Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.
Read more
House and Senate Democrats spoke out Monday when they were blocked from visiting the offices of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in Washington after Elon Musk announced that the humanitarian aid body would be shut down..
But the lawmakers’ very appearance revealed something that many Democratic activists believe party leaders have been missing ever since Trump’s election: A drive to fight.
Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii, declared to The Wall Street Journal that he’s putting in place a blanket hold on all of Trump’s State Department nominees until Trump’s attacks on USAID end.
Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts complained: “I’m sorry that you have to put up with this offensive bulls*** coming out of this White House.”
open image in gallery
The action at the USAID building appeared to signal a change in how Democrats would approach Trump. For much of his first week, Democrats seemed willing to work with him – or simply stayed silent. Many collaborated with Republicans on the Laken Riley Act, Trump’s anti-immigrant bill. Every Democratic senator voted to confirm Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who Monday annointed himself the acting director of USAID.
“I think a theme that is has been bubbling up from everywhere, across our own grassroots, is folks don’t feel like they’ve been seeing the leadership that they needed from the Democratic Party,” Amanda Litman, who leads Run for Something, told The Independent. Litman said lots of Democratic voters want to see their elected officials fight.
“I think part of it is they don’t really know where [constituents] stand on some of these issues. That’s the task of leadership … to identify who you are, what you believe, and how you’re gonna move it forward,” she said.
For Democratic activists, seeing Democrats push back on Trump’s attempts to neuter USAID felt like they finally saw some fight from their party.
“I think … today we are definitely seeing some signs of fight in Democrats that we’re excited about and wanted to cheer on,” Leah Greenberg, a co-founder of Indivisible, a progressive advocacy group, told The Independent Monday. Greenberg said the night before that Indivisible had a livestream with 50,000 people over Trump’s dramatic takeover of the federal operation.
Prior to that, some advocates and fundraisers felt there had been no direction since Trump’s victory.
“I think we’re seeing Democrats in Congress over-interpret the 2024 election to mean that Trump has a popular mandate, and that therefore what the voters want to see is them working with him,” she said.
Trump won the presidential election by a tight 1.5 percentage points — the smallest of any president who secured a popular-vote win since Richard Nixon in 1968. And only some 64 percent of eligible American voters cast a ballot, while 90 million voters did not.
Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, posted on X that she wanted to know what the plan was from Democrats.
“The Democrats have had four years to prepare for this. Then they had three months between the election and the inauguration to prepare for this. They’ve been on recess since January 24 they could have prepared for this.” Watts told The Independent.
She warned: “There’s only so much time to fight back before democracy is completely dismantled. Other than angry press releases and outrage on social media, I’m not seeing any action.”
open image in gallery
Watts compared the efforts to her push to make Democrats support gun control, and emphasized she is still a Democrat who cares about the party.
“When I started Moms Demand Action in 2012 about a quarter of all Democrats in Congress had an A rating from the [National Rifle Association],” she said. “Today, none do. The reason is because we showed up everywhere they were and we thanked and shamed them for for what they were doing.”
Watts said she has received some criticism from others who say Democrats should not criticize each other.
“If … your leaders aren’t doing what they should, it is up to us to put pressure on them. We’re not in a cult,” she said. “This is going to be messy because we don’t want a messiah.”
The outcry began as Democrats pushed back on the Trump administration’s plan to freeze all federal loans and grants.
But Democrats are in the minority in both houses of Congress, and they don’t control the White House. Senator Chris Van Hollen said the fight against the Trump takeover will require help from the courts.
By the same token, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told his colleagues that any efforts to “steal taxpayer money from the American people, end Medicaid as we know it or defund programs important to everyday Americans, as contemplated by the illegal White House Office of Management and Budget order, must be choked off in the upcoming government funding bill, if not sooner.”
This is building up to be a major test for Democrats.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has typically relied on some support from Democrats on funding because many Republicans vote against spending bills. Actions like those promised by Jeffries and Schatz allow Democrats some level of leverage to push back against Trump and will cause major annoyances.
And Democratic activists will be watching.
“At the end of the day, many members of Congress are there to protect their power, and it is on the grassroots activists to make sure that their priority is protecting democracy,” Watts said.
While speaking with The Independent, Watts was informed about Schatz’s hold, which led her to say.
“That’s what we need to see,” she said.
