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THE RESISTIBLE RISE OF DONALD TRUMP  
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Paul Garver
November 20, 2025
Chartist
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_ While elite institutions capitulate, resistance to Trump’s
neo-fascist agenda is building among large segments of the population.
On “No Kings Day”, October 18, close to seven million people
rallied in more than a thousand towns and cities. _

, Official 2025 inaugural portrait of Donald Trump - Credit Wikimedia
CC \ Daniel Torok

 

Nearly a full year since Trump’s re-election, his drive to
consolidate absolute executive power continues.  The leaders of the
armed forces have been given notice that they will be deployed in
American cities.  Roving paramilitary gangs of armed and masked
federal ICE and border patrol agents are sowing fear and chaos in
immigrant communities.  Trump and his minions are issuing ukases
against organisations of “domestic terrorists” (namely, anyone who
resists the imposition of authoritarian tyranny).

Trump and his enablers now proudly acknowledge the ambitious Project
2025 blueprints for seizing power that prior to his election, Trump
claimed not to have even read.   The checks and balances intended to
limit usurpation of power in constitutional governments appear
ineffective against the daily onslaught of executive orders and
presidential social media posts.

Rulings by lower court judges have temporarily blocked the
implementation of some of the most outrageous miscarriages of
justice.  However, the Supreme Court has a majority that often
overrules any limitations on presidential powers.  The Republican
majorities in the House and Senate generally go along with whatever
Trump asks them to do.  The leaders of the Democratic minority in
Congress meekly protest but seem content to wait for future elections
to return them to majority status.

Many major media outlets, law firms and universities have bowed their
heads and bent their knees to the new order, allowing Trump to extort
major financial and policy concessions by withholding federal funds or
threats of prosecution.

A bleak picture indeed, but not one without hope. While elite
institutions capitulate, resistance to Trump’s neo-fascist agenda is
building among large segments of the population.  

On “No Kings Day”, October 18, close to seven million people
rallied in more than a thousand towns and cities. It was promoted by a
host of progressive organizations, some organized into local hubs
capable of following up.  For example, Indivisible has conducted mass
conference calls with thousands of participants to teach methods of
non-compliance.

While people participated for many reasons, my own personal experience
suggests that a major organizing theme was resistance to the assaults
on our immigrant neighbors.  Throughout the USA, in large cities and
small towns, tens of thousands have mobilized against ICE raids into
immigrant support networks.

The ongoing successes of the Fighting Oligarchy tours, led by Bernie
Sanders and various younger Left members of Congress, in mobilizing
large rallies in contested purple and Republican red states indicate
the widespread potential of anti-authoritarian politics.

Under the pretext of “fighting crime”, Trump is using National
Guard units and threatens to use even the professional military itself
in suppressing popular resistance in cities with Democratic
mayors.   Though unlikely to result in armed confrontations, his
dangerous strategy risks further escalation into warring camps while
trying to provoke sufficient civil disorders to justify further
militarized interventions.  Organizational resistance is emerging
mostly from big cities in blue states as Democratic mayors and
governors denounce the unpopular shows of force by federal
stormtroopers in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland.  While unable to
prevent such encroachments, they can help legitimate community
resistance to them. To date, civil opponents have maintained enough
self-discipline to thwart Trump’s reckless schemes.

Zohran Mamdani is likely to be elected as mayor of New York City on
4th November.   Campaigning for rent control, availability and
affordability of food and housing for working-class New Yorkers,
Mamdani’s candidacy has crystallized the hopes of many and aroused
fears in others.   The billionaire donor class and the pro-Netanyahu
diehards of AIPAC are spending millions of dollars to derail
Mamdani’s candidacy.  Trump is blowing a lot of smoke about how he
will not permit a “Communist Hamas supporter” from taking
office.   Trump is tacitly in an unholy alliance with Democratic
Congressional leaders Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem
Jeffries to block Mamdani, who decisively defeated both corrupt former
New York governor Andrew Cuomo and discredited current NYC mayor Eric
Adams in the Democratic primary.

By rejecting the choice of the New York City Democratic electorate,
Schumer and Jeffries are widening the rift within the Democratic Party
between those dependent on corporate donors who fear the possible
negative blowback elsewhere in the country from a victorious
democratic socialist in a prominent elected office and those who
advocate a more populist, pro-working-class politics for the
Democratic Party. Some DSA members outside New York have expressed
serious angst over Mamdani’s campaign.   Unwilling to attack
Mamdani directly, ultra-left caucuses are trotting out stale
platitudes about the inevitable evils of Mamdani running in a
Democratic primary, and the undeniable fact that no election will
bring about a “Revolution”.  At the DSA Convention, they focused
their sectarian fire on an increasingly pragmatic Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez as a safer target.  

The prospect of a skilled and charismatic politician with impeccable
DSA credentials becoming mayor of New York City poses challenges
across the American political spectrum.   By the time you read this
report, you may know better what comes next.

 

_Paul Garver is a member of Democratic Socialists of America._

 

_Chartist is the bi-monthly political magazine of the democratic
left. In honouring the Chartists of the 19th century, our idea of
democratic socialism is as much about the political movement and means
of mobilisation used to advance political ideas as it is about the
ideas themselves. Chartist seeks to provide a space for those who
subscribe to this broad ideal._

* Trump Administration
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* Project 2025
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* Fighting Oligarchy Tour
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* Indivisible
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* DSA
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* Zohran Mamdani
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