviting ‘unrestrained state violence’ onto domestic soil. GOP Rep. Don Bacon, a retired one-star general, blasted Hegseth’s ‘rampant firing’ of experienced senior Pentagon leaders as ‘very troublesome’; retired lieutenant general Russel Honore decried the ‘ultimatums’ put on top brass to choose between following a highly politicized, authoritarian agenda or walk away from their careers; or even, if pressed, follow their duty to disobey unlawful orders. Just hours after the meeting, Gen. Thomas Bussiere, head of Air Force Global Strike Command, announced his “difficult decision to request retirement from the United States Air Force” in a post on his command’s Facebook page. Female veterans noted that Hegseth’s nostalgic appeal to return to ‘1990 military standards’ recalled a dark time where rampant sexual harassment and war crimes were recurrent features of military culture. Historian Ian Reifowitz argued that Trump’s rhetoric supercharged old right-wing tropes in his attempt to drum up support for authoritarian ambitions. Retired lieutenant colonel Amy McGrath told CNN she was “very worried” that the ‘whole point of bringing these generals and admirals back here’ to meet in person was to force buy-in on the unlawful use of military force on domestic soil, which “should scare us all.” Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a combat veteran who lost both legs in Iraq, called for Hegseth to “resign in disgrace immediately.”Government shuts down as Democrats refuse to back down on ACA subsidies; GOP quits negotiations while placing shutdown blame on Dems. The federal government moved into an official shutdown beginning on Wednesday, October 1 after Congress failed to reach a funding agreement by the September 30th deadline. Despite escalating threats from the Trump Administration to resume mass firings and ‘extract maximum pain’ from Democratic opponents, Senate Democrats held the line on opposing any funding measure that did not address Medicaid cuts and extend ACA healthcare subsidies, which would more than double healthcare costs for millions of Americans if allowed to expire at the end of the year. Senate Minority Leader Schumer briefly floated a compromise proposal to avert a shutdown over the weekend, which was soundly rebuked by fellow Democrats inside and outside Congress. On Monday, Schumer and House Minority Leader Jeffries secured a meeting with Trump hoping to secure a deal at the last minute, but found Trump unwilling to entertain any of their demands; instead, they were greeted with ‘Trump 2028’ hats in the Oval Office as well as a racist AI-generated video depicting Jeffries in a sombrero that Trump posted on social media after the inconclusive meeting. Jeffries hit back by posting the infamous Trump-Epstein photo as it became clear that Trump and the GOP had no intentions to negotiate to keep the government open. House Republicans were reportedly told to stay out of sight ahead of the deadline; only two GOP reps showed up to a pro forma session on Tuesday that was abruptly ended three minutes in amid shouts of “shame!” from Democrats.
Republicans shifted to blaming Democrats for the inevitable shutdown as Trump threatened to deliberately cut medical benefits if Democrats failed to capitulate. As the deadline passed, a banner appeared on the HUD and USDA websites blaming the ‘Radical Left’ for the shutdown, and JD Vance held a press conference to blame Democrats for the shutdown because they wanted ‘billions of dollars to give free healthcare to illegal immigrants’. Federal workers reported receiving instructions to blame Democrats for the shutdown, and some claimed their out-of-office autoreplies were altered without their consent to reflect the same partisan messaging across several agencies, which was blasted by ethics watchdogs as a violation of the Hatch Act. A host of government services and federal agencies began shutting down on Wednesday as the Trump Administration moved quickly to use the impasse as an ‘unprecedented opportunity’ to resume mass firings of federal workers and ‘punish Democrat agencies’ with sweeping cuts despite warnings from top officials that firings may violate appropriations law. Trump targeted Democratic strongholds by freezing over $26 billion in funding for New York City infrastructure and clean energy projects in blue states, which Sen. Bernie Sanders slammed as an illegal clawback of Congress-appropriated funds. About a quarter of federal workers will be put on furlough during the shutdown; the Trump Administration will keep several agencies open, including ICE and border operations, oil and gas permitting on federal lands, tariff collections, and the construction of Trump’s White House ballroom.Trump, Vought use shutdown to push new wave of mass firings and advance Project 2025 goal of consolidating executive power, despite economic fallout. As attempts to resume Senate talks collapsed and an extended shutdown appeared likely, increased scrutiny focused on OMB director and Project 2025 author Russell Vought, who not only admitted on air that the shutdown was ‘necessary’ to push certain policies, but also on Thursday moved swiftly to implement a radical plan to decimate the federal bureaucracy, take the purse strings from Congress and concentrate power in the executive branch that had apparently been ‘years in the making’ and a dream of Vought’s ‘since puberty’. After previously denying knowledge of Project 2025, Trump bragged of his affiliation with Vought and Project 2025 on social media Thursday as the shutdown appeared poised to supercharge Trump’s ‘retribution agenda’ against political opponents. Speaker Johnson also used the shutdown opportunity to delay the swearing-in of newly-elected Arizona Democrat Rep. Adelita Grijalva, who promised to deliver the decisive vote to force the release of the remaining Epstein files.
While past government shutdowns have generally been regarded as routine exercises in political theater with mild impacts on the wider economy, and markets were largely complacent regarding the disruption, analysts warn that this year’s shutdown could have much greater consequences given the radical upheavals of Trump’s second term so far, as well as the fragile state of the current U.S. economy. The last government shutdown during Trump’s first term cost $11 billion according to the GAO, and the Trump-aligned Council of Economic Advisers warned that this shutdown could cost upwards of $15 billion per week. The shutdown also delayed the release of crucial economic data in the September jobs report, which puts the Federal Reserve in a perilous position as it contemplates further rate cuts to stabilize stagflation risks. Republicans privately admitted that Trump and Vought’s punitive cuts to blue states will also hurt GOP voters, as Trump-voting federal workers railed against the threat of more layoffs. Farmers in red states already hit hard by the trade war will be especially impacted as the shutdown halts payments and delays access to farm loans; the White House on Tuesday cancelled millions of dollars in food research programs favored by Republicans despite Vought’s previous promises to leave the funding untouched. Despite the personal financial hardships induced by the shutdown and the threat of more mass layoffs, many federal workers expressed support for the shutdown as an opportunity to push back on the Trump Administration’s ‘lawlessness’ and encouraged Democrats to hold the line against dramatic healthcare cost increases that would have wider-reaching and worse consequences than a shutdown. The Senate will attempt to resume talks on Friday, as GOP Sen. Roger Marshall outlines a possible compromise position on ACA subsidies.After criminalizing dissent, Trump orders National Guard to ‘war-ravaged’ Portland. On Saturday, September 27, Trump announced on Truth Social that he was authorizing so-called “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth to “provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists,” and authorized the use of “Full Force, if necessary” to quell ‘Antifa’. The Portland announcement, coming days after Trump signed an executive order declaring ‘Antifa’ to be a ‘domestic terrorist organization’ and a national security directive criminalizing left-wing ‘anti-fascist’ and ‘anti-American’ ideologies as ‘terrorism’, was seen as a ‘test run’ of the new ‘anti-anti-fascist’ directive in a sanctuary city where protestors have held constant vigil and protests outside the local ICE facility for over 100 days. Portland is also home to Rose City Antifa, the first organization in the U.S. to bear the name, which formed in 2007 as a coalition that brought together various antifascist groups to drive out neo-Nazi and white supremacist militias that had committed violent hate crimes in the city for decades, including the lynching of Ethiopian immigrant Mulugeta Seraw in 1988. Last week, the City of Portland sent notice that ICE was in violation of its city-issued permit and zoning regulations that prohibited people to be kept in the building overnight, and a petition to the city to revoke ICE’s permit due to the violations had gained over 18,000 signatures. The deployment order took Pentagon and National Guard officials by surprise as Oregon Governor Tina Kotek announced “there is no national security threat in Portland,” describing the city as “safe and calm,” while Mayor Keith Wilson said that Trump “will not find lawlessness or violence here unless he plans to perpetrate it.” A DHS memo alleged that the Portland ICE facility had come under “coordinated assault from violent groups” aligned with “domestic terrorists,” referencing the daily protests that visiting journalists described as a weird carnival resembling “Burning Man for the terminally online”, giving off more vibes of ‘absurdity’ than ‘menace’. DHS cited a Tuesday incident where ‘100 protestors’ allegedly stormed the facility, a false claim debunked by local journalists and area residents, and Fox News aired a misleading video mixing the 2025 protests with footage of police confrontations with protestors during the George Floyd protests in 2020. White House officials speaking anonymously to CNN hinted that Trump figured he could “kill two birds with one stone” by using the protection of ICE facilities as a pretext to advance militarized police-state tactics in his ‘crime crackdown’ on Democrat-led cities.
ICE intensifies violent, militarized repression tactics against citizens, protestors and journalists in several cities. While AG Pam Bondi has established a task force to “protect” ICE officers from protestors, ICE repression tactics in several cities appear to have escalated since Trump’s executive order went into effect, as agents have begun targeting activists and journalists in addition to detaining migrants. At 26 Federal Plaza in New York, masked federal agents assaulted a group of journalists documenting arrests outside the immigration court, shoving several reporters to the ground and sending one journalist to the hospital; a DHS spokesperson claimed ICE agents making an arrest were “swarmed by agitators and members of the press which obstructed operations.” An ICE officer who had been relieved of duty after being caught on video shoving a detainee’s wife to the ground in the same building last week was returned to duty on Monday as DHS claimed a “full investigation” was pending while refusing to disclose further details.
In the Chicago suburbs, the mayor of Broadview accused ICE of “making war” on peaceful protestors in a letter sent to DHS last Friday after ICE officers violently dispersed protestors, including an assault on Congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh who was livestreaming the protest; a day later, federal agents threatening to “bring a sh*t show” to the suburb deployed tear gas and shot protestors in the face with pepper balls, and arrested eleven people including a journalist. The National Lawyers’ Guild of Chicago issued a statement saying federal agents used violence against their legal observers, noting that “the agents’ attacks were notably distinct from prior days… Officers forcibly removed people sheltering from tear gas in vehicles, resulting in the separation of a child from family members who were bringing food in support of the protest.” A criminal investigation was launched after ICE officers shot pepper balls at a local CBS reporter, hitting her news truck as she drove past the scene. Veterans condemned ICE’s “mob tactics” against protestors after agents shoved a 70-year-old Air Force Veteran to the ground and arrested him. ICE agents have also reportedly teargassed and threatened local law enforcement; the Broadview police chief expressed his shock, saying “I’ve never been spoken to by a fellow law enforcement officer in such a way.”
Overnight on Tuesday, September 30, armed federal agents in military gear rappelled from helicopters to raid an entire apartment building in the predominantly Black South Shore neighborhood; traumatized residents described dozens of agents breaking down doors and ransacking apartments, pointing guns in residents’ faces, dragging naked children out of their beds and zip-tying their hands before loading them into unmarked moving trucks as other residents, all U.S. citizens, were tied up and left outside. A resident said agents violently forced everyone out of the building and asked questions later; another resident who objected to their handling of children reported that an agent responded, “F**k them kids.” DHS claimed that 37 people were arrested in what they claimed was a raid targeting Tren de Agua gang members; among the detainees were four children who are U.S. citizens. Residents returning to their destroyed homes reported that personal items were stolen, including electronics and furniture. Black community organizations condemned the raid as “part of a prolonged attack on Chicago communities by Trump and other MAGA leaders to sow discord and divide communities.” In the wake of the raid, Mayor Brandon Johnson demanded “transparency and accountability from federal immigration agents” after another incident in which an ICE agent held a Black man in a chokehold as onlookers insisted he was a U.S. citizen. On Wednesday, the FAA imposed an unprecedented “drone no-fly zone” over Greater Chicago and part of Lake Michigan, claiming a “credible threat” with no further evidence.Wave of mass shootings continues as GOP, MAGA rhetoric against foes intensifies. Several more mass shootings this week left communities reeling as the Trump Administration continues to blame the ‘radical left’ for political violence with little corroborating evidence. On Saturday, September 28, Marine veteran Nigel Edge opened fire on patrons of a waterfront bar in Southport, North Carolina, killing three and wounding eight; Edge was later taken into custody when the U.S. Coast Guard encountered his boat after the attack. On the same night, 34-year-old Keryan Rashad Jones opened fire in the parking lot of the Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino in Texas, killing two and wounding five. Jones was arrested after being identified in surveillance footage of the shooting. Less than 12 hours after the two shootings, another Marine veteran, Thomas Sanford, crashed his truck through the doors of a Mormon church in Grand Blanc, Michigan, setting the church ablaze as he opened fire, killing four and wounding eight before dying in a shootout with police. The Michigan attack marked the 324th mass shooting in the United States in 2025 so far. On Tuesday, September 30, a Mexican migrant who was among the three people shot at a Dallas ICE facility last week succumbed to his injuries, bringing the Dallas death toll to two. On Thursday, October 2, a man drove his car into a group of Jewish worshippers gathered for Yom Kippur at a synagogue in Manchester, England, stabbing one to death before being shot and killed by police (who also mistakenly shot two community members, one fatally).
The multiple shootings in the United States this week have garnered significantly less attention from the Trump Administration and MAGA, unlike the aftermath of the Dallas shooting, which prompted Trump to explode in invectives against the ‘radical left’. After the Michigan church shooting, MAGA accounts rushed to blame “transgender leftists” until photos emerged of the shooter, Thomas Sanford, in a Trump t-shirt; friends and family said Sanford harbored a grudge against Mormons and would become ‘unhinged’ when talking about the LDS. Trump Administration officials sent little more than “thoughts and prayers,” while Steve Bannon blamed ‘psychotic drugs’ as an explanation for Sanford’s actions. AP reports that striking union nurses walking a picket line near the Michigan church rushed over to help victims when they heard about the incident. The Advocate reports that Nigel Edge, the gunman in the North Carolina shooting, was obsessed with anti-LGBTQ+ conspiracy theories and spent years filing federal lawsuits filled with conspiratorial anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.
The Trump Administration and the GOP also had little to say after Arizona state representative and January 6th supporter John Gillette called for Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal to be “hanged” in response to a video where Jayapal discusses preparations for non-violent protests against the Trump Administration. An article published in Salon this week documents a pattern of increasingly violent rhetoric from pundits at Fox News, including a host who advocated for ‘bombing’ or ‘gassing’ the United Nations after Trump’s escalator malfunction snafu. Ken Klippenstein discusses the motivations of many recent mass shooters in a recent podcast for The Nation, noting that they often become radicalized through engagement with violent, nihilistic Internet-based networks. Greg Sargent notes the dangerous ways that these tragedies are being used by the Trump Administration as a pretext to justify crackdowns on civil liberties and liberal/left-leaning groups, citing a conversation with Steve Bannon, who called the tragedies “game changers” before declaring, “Now you will see the power of the state crush this escalating political violence.”Trump urges universities to sign ideological ‘compact’ as a condition to ensure access to federal research funding. On Wednesday, October 1, the Trump Administration sent letters to nine top-ranking public and private universities in the United States urging them to sign on to a ten-page “compact” pledging support for the Trump Administration’s political agenda and commitment to its educational priorities in exchange for ‘favorable’ access to federal research funding. The ‘wide-ranging’ terms of the compact include enhancing the profile of conservative ideology on campuses and “scrapping academic departments that ‘purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas’”; it also asks universities to accept the federal government’s definition of gender, eliminate the consideration of race or sex in hiring and admissions, and place a strict cap on international student enrollments, as well as “commit to using lawful force if necessary” to quell campus demonstrations that could potentially ‘disrupt’ study or ‘heckle’ other students. Associated Press reports that the compact represents a “new, incentive-based approach” from the White House and Department of Education after months of using funding freezes to strong-arm universities such as Harvard and the University of California system into dropping their diversity programs and initiatives, punishing pro-Palestine campus activists and implementing the Trump Administration’s ideological and political reform agenda. Leaders of faculty unions such as the American Federation of Teachers and the American Association of University Professors slammed the compact as a hypocritical ‘loyalty oath’ that stifles academic freedom, while others called it extortion and a “document of unconditional surrender.” The Administration has received at least one positive response from the University of Texas, where higher education leaders in the state are currently reviewing course content after a professor at Texas A&M University was fired for discussing gender identity in a children’s book, and the five-campus Texas Tech University system issued guidance restricting discussions of gender outside the federal government’s strict binary definition, even pressuring a biology instructor to adjust their content to exclude certain methods of tracing sex-linked genetic inheritance. In contrast, California governor Gavin Newsom issued a counter-threat pledging to cut state funding to any California universities who “sell out their students” by signing the Trump Administration’s compact.
The Trump Administration also announced on Tuesday, September 30 that it was “close” to reaching a $500 million settlement in its protracted battle with Harvard, although the university has not made any statements to confirm this claim. On Monday, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that it had referred Harvard for suspension and debarment proceedings, which would effectively blacklist the institution from receiving any grants funded by the federal government. The move comes after a letter sent by Harvard to the Trump Administration earlier this month and released to the media on Tuesday unequivocally rejected the Administration’s findings that the university ‘violated civil rights law’ in its ‘distorted’ investigation into alleged antisemitism on campus, claiming that the government made numerous factual errors and ‘misapplied the law’, thus failing to meet a single legal requirement to prove discrimination against Jewish students. One of the students cited in the HHS report as a victim of ‘antisemitism’ had even written an op-ed stating that no one from the government contacted her for any information relating to the incident cited, and insisted that her experience “should not be used as justification for destroying the university.” The Trump Administration also opened investigations into the 22-campus California State University system this week after a federal judge blocked its nearly-failed attempt to extract concessions from the University of California by freezing research funding. The Scholars at Risk Academic Freedom Monitoring Project has documented nearly 120 incidents of attacks on higher education in the United States since 2024, noting that the ‘unprecedented’ crisis of academic freedom during the second Trump Administration “represent[s] an unprecedented, voluntary dismantling of the US as a global education, research, and innovation superpower.”Trump declares ‘non-international’ war against drug cartels in Venezuela as Maduro prepares for invasion. On Thursday, October 2, Trump declared that the United States is in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels designated as ‘terrorist organizations’ in an unusual assertion of presidential war powers presented to Congress as a ‘legal’ justification for recent military strikes on three Venezuelan ‘drug boats’ in the Caribbean that have raised legal questions as well as diplomatic concerns. Military legal experts blasted the dubious designation of drug cartels as ‘terrorist combatants’, calling Trump’s move to create a new, purposefully vague category of ‘combatant’ to empower himself to kill civilians within sovereign borders an “abuse” of the rules of engagement that crossed a major legal line. Last week, Venezuelan President Maduro declared a “state of external unrest” in the country after Trump publicly threatened to “blow Maduro out of existence” during his speech at the UN General Assembly. The New York Times reported this week that top figures from Venezuela’s right wing opposition have been meeting with Marco Rubio since May to craft a regime change transition plan in the case of President Maduro’s ouster. The Guardian revealed this week that Stephen Miller played a leading role in directing the U.S. strikes against suspected ‘drug boats’ earlier this month that killed a total of 17 civilians, at times even superseding the authority of the Secretary of State under the Homeland Security Council, which Miller heads and has empowered with authorities independent from the NSA under the executive branch.
Trump has also continued his buildup of military assets off the coast of Venezuela as U.S. military officials disclosed that they are drawing up options to ‘target drug cartels’ with strikes inside Venezuela’s borders, heightening suspicions of regime change as well as fears of invasion within Venezuela. President Maduro indicated on Monday that he is ready to declare a “state of emergency” and assume a war footing as thousands of Venezuelans signed up to join volunteer militias to defend their country from a U.S. invasion. Trump’s initiative has provoked bipartisan responses condemning the strikes as executive overreach, and War Powers Resolutions have been introduced into both chambers seeking to limit the president’s authority to invade another country’s sovereign territory without the approval of Congress. Jake Romm in the Nation warns that there are high stakes flowing from Trump’s extralegal actions for the entire United Nations-based liberal international order established after World War II; Truthout’s Marjorie Cohn points out that past presidents have also violated the UN Charter’s limits on the use of force against other countries, and Trump’s willingness to dispense with any pretense of respect for international law to assert imperial dominance is a consequence of the long history of illegal actions by past U.S. presidents as well as the War on Terror’s redefining of the rules of engagement. Thom Hartmann, in an article for Alternet, contemplates several different ways Trump’s actions could potentially touch off a new world war in this new era of geopolitical brinksmanship.
MOVEMENT TRACKER
Global Sumud Flotilla gets close to reaching Gaza before being intercepted by the IDF, sparking massive protests and strikes across the world. People around the world tuned in to the livestream of the Global Sumud Flotilla this week, as nearly 500 activists from 57 countries on the 44-vessel humanitarian aid fleet sailed past the interception points of previous aid flotillas, coming closer to Palestinian waters than all previous attempts to break the Israeli blockade. The flotilla was followed by drones for several hours as IDF officers reportedly worried about the optics of intercepting hundreds of activists from dozens of countries in international waters. Israeli military ships began to intercept and surround boats on the afternoon of Wednesday, October 1 (Yom Kippur) about 130 nautical miles from the Gazan coast, jamming communications on several boats as flotilla participants released prepared statements online and prepared to be boarded. Because the flotilla was much bigger than previous expeditions, Israel had to mobilize more resources in a complex attempt to capture the large number of boats, and could practically only engage a few boats at a time; one of the activists on the livestream described how after the IDF surrounded a group of three or four boats, targeting high-profile activists like Greta Thunberg, the other boats would turn on their engines and continue sailing, trying to get closer to shore.
Emergency protests began to break out across Europe as the Freedom Flotilla Coalition condemned Israel for illegally ‘kidnapping’ activists in international waters in violation of maritime law. Dispatches from the flotilla described the IDF’s aggressive tactics to intercept the boats, including ramming, spraying them with high-pressure water cannons, and disabling vessels. Activists shut down Berlin’s Central Station with a sit-in protesting the attack, as calls to ‘block everything’ grew in several major world cities, including Rome, Brussels, Barcelona, Tunis, Istanbul, Dublin, and Athens. Interceptions continued well into the next day as Colombian President Gustavo Petro expelled Israeli diplomats and cut off trade relations with Israel over the illegal abduction of Colombian citizens on the flotilla. On October 2, mass protests erupted around the world in support of the flotilla, as dockworkers from across Europe and both sides of the Mediterranean met in Genoa to plan a continent-wide strike to block Israeli shipments and agitate for an end to the genocide. Tens of thousands of students walked out of schools across Spain, bringing Madrid to a standstill as massive crowds gathered in small towns as well as major urban centers, shutting down railway stations and blockading traffic.
Italy’s trade union confederation called for a general strike which brought the country to a standstill as rabbis blocked the Brooklyn Bridge after their Yom Kippur observations and Spain closed their bases to U.S. forces, blocking Israel’s key ally from using Spanish locations as a ‘stepping stone to fuel the genocide’. On Capitol Hill, Rep. Rashida Tlaib led nearly two dozen other lawmakers in calling on Marco Rubio to protect U.S. nationals on the flotilla and guarantee safe passage. Foreign ministries of several countries, including Germany, Belgium, Turkey, and Kuwait condemned Israel’s illegal actions and applied diplomatic pressure to guarantee safety for the activists as Israel’s historic ties with Europe are increasingly fraying. By early Friday, the final boat was intercepted and over 400 abducted activists are now being held in a high-security Israeli prison awaiting deportation. Out of the 44 boats, one – the Mikeno – is believed to have broken through and actually reached Gaza’s territorial waters, coming within just 10 nautical miles of Gaza’s coast before being intercepted by Israeli military forces. Advocates say the Mikeno’s achievement shows the blockade can be broken as a new, nine-vessel flotilla has formed off the coast of Crete and is heading to Gaza.U.S. cities and states stand up to Trump’s push for military occupation of sanctuary cities, as Chicago’s own Pope Leo XIV denounces Trump policies. Thousands of people filled the streets of Chicago on Thursday, October 2 to protest the military raid on an apartment building on the South Side as well as the increasing aggression against protestors at the Broadview ICE facility. Teen Vogue sat down to talk about fascism with Congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh, whose violent treatment at the hands of ICE agents was captured in a viral video. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker condemned ICE’s abuses of power, calling agents “jackbooted thugs”, accusing the Trump Administration of trying to create mayhem and chaos in the city as a pretext for military intervention as he called on Administration officials to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. Chicago activist Cristobal Cavazos appeared on Democracy Now! to talk about the “historic mobilization” on the ground as communities come together for daily protests and community patrols. A viral video of a bike messenger outrunning ICE agents in downtown Chicago has come to symbolize the defiant spirit of communities facing similar pressures. Activists in Portland have continued their daily protests at the local ICE facility despite Trump’s threat to send in the military; in classic “keep it weird” fashion, an emergency naked bike ride has been called in response to Trump’s deployment of the National Guard. In Des Moines, Iowa, hundreds of students walked out of class on Tuesday to protest ICE’s detention of school superintendent Ian Andre Roberts, a Guyanese national who has lived in the U.S. for 25 years. Students gathered at the State Capitol to demand his release, holding signs with Roberts’ signature phrase “Radical Empathy.” The Free DC Project held a joint press conference with activists from Chicago, Los Angeles, Memphis, and Portland in a show of solidarity and resistance to Trump’s militarized takeover.
Chicago native Pope Leo XIV broke his silence this week on U.S. politics, making his strongest comments yet against Trump on Tuesday when asked by reporters about the Catholic Church’s pro-life stance, saying: “Someone who says that, ‘I am against abortion but I am in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants who are in the United States,’ I don’t know if that’s pro-life.” Later in the week, he called for global action on climate change. Cardinal Robert McElroy, Archbishop of Washington D.C., held a mass and procession on Sunday in support of the city’s immigrants, denouncing Trump’s immigration policy throughout his 10-minute homily as a “comprehensive governmental assault designed to produce fear and terror among millions of men and women,” and said: “As citizens, we must not be silent as this profound injustice is carried out in our name.” Interfaith Moral Monday activists rallied in eight states across the South against the impacts of Trump’s ‘big beautiful’ budget bill, aiming “to expose how leaders are twisting and warping Christianity to push policies that hurt poor and vulnerable communities.”Federal workers and labor unions urge Democrats to hold the line during the government shutdown, suing Russell Vought in order to block mass layoffs. Despite the Trump Administration’s decertification of federal labor unions, organized federal workers continued to support each other as the government barreled towards a shutdown on Wednesday, October 1. AFGE distributed a guide for federal workers to prepare themselves and build resilience for a prolonged shutdown as the Federal Unionists Network and a coalition of 35 labor unions urged Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries to hold the line on ACA subsidies, even if it meant the furloughing of many of their own jobs. As the shutdown commenced, the AFL-CIO blasted the Trump Administration for choosing “chaos and pain over responsible governing” and delivered a strong message from the labor movement: “Get to work. Fund the government. Fix the healthcare crisis. Put workers first.” A coalition of civil rights groups and public sector unions, including AFSCME, AFGE, and the AFL-CIO, representing over 2 million workers in total, filed a lawsuit against OMB director Russell Vought on Tuesday, September 30, accusing the budget czar of illegally using the government shutdown as a cover to fire federal workers en masse, “abusing his position and pushing an extremist agenda.” AFGE activists, veterans, and federal workers rallied outside the VA last week to protest Trump’s union-busting executive order that has stripped over one million workers of their collective bargaining rights. Workers at the EPA, National Park Service and the Smithsonian have been forming networks with librarians and citizen historians to preserve vital data and knowledge being erased by the Trump Administration’s efforts to reframe U.S. history and discount the realities of climate change, chronicling historical objects and signs before they are removed by federal agencies; climate NGOs and citizen scientists are looking into ways to take over the EPA’s duties to collect data on greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution caused by large companies as the EPA steps back from those functions. Progressive and left-leaning nonprofits bracing for a crackdown in the wake of Trump’s order criminalizing ‘radical left’ ideologies are considering a number of ‘radical’ options to stay afloat in an increasingly repressive environment, including relocating internationally, merging together or even dissolving and re-incorporating as LLCs. Following the efforts of the ‘Unite in Advance’ coalition of NGOs to band together in solidarity, and learning lessons from Trump’s assault on law firms, a former official in the Obama and Biden administrations has suggested forming a “NATO-like” alliance of nonprofits that can support each other if targeted, including lending financial, legal, strategic and staff support to the affected organization(s) until the crisis reaches a resolution.
Polls
Government Shutdown: Three early polls surveying voters’ views of the ‘blame game’ surrounding the government shutdown all show that overall, voters are more likely to blame Republicans than Democrats for the shutdown. A snap poll of 1,000 likely voters by the Washington Post found that 47% blamed the Trump Administration and Republicans, while 30% blamed Congressional Democrats and 23% were not sure. A Times/Siena poll conducted prior to the deadline showed that while most Americans did not want Democrats to force a shutdown, about 40% blamed Trump and Republicans for the standoff, while 20% blamed Democrats and about a third blamed both sides equally. A Morning Consult poll found that 45% of voters blamed Trump and Republicans, while 32% blamed Democrats in Congress. Interestingly, the poll also found Republicans were more likely than Democrats to blame their own party for the shutdown (33% to 22%).
A Times/Siena poll on the Israel/Palestine conflict found that for the first time since polling on the subject began in 1998, a majority of voters (40%) opposed U.S. policy of sending military and economic aid to Israel. 60% of voters supported ending the war in Gaza even if Israel’s objectives of freeing the hostages and eliminating Hamas were not met; and 40% believed that Israel was intentionally killing civilians, double the number of voters who agreed with the statement when the war began in 2023.
Upcoming Protests, Events, and Actions.
Saturday, October 4: A coalition of progressive groups has called for emergency “Shutdown Showdown” rallies nationwide to demand “Healthcare, not Authoritarianism” and defend healthcare access from Trump and the GOP during the government shutdown. More information on local actions can be found on the event website.
Saturday, October 4: Labor Notes is holding an all-day Troublemakers School in Milwaukee, WI starting at 9:30 AM CDT. More information can be found on their website’s event page.
Monday, October 6: The ACLU is hosting an online Know Your Rights & De-Escalation Training at 8:00pm ET for organizers preparing for the “No Kings II” protest on October 18. More information and a Zoom registration link can be found on the ACLU website.
Wednesday, October 8: The Chicago Teachers’ Union is hosting a book launch for AFT President Randi Weingarten’s new book “Why Fascists Fear Teachers.” More information and a registration link for the event can be found on Bluesky.
Saturday, October 18: The No Kings Coalition has set the date for its next nationwide No Kings Protest and Day of Action on October 18, and are encouraging those interested to sign up for updates on actions in their local area, or to support the growing effort to bring millions of people into the streets.
Lawsuit Updates.
Senior U.S. Judge William Young has created a buzz in the legal world with his ruling this week that found the Trump Administration’s deportation of international students for their pro-Palestine views was illegal, saying that international students and other noncitizens “unequivocally” have the same free-speech rights as Americans. Young, going further, ruled that Trump Administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and DHS head Kristi Noem, “acted in concert to misuse the sweeping powers of their respective offices to target noncitizen pro-Palestinians for deportation primarily on account of their First Amendment protected political speech,” acting in concert to coordinate their respective agencies’ actions in order to “intentionally chill the rights to freedom of speech and peacefully to assemble." Young’s 161-page ruling was a book-length indictment of the Trump Administration’s immigration policy and abuse of executive power, calling Trump’s tactics a “new invention that in important ways goes beyond its closest analogues in the Red Scare.” CNN Supreme Court correspondent Steve Vladeck said of the opinion, “It’s a sign of the times that a federal judge would write an opinion like this… Judge Young is committing to writing what so many of us are thinking.” In a year where threats against judges are at an all-time high, Young even published a threatening note he received as the epigraph opening his written opinion; the handwritten note said “Trump has pardons and tanks.... what do you have?" to which Young replied, “Dear Mr. or Ms. Anonymous, Alone, I have nothing but my sense of duty. Together, We the People of the United States – you and me – have our magnificent Constitution.”
A Latino U.S. citizen and construction worker who was detained by ICE at his worksite in Alabama has filed a class-action lawsuit against the Trump Administration to stop all ICE workplace raids on behalf of “all those who stand in his shoes,” U.S. citizens or otherwise. Leo Garcia Venegas, a U.S. citizen of Mexican descent who was born in Florida, says he was detained twice by ICE because he was racially profiled as a Latino man working in construction, even after showing agents his REAL ID both times. The suit aims to permanently block workplace raids and challenges the DHS’ racial profiling policy – upheld by the Supreme Court, which overturned a lower court’s restraining order on raids in Los Angeles – that assumes “certain groups of people in the industry, including Latinos, are likely illegal immigrants.”
