American Uprising: The Resistance in 2025

From mass mobilizations to street-corner protests, Americans turned out to oppose the autocratic regime.

This year has been one of historic resistance for Americans in big cities and small. From grandmothers concerned about a future for their grandkids, to military veterans who believe in loyalty to the Constitution above any person or party, to self-identified introverts, to immigrant families, to scientists to teachers to students, to middle and working class folks who struggle with affordability every day, millions of people banded together this year in historic numbers to reject the rising authoritarianism of Donald Trump.

We saw record-breaking nationwide demonstrations that reshaped the national conversation pushing issues such as immigration, affordability, rule of law, and abuse of executive power to the forefront. And across the political spectrum and throughout the calendar year, Americans took to the streets, organized strikes and boycotts, and demanded accountability from elected officials and billionaires propping up a wanna-be dictator.

Mass Mobilizations Continue to Grow

Protests and non-violent mass mobilizations surged in communities across all 50 states, including in counties that Trump won in 2024 The protests began in earnest in January on the eve of the presidential inauguration, with the People’s March on Washington. Organized by groups including the Women’s March, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, the Sierra Club, the march brought thousands into the nation’s capital and set a resolute tone for the year.

Soon after, 50501, the decentralized movement famously founded on Reddit launched an effort to organize anti-Trump protests nationally. In February, the network’s first protest drew tens of thousands of people and served as a launching pad for the larger protests that followed.

In April, “Hands Off!” demonstrations in over 1,400 locations drew large crowds demanding an end to Elon Musk’s DOGE reign that led to the firing of over 200,000 of federal workers and widespread cuts to life-saving federal programs. The demonstrations came on the heels of the Telsa Takedown campaign organized in over 250 cities in the United States and Europe, which anchored regular protests at Telsa showrooms and called for a worldwide boycott of the car manufacturer. The result? Musk left his DOGE post in May, and Tesla stock plummeted 21% in the first half of the year. Today, Tesla car sales in Europe are down by an average of nearly 40%.

Federal workers hit back with a mass mobilization on May Day, also known as International Workers Day, to challenge Trump’s anti-worker and anti-immigrant agenda. The AFL-CIO and other labor groups followed up with robust protests, rallies and marches on Labor Day, calling for Workers Over Billionaires, and a demand for the protection of safety net programs, including Medicaid and Social Security, and the full funding of public schools.

Free America events on July 4 called for humane immigration policies, individual liberties, and democracy for all; and the late Congressman John Lewis, a civil rights icon, inspired July’s Good Trouble Lives On demonstrations against mass deportations and health care cuts.

Without a doubt, the emergence of the No Kings movement became a defining moment for the resistance this year. With national mass mobilizations protests in June and October, growing from 2,100 to 2,700 protests in all fifty states drawing millions of participants, the demonstrations marked a record-setting expression of opposition to authoritarian rule. No Kings protesters protested the deployment of National Guard to U.S. cities, aggressive tactics by immigration agents, rising prices, a lawless president and his close ties to convicted pedophile Jeffery Epstein and sex trafficker Ghislane Maxwell, and a cowed Supreme Court that has given Trump the freedom to break laws with impunity. Co-sponsored by the Indivisible, the ACLU, SEIU, AFT, MoveOn, Public Citizen and other national and state organizations, the October protest was one of the largest single days of protest in U.S. history, with 7 million people taking to the streets .

Standing up for Immigrants in Our Communities

Trump makes no secret of his Make America White Again agenda. He wasted no time this year in undoing protective status and other immigration policies affecting thousands of immigrants from countries including Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and, most recently, Afghanistan. Through Trump’s mass deportation policy, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have landed in cities across the country to kidnap, detain, and deport mostly non-criminal immigrants. The presence of ICE and its aggressive tactics sparked a series of protests beginning in Los Angeles and expanding to other cities, and included robust community organizing efforts in D.C., Portland, and Chicago, which Trump used as a pretext to federalize and deploy National Guard troops. In many neighborhoods, including New York’s Chinatown, residents have chased ICE agents away, and have also organized mutual aid networks to support and protect their neighbors, including the creation of whistle brigades in Chicago. And the presence of protesters dressed in costumes, like the Portland frog and chicken man, injected a spirit of humor into protests to defy characterization of their cities as war zones.

CONSUMER POWER: A YEAR OF BOYCOTTS

This year, activists and consumers have used their purchasing power to organize a record number of economic boycotts against corporations aligned with Trump administration policies. Events like the nationwide economic blackout and We Ain’t Buying It, and coordinated calls to shun major retailers such as Target, Amazon, Starbucks, and Home Depot reflected the broader trend of consumers withholding their spending to express dissatisfaction with DEI rollbacks, unfair labor practices, and collaboration with ICE. In addition, Consumer backlash against ABC and its parent company Disney was swift, with boycotts, shareholder call to actions, and demonstrations outside of ABC affiliate studios, after it pulled Jimmy Kimmel off the air for telling a joke not to Trump’s liking. Kimmel was quickly reinstated after Disney lost 1.7 subscribers and billions in market shares.

The elections in November in California, Georgia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Miami and Virginia displayed a wholesale rejection by voters of what Trump is serving up. We engaged in some of the most sustained and broad-based mobilizations in recent memory, and our organizing stands as a testament of our common strength even as we celebrate our differences. May we continue to bring that strength, resilience, humanity, and organizing drive into 2026 as we fight for our country and leaders we deserve.

Maria Peralta is a strategic campaigns consultant with over 25 years of leadership experience in progressive politics, labor organizing, voting rights and democracy.

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