WaPo: The anti-Trump resistance begins to wake in earnest

[Dennis Donovan]

WaPo - (archived: https://archive.ph/3MOrU ) The anti-Trump resistance begins to wake in earnest

After an initial period of stunned confusion, protesters are packing meetings, states are suing, and Democrats are preparing for a budget showdown.

Today at 5:00 a.m.
By Naftali Bendavid and Maeve Reston

Rowdy crowds are showing up at lawmakers’ town hall meetings to protest President Donald Trump’s actions. Some people are launching into chants like “No king!” or shouting down Republican House members. Sen. Bernie Sanders is drawing overflow crowds of his own as he seeks to mobilize voters against Trump’s budget cuts.

At the same time, a coalition of Democratic state attorneys general is methodically filing lawsuits against Trump’s orders, and in six out of seven cases, it has been successful in persuading judges to halt them. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic Governors Association and liberal groups are seeing a surge in fundraising. And Democratic members of Congress are seizing on a budget clash as an opportunity to coalesce against the president’s plans.

Little by little, after an initial phase of stunned confusion, the broader resistance to Trump is beginning to wake up.

“There is a lot more anger building, such that we are seeing in deep red Republican-held districts that people are coming out,” said Faiz Shakir, Sanders’s chief political adviser. “They are surprising those [Republican] members of Congress who don’t expect that when they try to defend Elon Musk they will get aggressive booing. You couldn’t manufacture this if you tried.”

Ezra Levin, co-executive director of the progressive group Indivisible, said his group has grown roughly from 1,000 local groups to 1,500 since the election. Activists from MoveOn organized 60 events last week including protests outside the offices of Republican House members, some drawing several hundred participants.

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