Spineless
Week of November 7-13, 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
Senate Democrats capitulate to end longest shutdown in history as House Dems erupt; Republicans exploit Dem surrender to enrich themselves, advance Project 2025. On Monday, November 10, after a record 43 days of shutdown, Congress moved to reopen the government this week after eight Democratic Senators crossed the aisle to vote for the spending bill, essentially capitulating to the Republicans and Trump without winning a single concession. House Democrats, along with most of the party’s ‘distraught’ rank-and-file, erupted in anger and confusion as they watched their Senate colleagues’ ‘collapse’ under the pressure, many feeling betrayed by senior leadership especially given that Democrats clearly had the political advantage throughout the shutdown, and gained momentum after last week’s electoral sweep. Media commentators called it a “perfect and unnecessary failure,” while Indivisible, a grassroots network generally loyal to Democrats, slammed it as a “senseless surrender.” A chorus of up-and-coming Democratic figures took to social media to excoriate the Democrats who capitulated, and Senate Democratic leader Schumer for letting them do it. Schumer had attempted to pitch a compromise bill over the weekend that would extend ACA subsidies for one year, which was brushed off by Thune as a ‘non-starter’. According to Axios, a handful of Senate Democrats began seeking to restart negotiations on Saturday, as Trump took to social media to demand that Congress take the ACA funds and just give it directly to Americans. The eight capitulators – Sens. Angus King, Kaine, Durbin, Fetterman, and both senators from New Hampshire and Nevada – threw in their votes for a stopgap measure to fund the government through January and cover certain programs through 2026, in exchange for Thune’s promise to reverse layoffs, guarantee back pay for federal workers, and take up the issue of ACA subsidies in December. Sen. Chris Murphy warned the public that Republicans are “absolutely committed to raising your healthcare costs,” and condemned the GOP for holding poor people’s access to food and other basic needs hostage to advance a power grab. After the Supreme Court’s decision on SNAP, Trump demanded that state agencies “undo” anything they had done to provide full benefits to needy recipients.
As the bill headed to the House, which reconvened amidst tension and chaos on Monday after nearly eight weeks out of session, Trump aides gloated over the victory, calling Democrats ‘pussies’ and ‘losers’ as Congressional Republicans wasted no time in exploiting the capitulation by slipping in a host of self-serving provisions as last-minute riders on the bill. Speaker Johnson became ‘very angry’ at Thune for sneaking in a measure allowing certain Senators to sue the government for $500,000 over privacy violations; Jamie Raskin called the rider a ‘million-dollar jackpot’ enabling the GOP to help themselves to a ‘free’ bonus at the expense of taxpayers. Sen. Ron Wyden called out Republicans for attempting to sneak a national abortion ban through the back door by adding restrictions to ACA coverage. Republicans also leveraged the moment to deliver perks for corporations, gutting food safety regulations to prevent contamination and food-borne illness after the restaurant industry’s ‘lobbying blitz’ dropped $13 million on Congress this year; and modifying the Farm Bill to re-criminalize hemp products, instantly decimating the livelihoods of small cannabis producers at the behest of the alcohol industry. On Wednesday, House Minority Leader Jeffries floated circulating a discharge petition before the House vote in a bid to salvage a guarantee for ACA benefits, as unlike Thune, Johnson made no promises to revisit the issue. The House passed it mostly along party lines with six Democrats defecting to support the bill, which Trump signed on Wednesday night. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took Schumer to task for his failure of leadership in allowing the defectors to break with the party “in exchange for nothing”; and California Governor Gavin Newsom claimed the eight Senators were “not alarmed enough” about Trump that they would take a risk to hold the line.
Federal workers and SNAP recipients, still awaiting checks, begin to pick up the pieces as they reckon with lasting impacts of the shutdown. Nearly 1.1 million furloughed federal workers, who have missed two and a half paychecks to date while struggling to meet basic needs during the shutdown, returned to work Thursday to confront six weeks of backlogged emails, tasks, projects, and abandoned contracts that had piled up over the longest government work stoppage in history. Workers, still waiting for back pay scheduled to arrive November 19th or later, expressed mixed emotions about what comes next; while relieved to be back at work, many felt daunted by the sheer scale of digging through the backlog. Some agencies noted that certain time-sensitive projects were now permanently unrecoverable, resulting in millions of dollars wasted from the unprecedented loss of productivity. The FAA froze its flight reductions to 6% for now, as airport managers warned of lingering delays. ‘Worn down’ National Park Service workers, who had implored DOI head Doug Burgum to close the parks during the shutdown, began cleaning up the mountains of accumulated trash, various forms of graffiti, damaged monuments, ‘bear jams’, wildfire burn scars, and other potentially lasting impacts left behind by thousands of tourists, illegal BASE jumpers, and partiers who took advantage of park areas that were left “open, vulnerable and unattended.”
Many of the 4,200 federal workers who were laid off and reinstated during the shutdown found themselves returning to empty offices and cleaned-out workstations; and Maryland lawmakers are ‘raising hell’ after NASA workers arrived at the storied Goddard Space Flight Center to find the facilities partially decommissioned as the agency began significant downsizing in anticipation of budget cuts in 2026. Some are worried they won’t be finished digging out from the mess by the time the next shutdown fight comes around on January 30. Many federal workers, who were already reeling from the mental health toll inflicted by DOGE cuts before the shutdown added food insecurity on top of the stress and uncertainty, felt demoralized at the way the shutdown ended. When federal workers’ union AFGE president Everett Kelley called on Democrats to end the shutdown on October 27, thousands of members signed an open letter urging him to continue opposing the deal. With ‘astronomical increases’ in ACA premiums still expected next year for approximately 22 million people who rely on the credits to afford healthcare, and 7.8 million Medicaid recipients set to lose their coverage entirely, some federal workers now wonder if it was worth the sacrifice if Democrats were going to capitulate anyway.
Among SNAP recipients, 60-75% of whom also have Medicaid at stake and had borne the brunt of the sacrifices made during the shutdown battle, many were especially incensed at the Democrats for having given up the fight with nothing to show for it. The shutdown represented the longest interruption of service for the social safety net program since its inception, at a time when as many as one in eight Americans, 40% of them children, rely on SNAP; a situation that the nation’s largest food charity called “catastrophic.” Pew Research has published data showing how SNAP enrollment spiked during the Great Recession, reached all-time highs during COVID, and has stayed high ever since. The Montana Food Bank reports that SNAP is serving ever broader swathes of the working class as wealth inequality grows more disparate and grocery price inflation of up to 25% since the pandemic has swelled the ranks of the full-time working poor living paycheck-to-paycheck, who represent roughly 70% of SNAP recipients. One 67-year-old recipient expressed a common rank-and-file sentiment when she said, “We sacrificed and we would continue to sacrifice because we understood what the stakes were… And that they would cave for nothing after we have all gone through this. It’s insane, and it’s insulting, and it’s also just so wildly out of touch.” Multiple ACA recipients felt “distraught” and “betrayed” by the Democrats, and others who had gained some hope from last week’s elections felt crushed by the latest move.
Leading Democrats admitted that there was no easy choice, and those who capitulated expressed that this was the only choice they felt they had to stop people’s suffering; and Sen. Dick Durbin defended their choice by saying it made a symbolic point about the GOP that could be communicated to the public. But majority public opinion has already consistently laid blame for the shutdown at the feet of Trump and the Republicans; and the wave of grassroots anger coming from the very people lawmakers wanted to reach suggests that they understand the situation rather differently from party elites. Rep. Rashida Tlaib said, “The American people want us to fight back, not cave to Trump for absolutely nothing in return… Our for-profit healthcare system is already broken, and instead of holding the line and fighting for healthcare as a human right, enough Democrats chose to roll over and make this affordability crisis worse.” A single mother and SNAP recipient in Chicago opined that "People are going to distrust the government, and I think that people are going to be really angry about it for a long time”; another SNAP recipient, speaking to journalist Marisa Kabas, lamented: “Our suffering would prevent even more suffering and it would be temporary and worth it to save healthcare for millions. And now it’s all for nothing. They stood for nothing.”Epstein scandal explodes as new emails confirm Trump knew about sex crimes, newly-sworn-in Adelita Grijalva signs discharge petition; Trump meets with GOP in the Situation Room as countdown begins toward House vote on files. As the House reconvened after more than seven weeks out of session, the spectre of Jeffrey Epstein and the case files from his sex trafficking trial came roaring back into public consciousness this week, leaving Trump visibly rattled about their implications for his presidency as well as his relationship with the MAGA movement. On Wednesday, November 12, AZ Representative Adelita Grijalva was finally sworn in as a member of Congress more than seven weeks after she was elected to her late father’s seat in July. During that controversial, record-breaking 50-day recess, Speaker Johnson deliberately kept the House out of session in an move that drew ire and suspicion from members of Congress who accused him of going to unprecedented lengths to prevent disclosures about Epstein that could implicate Trump. Moments after her swearing-in ceremony, Grijalva’s first act as a member of the House of Representatives was to put the final signature on Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie’s bipartisan discharge petition, triggering a countdown towards a House floor vote on releasing the remaining Epstein case files held by the DOJ. Several sources told CNN that Johnson had decided to pivot to a quick vote on the petition once it was determined that he could no longer contain the situation. Earlier in the day, House Democrats on the Oversight Committee released a new trove of over 20,000 emails from Epstein’s estate that contained several new bombshell revelations, of which the most consequential was Epstein’s admission that “Trump knew about the girls” and had apparently “spent hours” at Epstein’s home with Virginia Giuffre, Epstein’s most vocal accuser, who died by suicide last spring after publishing a book detailing her abuse at the hands of Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and other powerful men. Trump admitted in July that Giuffre had been an employee at Mar-a-Lago in the early 2000s and that Epstein had ‘stolen’ her, a few years before Epstein and Trump had a final falling out over real estate; but new emails show Epstein kept tabs on Trump for years afterward and suggest the two men may even have spent time together over Thanksgiving in Palm Beach in 2017 during Trump’s first term.
Journalists are still poring over the massive archive, but the floodgates have clearly opened as new revelations are posted. Out of 2,324 email threads already surveyed, Trump’s name appeared in 1,670 of them, and he is the most cited person in this batch of communications to date. Newly publicized documents being posted on live feeds include: a 2011 email to Maxwell in which Epstein cryptically described Trump as “the dog who hasn’t barked”; emails from 2018 referring to Trump as “dirty” and “evil beyond belief”; his jocular correspondence with neoliberal economist Larry Summers, who sought advice on women from Epstein and to whom Epstein wrote in 2018 calling Trump “borderline insane”; correspondence with NY Times reporter Ladon Thomas Jr. offering him pictures of Trump with bikini-clad girls, discussing Trump’s ‘early dementia’, and calling him “f*king crazy” after the Muslim Ban was established; and discussing Trump’s mental state with Obama’s former White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler; and correspondence with disgraced Britons Peter Mandelson and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the accused pedophile formerly known as Prince Andrew, who was officially stripped of his royal titles by King Charles last month. Epstein attempts to function as a kind of ‘Trump consultant,’ providing insights on Trump’s character to other people, including offering his services to Putin ahead of a 2018 summit in Finland; meeting with Steve Bannon to give him advice on helping Trump and Kavanaugh; a bizarre conversation with Epstein’s brother Mark in which he inquires if Putin “has that picture of Trump blowing Bubba”; a thread with Deepak Chopra where he talks about having lost a $10,000 bet to Trump over then-pregnant Marla Maples, sending him a truck of baby food as payment; and asking the man currently serving as the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey for a picture of “him and a child.” Drop Site News also has a new investigative feature researching Epstein’s dealings with Israeli intelligence.
The situation is quickly becoming a worst-case scenario for the Trump Administration as it scrambles to contain the political fallout from the disclosures that threaten to splinter the MAGA movement that in part had built its coherence and identity around the Epstein conspiracy theory, but consistently finds a contradiction in Trump. On Wednesday, Trump called Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, and Rep. Lauren Boebert, one of four Republicans who signed the discharge petition, into the White House Situation Room in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade Boebert to withdraw her signature. Trump also took to Truth Social to denounce the “Epstein Hoax” as a Democrat plot, calling the emails a ‘deflection’ and ordering Pam Bondi’s FBI to investigate ties to other rich and powerful people among Epstein’s clientele. The DOJ announced Thursday it would be opening investigations into Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, and JP Morgan Chase Bank. This has only deepened the intrigue as more Republicans are drawn into the controversy and are rethinking their loyalties as they question why Trump is still desperately fighting against release of the DOJ files. Most prominent among this group has been Marjorie Taylor Greene, who had already broken with the GOP mainstream on Gaza, ACA healthcare subsidies, and the ‘affordability’ crisis in addition to the Epstein scandal. Trump formally broke ties with Greene on Friday after she questioned his commitment to be an ‘America First’ president; Trump ranted/lamented on Truth Social that she’d “lost her way”, calling her ‘Wacky’ Marjorie and saying he would back a primary challenger. Greene hit back on X by posting a screenshot of the “text that sent Trump over the edge,” which decried the inaction of both the Trump and Biden administrations and insisted that he “listen to the women.” Several Republicans also reported this week being informed by DOJ sources that the still-unreleased files in the agency’s possession may be ‘even more damaging’ for Trump than they had thought. This is a fast-developing story; CNN and The Independent are providing live coverage with real-time updates.Venezuela mobilizes military, preparing for war as the Pentagon’s biggest warship arrives in the Caribbean; U.S. allies distance themselves. War Secretary Hegseth announced two more ‘drug boat’ strikes this week, destroying a total of three boats (2 in the eastern Pacific, and 1 in the Caribbean) and bringing the total death toll up to 79 as the United States executed its 20th boat strike in 6 months. On Thursday, November 13, War Secretary Hegseth posted a video of the boat strike on X, announcing the debut of “Operation Southern Spear,” the name Hegseth has given to the new U.S. ‘drug war’ in Latin America. On Tuesday, November 11, the Pentagon’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald Ford, arrived in the Caribbean with its full strike group, marking a significant escalation of the largest military presence in the region since Panama in 1989. Venezuela’s Maduro responded by announcing a ‘massive deployment’ of land, sea, air, and missile forces, along with civilian militias, to defense positions along the Caribbean coast. People’s Defense Minister Padrino Lopez said the deployment was part of a wider plan, dubbed “Independence Plan 200,” which CNN described as “a civic-military strategy aimed at mobilizing conventional military forces alongside militia and police forces to defend the country.” President Maduro denounced the U.S. operation, which he reckons is aimed at the country’s oil resources, and called on neighboring nations to defend the Latin American ‘Zone of Peace’ established in 2014. When it came to making military commitments to the endeavor, only Nicaragua and Colombia made firm commitments; Mexico and Brazil, who are both in trade negotiations with the United States, declined to commit military power until negotiations are completed.
Trump, Hegseth, and Rubio have asserted that the strikes are legal, citing an opinion written over the summer by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel that based its argument on the premise that the United States is in a “non-international armed conflict”. That allows the president to use executive powers under Article II of the Constitution to exempt personnel involved in the strike from prosecution on the premise that “the U.S. wages war against cartels that are selling drugs to finance a campaign of violence and extortion.” Another classified brief released Friday classified fentanyl as a ‘chemical weapon,’ thus justifying counterterrorism measures and treating cartel members as enemy combatants.” Associated Press journalists traced the identities of several people who had been killed in the strikes so far, finding that: “one was a fisherman struggling to eke out a living on $100 a month. Another was a career criminal. A third was a former military cadet. And a fourth was a down-on-his-luck bus driver.” The family of slain fisherman and Colombian national Alejandro Carranza gave a heartbreaking account of a fisherman and father who did occasional runs to Venezuela to make a bit of money. “I never thought I would lose my father in this way,” said Cheila Carranza, 14, this week, holding back tears as she gazed at a photo of him on her phone. Katerine Hernández, the mother of three of Mr. Carranza’s children, disputed Mr. Trump’s claim that the strike that killed her former partner and two other people on the same boat had targeted “confirmed narcoterrorists from Venezuela.” Colombian president Petro also pulled out of the country’s intelligence sharing program with the United States on these grounds, stating that “U.S. government officials have committed a murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial waters” and that Colombia must immediately “end communications and other agreements with U.S. security agencies” until the U.S. stops conducting extrajudicial executions.
Two close U.S. allies, the United Kingdom and Colombia, announced the suspension of intelligence sharing agreements with the United States. British officials in particular said they do not want to be complicit in U.S. military strikes which they believe are illegal. The move is significant given that the UK is perhaps the United States’s closest ally and trading partner, and underscores the growing skepticism over the legality of the U.S. military’s campaign in Latin America. At the G7 meeting in Canada this week, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot offered the clearest rejection of the U.S. administration’s dramatic action to combat drug trafficking, stating Tuesday that his country was troubled by “military operations in the Caribbean region” because they “violate international law” and could lead to escalation impacting French territories in the region. Speaking to CNN, Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Rachel VanLandingham, an expert in military law, also called the strikes “murder,” noting that in U.S. law, drug traffickers and drug smugglers are not eligible for the death penalty under any circumstances. The Administration, in her view, is “simply militarizing what has heretofore been a law enforcement operation… so that they can exploit and abuse the use of deadly force, in the name of the American people, against people who do not pose an imminent threat to our country.” Greg Grandin, scholar and historian of Latin America, reminds his readers that it’s “important to remember that [Trump] wouldn’t be able to do what he does if it weren’t for policies and institutions put in place by all too many of his predecessors.” Grandin outlines the history of U.S. ‘drug wars’ and ‘dirty wars’ waged covertly and overtly throughout Latin America by successive presidents, up to and including Biden. A column in The Atlantic points to the sort of Cold War domino-theory logic being deployed by Trump and especially Marco Rubio, who appears to be the main political driver behind the campaign.ICE ‘acting like Trump’s secret police’, deploying surveillance cams and bounty hunters to track targets; Migrants held at CECOT describe torture; ICE detains Indigenous woman for driving while brown. Afghan war vet Rory Fanning writes for Truthout this week on how it seems that “the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have come full circle… only with less training” as he confronts ICE agents as part of a veterans protest bloc in Chicago. DHS rolled out new regulations this week that suppress a host of protest activities, including creating a loud or unusual noise, distributing informational materials, flying drones, or wearing masks. Legal experts say the language of the regulation is so vague that it gives federal agents too much discretion to define a violation, which could suppress protestors’ First Amendment rights. Zeteo reports on the draft process for Trump’s new National Security Strategy, which various federal staffers have characterized alternately as “fascist internet trolls getting worked up on Twitter,” or “Stephen Miller’s hypernationalist wet dream,” and explicitly name-checks far right European parties as allies and/or inspiration. FLOCK, which is deploying street cameras nationwide, utilizes AI face recognition which can be misused by anyone from hackers to stalkers that know how to access the technology. Human Rights Watch just released a report tracking the fates of the 252 Venezuelan migrants sent to the CECOT prison in El Salvador, and details the inhumane conditions at CECOT’s sprawling “terrorist continent center”; The report outlines an environment of “systematic torture” where people were “subjected to constant beatings and other forms of ill-treatment such as “prolonged incommunicado, detention, inadequate food, and including some cases of sexual violence”. The report charges the Trump Administration with willful complicity in torture, and calls for an independent review of the facility. A pair of articles traces the direct line between 9/11 and Trump, tracing the steady erosion of civil liberties that enables authoritarianism today; and traces how the pervasive effects of militarism shape all our lives, especially those who are ordered to engage in it.
Federal court order notwithstanding, Chicago residents describe the ‘reign of terror’ hanging over the city, profiling the immigrant enclave of Little Village as it appears to have become a hotspot for ICE to showcase its increasingly authoritarian enforcement practices. Mother Jones interviews teachers at a Chicago-area daycare center where a raid took place last week, where agents were filmed dragging teachers away in front of children and sowing terror in the community. Chicago-area broadcast journalists published an open letter in the Tribune this week decrying the manner in which federal ICE agents have traumatized journalists and eroded their rights. ProPublica revisited the South Side building that had endured a military-style ICE raid in September, and found that not one person had been deported or charged with a crime, despite DHS’s insistence that it was a ‘hive’ for the notorious Tren de Agua gang. Former DHS chief of staff Miles Taylor lamented that the department where he once served is now “engaging in fascist shows of force” and “violating the rights of Americans.” Despite federal court orders banning riot control measures against protestors, teachers describe the daily fear that exists in many neighborhoods: “Armed agents in masks and unmarked cars are going after workers – landscapers, food vendors, daycare teachers… It’s getting to a point where it’s just too much. It’s too much to handle for our families. It’s too much to handle for our kids. Our kids are fearful.” CBP head Gregory Bovino, whom a judge rebuked for encouraging overly aggressive practices, is leaving Chicago as early as this week. The Atlantic reports on the ‘Third Red Scare’ against antifascists today, and how thinking about today’s crackdown in terms of its historical antecedents might yield unexpected wisdom. ProPublica breaks down Trump’s ‘war-ravaged Portland’ narrative and traces it to a set of misleading videos aired by Fox News. The Economist’s multimedia feature this month portrays the manner in which Trump is creating his own private police force, and the terror and chaos experienced by communities wherever they go. In Arizona, Salt River Pima-Maricopa Tribal Member Letitia Jacobo was detained by ICE for several days as her family tried to find her; Navajo Nation reports that more than a dozen Indigenous people have been detained or questioned by ICE, which may occur more frequently as ICE agents are permitted to engage in racial profiling.The War on Workers: ‘Affordability’ becomes the one-word critique of Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ tariff economy as inflation, inequality face a stalled labor market. Last week’s elections brought the issue of ‘affordability’ into the spotlight as strong performances from progressive candidates like Zohran Mamdani and national issue polling indicate that economic concerns and the cost of living are a primary concern for many Americans. This week, Karoline Leavitt announced that the Bureau of Labor Statistics would not be producing data for October, meaning that key indicators on inflation and jobs will be missing for the second month in a row. Economic data from the private sector tends to confirm what many people are experiencing as the ‘Affordability Crisis: prices are rising while people are finding less and less opportunity to meet rising living costs for basic essentials. Dean Baker at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) extrapolates from Indeed listings and available private-sector payroll data to show that the job market has essentially ground to a halt, adding less than 10,000 jobs per month over the last six months; if one factors in mass layoffs from government jobs or filters for white-collar jobs only, the likely growth rate is zero or negative. ‘Polyworking’ and ‘jobhugging’ have become social media buzzwords for the long-standing working-class conundrum of having multiple, precarious jobs and/or staying in low-quality jobs for a sense of stability. Workers’ bargaining power has weakened over the first 10 months of the second Trump Administration, as the NLRB has been rendered nonfunctional and the lack of better opportunities have kept ‘jobhuggers’ in captive workplaces with little leverage to improve working conditions. Layoffs have been on the rise for the second month in a row, heavily impacting the journalism industry, which shed 2050 jobs this month; NBC is the latest media company to shed 150 jobs, while Conde Nast has gutted their political affairs staff at Teen Vogue and Wired, many of them transgender workers and workers of color. Without a functioning NLRB, unions have had little institutional protection of labor rights, so NY Attorney General Letitia James has stepped in to file a lawsuit on their behalf.
Data from the Bank of America Institute shows that 1 in 4 Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck; and out of that paycheck, 95% is spent on essential needs, leaving very little disposable income; and 63% cannot afford a $500-dollar crisis. Lower-income people are curtailing their spending as consumer confidence has plunged to record lows over the course of the government shutdown. A non-BLS estimate of consumer prices suggests that the average household is spending a whopping $700 more per month for basic needs as tariff-induced inflation pushes up prices month by month; the year-over-year rate has increased for 5 months in a row. Data from Moody’s analytics shows that the typical American household is spending $208 more a month in September to purchase the same goods and services as they were a year ago, and $1,043 more a month than they did at the start of 2021; and because of the growing inequality known to financiers as the ‘K’-shaped economy, stagflation is impacting lower income workers disproportionately to the upper classes. Paradoxically, more older Americans are investing in the stock market, which can also be an indicator of underlying weakness and even bubble territory. Having gotten a rude awakening from last week’s elections on the importance of the ‘affordability’ issue among his base, Trump has attempted to seize upon the narrative: first, as CNN reported, by going on a ‘lying spree’ and insisting loudly on quoting prices that simply don’t exist; when that didn’t land well, he threw a lavish dinner at the White house for the biggest names on Wall Street to ask them how he could appeal to struggling working-class people.
MOVEMENT TRACKER
Veterans take to the streets on Veterans’ Day to say ‘No’ to Trump and the oligarchs. On Veterans’ Day, November 11, thousands of former servicemembers in cities and towns across the country took to the streets to say no to the corruption and tyranny of the Trump regime, stand in solidarity with immigrants and their communities, decry ‘life-threatening’ cuts to the VA and government services, and re-commit themselves to defending the Constitution as a way of urging current servicemembers and electeds to remember their oath and remind them of their right and duty to resist unlawful orders. As the Trump Administration began deploying troops and militarized federal agents to U.S. cities, veterans have become an important presence on the front lines as communities stand off against ICE and the National Guard; taking the risk of arrest and injury to protect others and produce striking visuals that drive home the contradictions faced by active duty troops whose orders to occupy domestic soil violate the Constitution they swore to defend. Retired Lt. Gen. Russell Honore, the field commander who gained fame and respect for his swift action after Hurricane Katrina, urged members of the military to use Veterans’ Day as a platform for protest against authoritarian abuses of the Constitution and National Guard. Hundreds of veterans gathered for a ‘Remember Your Oath’ protest in Washington, D.C. that was featured by Stars and Stripes, the military’s most prominent media organ; interviews in the publication reflected the quiet conversations happening among active-duty National Guard members who await orders to occupy whatever city the Trump Administration decides to target next. After Trump and Hegseth’s controversial meeting with military top brass where Trump called for using U.S. cities as ‘testing grounds’ for domestic use of the military against the ‘enemy within’, scores of generals, admirals, and high-ranking career officers have either been purged or resigned in protest, citing a lack of trust in their commander-in-chief. Veterans in ‘ICE-ravaged’ Portland and Chicago marched through city centers and rallied at ICE facilities to demand an end to deportations and ‘authoritarianism’ as vets in occupied Memphis decried the ‘militarization’ of their city. In smaller, redder cities and towns, vets also held actions such as rallies to save the VA in Tempe, Arizona, and holding up antifascist freeway banners in western Massachusetts; and online, Buzzfeed held space for veterans to sound off anonymously about what they really think about the Trump Administration.
Rank-and-file, progressive Democrats revolt against Schumer after controversial shutdown vote, demanding his removal from leadership. The Democratic Party’s progressive wing nearly broke into open mutiny this week following the decision of eight Democratic Senators to capitulate on ACA subsidies in a bid to end the government shutdown. To many progressives, the vote seemed like the party had once again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory just days after a celebrated “blue tsunami” rewarded Democrats with strong gains in an election that foregrounded the economic woes of working people and measures to address the ‘affordability crisis’ as winning political messages. Liberal and progressive figures in the party ranks focused much of their ire on party leaders Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin, who did not vote for the spending bill but reportedly kept close consultations with those planning to flip their votes. Leading the charge, Progressive Caucus member Rep. Ro Khanna called on Schumer to step down, calling out his ineffectiveness and lack of resolve as a ‘failure of leadership,’ saying: “If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?” Others noted that this is not the first time Schumer has been ‘played’ by Republicans, while Bernie Sanders called it a “political and policy disaster” whose roots go beyond Schumer, pointing out that corporate capture of party elites and the abandonment of rank-and-file concerns have repeatedly led the party to disastrous positions. By the end of the week, the grumblings had grown into a sizable ‘anti-Schumer caucus’ of almost exclusively House Democrats calling to replace the party leadership, while most Senate Democrats, with the possible exception of Sen. Chris Murphy, equivocated or stayed silent.
Pressure on Democratic leadership compounded as the party’s approval ratings crashed from their brief post-election bump and the Party’s grassroots pillars, MoveOn and Indivisible, as well as the ‘Our Revolution’ group that evolved out of Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, joined the House chorus in calling for Schumer to step down. These constituent groups, many of whom had organized some of the largest one-day protests in history against the Trump Administration and had worked with party leaders to assure them that the base supported a shutdown, appeared fed up with the lack of a similar fighting stance from party leaders, and called for fresh young faces to challenge key members of the Democratic ‘gerontocracy’ in next year’s primaries. Centrist observers blamed the party’s internal divide for not mirroring the type of unity that kept the GOP winning battles on Capitol Hill; but progressive stalwart Rep. Mark Pocan called out Schumer for failing to endorse Zohran Mamdani, pointing out that moderates in leadership have a remarkable ability to maintain party discipline when it comes to excluding progressives from steering the ship. Even some moderates, fearing the party would once again make the same sort of critical mistakes that put Trump back in power in 2024, implored the party establishment to at least try embracing some of the ‘democratic socialist’ ideas that propelled Mamdani and other Democrats to landslide wins in last week’s elections. While the powers that be in the DNC remained as vague as possible about next steps, former Obama advisor David Axelrod suggested this week that Schumer “won’t be leader of the party come 2027, unless something really surprising happens.”‘Resistance is Everywhere’: highlights of the week in protest, community defense and noncooperation. In her column for The Guardian this week, author and movement commentator Rebecca Solnit took a moment to survey and reflect upon the breadth, depth and variety of the forms of resistance that have evolved in the 10 months since Trump took office. She writes that “Resistance is everywhere, both geographically and in terms of the constituencies participating,” and locates the “heart of active resistance” in the many acts of “solidarity with those under attack” from ICE and other militarized forces under the Trump Administration, noting the degree to which resistance has become a feature of daily life in places like Chicago, where sustained, neighborhood-level organization of networks for defense and community care have grown to meet the threats posed by Trump’s militarized campaign against American cities. New York union organizers energized by Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral victory but with no illusions about the difficulties that lie in wait for a government of the left are having critical conversations about how workers’ power can respond to a likely capital strike. In D.C., Trump became the first sitting president in 50 years to be booed at an NFL game when thousands of Commanders fans jeered and heckled him when he took over the Fox corporate booth to call plays. Fans of D.C. women’s soccer team Washington Spirit are tapping into the antifascist traditions of European supporter clubs as well as the activism of stars like Megan Rapinoe, to turn fan portals into resistance hubs that organize community defense and grow the Free DC movement.
Parks People surveys some of the tactics communities under attack have invented, from ‘barricades to banned books’; many of these ad hoc community networks also stepped up with fundraisers to top up the food budget of SNAP recipients during the shutdown. Some are the efforts of individuals who feel called to contribute in their own unique way, like the now-iconic Portland Frog and the Navy veteran who zips around his South Baltimore neighborhood on his scooter like a self-styled Paul Revere to warn neighbors that ‘ICE is coming’. Others are doing the difficult work of welcoming into the movement former conservatives who are falling away from Trump but whose consciousness is evolving; from the old-school Republican money man helping people defect from the ‘authoritarian cult’ of Trump’s GOP, to the emerging ‘exvangelical movement’ of Christian women who are helping each other de-program from hateful ideologies, to veterans’ organizations like About Face which supports active-duty servicemembers who are taking the bold step of resisting orders. After the first American Pope, Leo XIV, issued a call for ‘deep reflection’ on the Trump Administration’s treatment of immigrants, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted almost unanimously this week to issue a rare and historic “Special Message” as a collective rebuke of the Trump Administration’s mass deportation program, the ‘dehumanizing rhetoric’ that fuels anti-immigrant sentiment, and the ‘climate of fear’ it has created in immigrant communities; and called for “meaningful reform” of U.S. immigration laws. Catholic priests have been at the forefront of anti-ICE resistance and community defense in Chicago; a Catholic priest and nearly two dozen other faith leaders were arrested Friday when the group knelt down and refused to clear the street during a prayer protest at Chicago’s Broadview ICE facility.Upcoming Protests, Actions, and Events.
November 16-22: The farm advocacy coalition BackForty Action is hosting a major advocacy event called “Save the Heartland” at D.C. Union Station. The two-week activism, education and storytelling event aims to connect rural advocates, farmers, teachers, and healthcare workers to defend rural America against harmful policies threatening our farms, schools, and hospitals. More information can be found at SaveTheHeartland.org.
Mondays, November 17 & 24: The group Refuse Fascism! is leading an action to ‘Surround The White House’ on the next two consecutive Mondays to protest the Trump regime and help build a nonviolent mass movement to drive him out of power. The action is coordinated with the launch of the Removal Coalition’s impeachment campaign on November 22. More information and materials can be found at Refuse Fascism’s website.
Tuesdays, 12-2pm ET and 7-9pm ET, ongoing: The New York-based nonviolent action group Rise and Resist is organizing a weekly picket against institutions that support the Trump regime on Tuesdays, at NYC’s Fox Headquarters (12-1pm ET) and at offices of various law firms complicit with the Trump regime (1-2pm ET). They will also be holding their general meetings on Zoom Tuesday nights from 7-9pm ET. More information can be found on Bluesky and at RiseAndResist.org.
November 20-22: The Removal Coalition is hosting a three-day event and action in Washington DC to lobby Congress en masse for the impeachment of Donald Trump. The impeachment demand is based on a model Congressional impeachment resolution outlining eight evidenced charges of impeachable offenses. A full program of events over three days in Washington DC can be found at the Remove the Regime website. Information on buses and rideshares to the event from over 75 pickup points can be found at https://rally.co/remove-the-regime-washington-dc. Solidarity events with the DC action are being organized across the country; partial listings can be found at Remove the Regime’s Mobilize page and on Bluesky.
Saturday, November 22: Following Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s call for a General Strike, General Strike US is holding an online introductory webinar on “Why We Need a General Strike and How We Can Make It Happen” on November 22 at 3pm ET / 12pm PT. More information is at GeneralStrike.US and those interested can sign up at the webinar registration link. More resources on the General Strike and current organizing can be found at https://linktr.ee/generalstrikeus.
November 25-December 2: Blackout The System has called for a nationwide economic boycott scheduled around the Thanksgiving holiday and extending through Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The initiative aims to become the most significant economic blackout in recent history; participants are encouraged to refrain from working or spending money, and organize for the action in advance by joining the pressure campaign, sticker teams, or building power in the local community. Momentum is growing for this action and it is getting more attention in the mainstream media. More information on the action and ongoing campaign can be found at BlackoutTheSystem.com.
Sunday, November 30 and every other Sunday: General Strike US will be holding a bi-weekly General Strike Teach-In online every other Sunday on the Jitsi platform. Organizers are holding this space regularly as a way for the public to learn about the General Strike and connect with organizers around the country. More information on the General Strike can be found by downloading the General Strike Welcome Packet, the Teach-in resources can be found at the GSUS Public Calendar, and an organizer’s toolkit can be found at the GSUS Linktree archive.
