Mass protests have moved beyond Democrats

The stakes and the task ahead were clear in New York

Welcome to a Sunday edition of Progress Report.

After a grim week, this is a quick and uplifting newsletter for you, because we have to maintain hope if we’re going to overcome the forces devoted to plundering and immiserating Americans.

Tonight was supposed to mark the first live video interview here at Progress Report, but I’ve got some kind of sinus bug that’s giving me an absolute killer brain-in-vice headache that I am confident would really detract from the entertainment value of the conversation. So, we’re moving the conversation with author and labor organizer Eric Blanc to Monday night at 9pm EST.

Remember, Eric will talk to us about his critical work with fired federal workers and his new book, We Are the Union. He’s been right at the center of the fight against DOGE’s mass layoffs as a key part of the new Federal Unionists Network, so he’s got some stories to tell and I’m excited that he’s going to share them with us.

Note: Unlike many progressive advocacy journalists, I’ve gone fully independent, with no special advertising deals or close relationships with powerful politicians to temper what I write. My only loyalty is to you, the reader, and to the cause of progress — economic justice, democracy, human rights, and standing up to oligarchs.

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I’ve lived in New York City for half my waking life now and I still tend to get turned around and bit when I get off the subway at the southernmost points of lower Manhattan, where narrow streets and oddly shaped plazas predate the island’s grid and the old marble and limestone buildings jigsaw around modernity. I had no such trouble finding my way on Saturday morning, however, when I emerged from City Hall subway station to booming music and a procession of sign-carrying New Yorkers to guide me toward Foley Square.

The plaza was the meeting point for a protest against Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and the enablers helping them in their mission to destroy the federal government. Chuck Schumer was at the top of that list, a late edition who became a leading focus of protestors’ ire after the hometown senator engineered the Democratic capitulation to the Republican government spending bill.

That he was a target of these protestors in particular was a retort to the justification he gave for his vote: it was organized in part by healthcare workers and Medicaid patients, who held placards that demanded that Democrats “Save Our Services,” while the long march led by federal workers, some fired and others still tenuously employed, featured a massive cutout of Schumer’s head with the word “SHAME” scrawled across his forehead.

What’s more, they were members of the American Federation of Governments Employees, the union that has suffered most from the DOGE decimation but still urged Schumer to hold the line against Republican budget cuts.

In speaking with some of the workers, I learned about the government’s efforts to sidestep court orders to rehire workers and refund programs, as well as the critical work that’s already been dropped for good. The CFPB, under OMB director Russ Vought, has dropped a series of high profile lawsuits against major corporations and some that had not yet been publicized, including a huge enforcement action that would have delivered relief to tens of thousands of homeowners. I hope to have more on that in the weeks to come.

One of the groups came armed with cardboard tombstones on which they wrote various ways that the extreme cuts could wind up killing them and/or other Americans; there were a lot of signs about not being able to afford health care, while the grim creativity on display served as a reminder of what is not only at stake, but the complicity that Democrats assumed when they took the Friday vote.

The mood was nonetheless defiant, the anger at being sold out diminished somewhat by the size of the rally — there had to be at least 10,000 people there — and the understanding that the movement that stops Trump will not be beholden or dependent to Democrats, but instead force them to adjust or flat out replace them.

Here are some images and clips from the march, which should give you some hope — they can’t arrest all of us.

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