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Saving the Republic: Enough Insight Already, It’s Time for Action
Rather than relying solely on one form of political power, one that is often fragile and slow-moving, we suggest a more practiced and time-tested approach: Nonviolent Direct Action.
Sep 05, 2026
Daniel Snyder, advocate of strategic nonviolence and author of Praying in the Dark: Spirituality, Non-Violence, and the Emerging World collaborated on this commentary.
Countless commentaries have shed light on the current administration’s aggressive, demonic, and systematic campaign to undercut commitments that have held us together for 250 years.
The assault we are experiencing threatens our health and well-being, bashes hopes we have for our children and grandchildren, and detracts from essential responsibilities that go along with being a good citizen. Adherence to the rule of law, assuring protections afforded in the Bill of Rights, and maintaining equitable and humane treatment of all persons are three of the nation’s most critical commitments.
An assumption throughout has been that millions of people in this country treasure these commitments and want to see them reaffirmed. If you are reading this, you are likely a person who shares these feelings. The telling question then is: What to do? What actions would be most effective in fulfilling our common aims? It would not be an understatement to say that this single question has dogged many of us since this administration came to power.
Nonviolent direct action seeks to move the center of gravity of public opinion toward the 3.5% participation that researchers have identified as the “tipping point” of social movements.
Yet the question often leaves resistors uncertain and overwhelmed. We tend to rush to action without fully understanding political dynamics and appreciating the value of strategic thinking. A critical first step is study, not only of the issues, but of approaches that have proven to work.
Desperate for brighter prospects, we are counting heavily on the upcoming midterm elections to turn the political tide in favor of preserving our treasured commitments. Perhaps we are also hoping that the judiciary will step up as a forceful counterweight to the ceaseless assaults. Yet, important as they are, Congress and the courts are "top-down" forms of political power. "Bottom-up" power is an essential complement, keeping "top-down" forms accountable to the people they were created to serve.
Rather than relying solely on one form of political power, one that is often fragile and slow-moving, we suggest a more practiced and time-tested approach: Nonviolent Direct Action.
What it is: Nonviolent direct action seeks to move the center of gravity of public opinion toward the 3.5% participation that researchers have identified as the “tipping point” of social movements. Such a groundswell of public opinion requires a careful assessment of proposed actions’ tendency to expand the “bottom-up” power base. Strategy-based action is a kind of “street theater” designed to create a broad base of people power, and a collective sense that “we” are in this together.
No Kings Protests had some of the earmarks of nonviolent direct action, but they lacked a constructive purpose. Most important, they lacked a strategy for attaining and sustaining that critical 3.5% threshold.
How it works: Imagine an inverted pyramid balanced on its point—extremely unstable, right? It will topple with the slightest breath. To maintain stability, undemocratic regimes must be propped up with "pillars of support." What are those pillars for the Trump administration? This is the essential strategic question for anyone planning an action. Weakening or removing even one pillar creates a crisis for the regime. Demonstratively successful nonviolent actions work on this principle. Economic boycotts, central to the civil rights movement, forced business owners to integrate lunch counters. Divestment actions pressured South Africa to dismantle apartheid.
What is essential for it to work well: Study the literature, especially the writings of Gene Sharp. Sign up for online training or subscribe to one or more of the online news services that report on current nonviolent actions and offer informative articles on strategy.
Within every action group there must be at least one or two people dedicated to doing the research and training necessary to offer wise and informed strategic counsel.
Build coalitions with others. No need to reinvent the wheel or act alone. Find out who else is already taking action on behalf of the commitments listed above and collaborate in learning and coordinating action.
Big picture, we need to improve our game, be more effective than activist groups, which tend to be issue-focused and action-oriented, but weak on strategy. News outlets like Waging Nonviolence and Nonviolence News provide plentiful stories of current actions. These are good places to start for us who are anxious to do something that will definitively turn the tide toward democratic governance.
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Trump Admin Declares UK Anti-Genocide Group Palestine Action a Terrorist Organization
One free speech proponent called the designation "retaliation against the sanctioned for holding political views the Trump administration dislikes."
Aug 26, 2026
A top First Amendment advocacy group on Wednesday warned of the "broad speech implications" of the Trump administration's sanctions on the British anti-genocide group Palestine Action, which it designated an international terrorist organization for leading direct actions in opposition to the Israeli government.
Under the designation, Americans will be blocked from doing business with Palestine Action, and providing the group with funds, goods, or services will be prohibited.
British citizens who continue to donate to the group or take part in protests supporting it—which thousands of people have been arrested for doing since the UK government proscribed Palestine Action last year—could face sanctions and visa bans in the US, according to The Telegraph, which first reported the news Wednesday that the US designation was expected.
The group's co-founders, Richard Barnard and Huda Ammori, will face lifetime bans from entering the US due to the sanctions.
Chip Gibbons, policy director for Defending Rights and Dissent, said his group was "especially disturbed that Palestine Action, a nonviolent, direct action organization, has been sanctioned under a [President George W.] Bush-era executive order issued in response to the September 11th attacks, essentially putting civil disobedience for Palestinian rights on equal footing with al-Qaeda."
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the sanctions of Palestine Action, along with sanctions targeting the Italy-based group Autistici Inventati—which supplies digital services to left-wing groups—and Masar Badil, a Palestinian organization.
The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) was imposing the sanctions under Executive Order 13224, which prohibits transactions between people in the US and groups that commit or support terrorism.
“Far-left extremists, their fronts, and their enablers should be on notice: We will bring the full weight of our economic tools to bear,” said Bessent. “Political terrorism has no place in our society, and we will continue to cut the financial lifelines of these groups until they are eliminated.”
The curtailing of Palestine Action's ability to participate in the global financial system and its new US label as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" group, said Gibbons, were not only "retaliation against the sanctioned for holding political views the Trump administration dislikes, but they severely curtail and criminalize US citizens' ability to engage in otherwise lawful associations with these groups.”
A US official told The Telegraph before the sanctions were officially announced that Palestine Action had "supported numerous acts of terrorism since July 2020, including acts that have physically injured UK law enforcement personnel, as well as acts intended to intimidate lawful commercial enterprise and coerce the British government."
The designation comes just over a year after UK lawmakers voted to proscribe Palestine Action after some of its members vandalized two aircraft at a Royal Air Force base.
In August 2024, activists with the group also raided a facility of Elbit Systems, an Israeli-owned weapons manufacturer, and attacked a police officer.
Organizers maintain that Palestine Action's overarching goal is to demonstrate against and disrupt "the Israeli war machine, which is committing a genocide in Gaza with the support of the US government," as Ammori told Al Jazeera Wednesday.
They organized the recent actions to protest Israel's bombardment of Gaza, which has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians since 2023 and is continuing to decimate the exclave despite a ceasefire reached last October.
Ammori added that President Donald Trump "has been at the center of the mass murder of Palestinians, enabling the Zionist regime at every turn.”
Many of the people arrested for supporting Palestine Action in the UK have been detained simply for holding signs that express opposition to genocide and solidarity with the group.
The new designation comes a month after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted representatives from more than 60 countries at the Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism, where he warned that "for far too long... our counterterrorism doctrine has had a blind spot when it comes to extremist violence from the political left," and called for a global crackdown.
Rubio and top White House adviser Stephen Miller warned in July that numerous arrests and prosecutions of people and groups deemed by the administration to be left-wing extremists would be coming, under the guidance put forward by National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, which called for a national strategy to crack down on left-wing organizing.
In the UK, five Palestine Action organizers won a legal victory after a judge ruled that they would not be sentenced as terrorists, and three UK Supreme Court judges granted Ammori the right to challenge the government's ban on the organization.
More than 250 academics and legal experts on Wednesday wrote to British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, calling on him to both end UK military support for Israel and to terminate the proscription of Palestine Action.
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Trump 'Has Failed Us': US Airman Says He Accepts Cost of Speaking Out Against Iran War
"Not only is he a failure as president, he is flagrantly violating the Constitution, breaking the law, engaged in rampant corruption, and is killing Americans, and that is unacceptable to me," said Maj. Jason Watson.
Aug 18, 2026
Maj. Jason Watson's participation in a protest organized last month by the Removal Coalition, a group that calls for President Donald Trump's impeachment, wasn't his first foray into speaking out against the commander-in-chief.
He spent 22 days last year on a hunger strike, staying anonymous by wearing a white mask and white jumpsuit on the US Capitol grounds, next to a sign that read: “Impeach. Convict. Remove.”
But the US airman spoke Monday about what pushed him last month to go public with his protest against Trump's unprovoked war on Iran, displaying the same sign at a news conference organized by Removal Coalition, where he wore his Air Force uniform and was identified by name.
"If I don't put myself out there in a big way, it's just noise," Watson told CNN anchor Erin Burnett. "We can change what is happening in our country if we're just willing to pay a price for it."
Air Force Maj. Jason Watson tells @ErinBurnett he is speaking out against Trump knowing the potential consequences and laws governing the US military: “Nothing that is worth doing, is something that you can do for free… we can change what is happening in our country if we’re… pic.twitter.com/UtBuBM6gOA
— Erin Burnett OutFront (@OutFrontCNN) August 18, 2026
His public dissent against the broadly unpopular war could violate Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which mandates punishment against “any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words” against the president, military leaders, or US government officials, or Article 134, which prohibits statements "made with the intent to promote disloyalty or disaffection toward the United States."
Air Force Secretary Troy Meink has said the military is investigating the protest. Watson could face dishonorable discharge, a loss of military pay, and months in prison for violating the Uniform Code.
When considering his public protest, Watson said he asked himself, "What's the highest price that I'm willing to pay, and this is what I ultimately came up with."
He said he was "absolutely motivated" by his oath to the US Constitution and his concern for the future of the country as Trump and continues to threaten Iran and other countries in the Middle East, nearly six months after the president joined Israel in waging war on Iran.
"Any American can say, this government is intolerable and I want a better future for my children, and I want to hand them a better country than I inherited," said Watson.
After he joined the news conference on the Capitol steps last month, Watson was arrested by the US Capitol police. He was held in jail overnight and transferred to the DC Superior Court before the DC attorney general dropped the charge, but Air Force police officers then took him into custody and held him at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling.
Air Force Major Jason Watson calls for the immediate removal of President Donald Trump and VP JD Vance from office at a press conference in front of Congress Wednesday afternoon.
He cites the numerous Constitutional violations undertaken by the Trump administration, from his… pic.twitter.com/YePHlxpLtn
— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) July 2, 2026
Jessica Denson, founder of the Removal Coalition, told The Washington Post last month that Watson was "prepared for the worst-of-the-worst outcome" of his protest.
Watson said after his arrest that during his previous anonymous protest, he had been overly concerned with being identified, considering the Uniform Code.
“There was nobody paying attention because it’s just easy to ignore a lone actor, especially dressed the way that I was," he said on Denson's podcast, "Lights On."
He told Burnett Monday: "Nothing that is worth doing is something that you can do for free. Everything that is worthwhile is going to cost something."
"It's going to be hard, it's going to require sacrifice, and we are in an incredibly challenging time, and in order for us to get out of this situation we all have to have courage," he said.
On CNN, Watson doubled down on speaking out against Trump's war in Iran, which has killed more than 3,400 Iranians, including hundreds or children and women, as well as thousands of people across the Middle East as the conflict has widened, and at least 17 US service members.
The war has also worsened the affordability crisis in the US as oil and gas prices have soared, and led to a standoff over control of the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran effectively closed in retaliation for the US-Israeli assault.
"What is happening with the Iran War is very predictable strategically, and a lot of much smarter people than me knew that it would have gone pretty poorly," said Watson. "And he chose to do it anyway."
Air Force Maj. Jason Watson, who was arrested at the US Capitol after calling for Trump’s impeachment and removal from office, says the Iran war motivated him to speak out: “What he did was unconstitutional. It was an aggressive war of choice.” pic.twitter.com/wk9n0F6G7J
— Erin Burnett OutFront (@OutFrontCNN) August 18, 2026
"At the end of the day, it's also more important to remember that what he did was unconstitutional," said Watson. "It was an aggressive war of choice that, if we saw another country do that, we would probably look to our allies and say, 'What are we gonna do about this?'"
He compared the US war on Iran with Russia's incursion in Ukraine—another "aggressive war of choice."
"He has failed us," Watson said of Trump. "Not only is he a failure as president, he is flagrantly violating the Constitution, breaking the law, engaged in rampant corruption, and is killing Americans, and that is unacceptable to me."
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Trump's Immigration Policies Have Been Rejected; Why Won't Dems Act Like It?
Rather than continue internecine fights, Democratic elites should join the grassroots in fighting the real adversary—the brutal, violent, white-nationalist deportation campaign now tearing this country apart.
Aug 05, 2026
With midterms approaching and the future of US.democracy balanced on a knife's edge, a media-driven moral panic about the Democratic Socialists of America is dividing the Democratic Party. That's unhelpful. Everyone knows Democrats need to unify under a big tent to retake Congress and check President Donald Trump's authoritarianism. This isn't the first unproductive debate of its kind. Before it came another fight—over the proper role of resistance to Trump's immigration crackdown—driven by the same hand-wringing, among the same people, that has slowed progress for years. As with immigration, the lesson is the same: it is grassroots resistance, not elite caution, that is winning this fight, and Democrats' cowardice in scapegoating their own base is what's holding the party back.
CNN reports that Trump is polling lower than Herbert Hoover did in the Great Depression, and a recent Fox News poll shows that voters now favor Democrats over Republicans on immigration. That is a huge turnaround—the GOP led by eight points on immigration as recently as April. That's also a huge collapse for Trump on what was once his signature issue. But it shouldn't be shocking or surprising. Trump's (and by extension all Republicans’) popularity on immigration was bound to go down from the moment he was sworn in. The only question is why it took so long.
Trump's failure on immigration was baked in, predestined, and unavoidable. The tragedy is that too many Democratic leaders and policy influencers have never understood this. Their tepid and craven response to Trump’s barbaric treatment of immigrants has hindered emerging bottom-up national consensus that can overtake Trumpism.
For years, Democratic party elites urged immigrants and advocates to abandon their ferocious defense of immigrants' rights. They said endlessly that the only way to win good immigration policies was to compromise on the bad ones. Their path to comprehensive immigration reform required grassroots activists to fall in line. Pundits, think tank thought leaders, and the philanthropic donor class insisted it was smart politics not to challenge the Republicans' dishonest framing of immigration. That is, as a crime and jobs problem to be solved only with more policing, as a security threat to be solved with militarized borders, and a public-health emergency to be solved by ending asylum. And that's not to mention the cultural panic.
While Democrats continue to read polls and ruminate over slide decks, the vilified street protests are doing their work for them.
Talk tough, they told us. Give Republicans what they want on the border, the prisons, the boots, and guns. Avoid using the word “amnesty” to talk about legalization. Say no to "sanctuary cities,” say yes to the Chamber of Commerce, and shut up about abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Then they might let you have some extra green cards. And if we don’t win immigration reform in Congress, we were told, at least we will have an issue that will keep Latinos voting for Democrats in the next election. And we can even tell undecided voters and moderate Republicans that we’re just as tough as the other guys. In short, the Democratic elite felt confident it could play all sides.
But the visas never came. Reform never happened. Trump won the White House, and won again (this time with a higher share of Latino support), and the Republicans took Congress and the Supreme Court along with it. How did prospects for immigration reform and the Democrats political advantage disappear into thin air?
Democrats, consultants, and talking heads needed to pin the blame. Immigrants themselves were the first scapegoats. Newcomers made lunch-pail voters nervous. Asylum-seekers were next. Too many, too fast. America was full. "No vacancy," said the cover of The Atlantic magazine.
But then, curiously, a new culprit emerged: grassroots immigrant-rights organizations like mine—known derisively by collective shorthand as "the groups” among the Acela corridor class. They said "the groups" had pushed President Joe Biden to be too radical on immigration. Too "open borders." Too tolerant of people fleeing poverty and death and seeking refuge here. Too heedless of public opinion. Too sanctimonious.
That view was always wrong. Let's unpack why.
Trump's first presidential campaign began with an explicitly racist anti-immigrant lie about Mexicans. He ran on his promise to build a border wall to keep out criminal rapists and terrorists and to win back jobs for native-born Americans. He made his racist, xenophobic agenda more explicit when he ran for and won a second term, replacing the promise of the big, beautiful wall with a pledge to do mass deportations.
But that fascist tactic—promising quick, brutally simple answers to complex problems—was bound to fail. Lofty promises on immigration are easy for candidates because immigration is a meta issue that encompasses the fiction that a country tells about itself. For the MAGA movement (always a minority of the country, it’s worth remembering), America is a secure homeland for white English speakers. For Trump, it’s more like a vast country club, exclusive and gated like his fabled Mar-a-Lago.
In his first term, Trump’s deranged fantasies about immigration and other things started vaporizing immediately. Support for his false promises precipitously and steadily declined soon after his inauguration and throughout his term. The wall never got built. America didn't become Great Again.
Now, just as in Trump's first time in the White House, a huge chasm has opened up between lies and reality. The gaps are many. Get criminals? They're already covered by the criminal-justice system. Seal the border? It already was. Make America Great Again, again? With masked death squads terrorizing American cities? Yeah, right.
Mismanaging expectations is nothing new for modern presidents. George W. Bush had the right instincts on immigration, but he couldn’t close the bipartisan deal handed to him by Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.). President Barack Obama had lofty goals and rhetoric. But he became the deporter-in-chief, a terrible stain on his historic legacy, and one that prefigured Trump’s outright war on immigrants. President Biden’s brightest moment in an otherwise dismal campaign was his promise to defend asylum. Until he ended it.
That cycle of promise and betrayal on immigration had become the rule, not the exception. Everyone knows the immigration system needs modernizing—amnesty paired with sensible enforcement measures—but with Congress dysfunctional beyond all recognition, no president has been able to deliver legislation. So they have all reached for executive power instead, using it not just to govern but to wedge and divide the opposition party. For a while, it worked. Republicans were in full-scale disarray after Obama's 2012 reelection, with voices from Sean Hannity to Charles Krauthammer calling for surrender on immigration reform.
This all changed with Trump. As a candidate, he defied the conventional wisdom of Republican elites with overt racism. In office, he became truly unique: the first president to triple down on an authoritarian, white-supremacist agenda rather than tack to the middle. Trump has a lap-dog Republican Congress and more leverage than any other recent president to cut a comprehensive immigration deal. But he likely won't—certainly not when his top ghoul, Stephen Miller, is pursuing a vast ethnic-cleansing campaign instead. By now, the only constant in Trump’s addled mind is probably a belief in his own lies about immigration and in the notion that punching down at immigrants is the only way to save himself.
With Trump's popularity on immigration destined to fail, and with daily images of ICE cruelty that shock the conscience, all Democrats had to do was stay united in opposition. First, to help the people they had been promising citizenship for more than 20 years. Second, to help themselves. Instead, their divisions in the face of Trump's campaign of white supremacy have been uniquely ugly and counterproductive. Democratic elites made the same mistake Republican elites made in their 2012 autopsy, only in reverse. They mistook the repudiation of Biden’s failure as a ratification of Trump’s racist vision of America. The difference is that this time, far more people are suffering for it. And democracy itself is now at risk if Democrats don’t change course.
Cecilia Muñoz and Frank Sharry—the two leading Obama-era voices guiding Democrats on immigration from inside and outside the White House—should have blamed themselves for decades of failure. Instead, they conveniently blamed "the groups." Senate Democrats surrendered on the racist Laken Riley Act. Two supposedly progressive Democrats, Sens. Jon Ossoff (Ga.) and Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), are already calculating how much this capitulation will cost their 2028 presidential ambitions.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY) assailed Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) for standing up for Kilmar Abrego Garcia—the former day laborer whom the Trump administration defamed, abducted, and disappeared into a torture prison in El Salvador.
And it's not just Obama alums and elected officials. Pundits from Matt Yglesias to the Pod Save America bros have warned of doom if Democrats don't keep the groups in check and moderate on immigration. How many New York Times op-eds have blamed the 1965 immigration act for the rise of right-wing xenophobia? How many have blamed immigrants for upsetting white voters? Not even hashtags were spared—somehow #AbolishICE got blamed for everything.
Meanwhile, the maligned groups in the field have labored on—with far more to do, with far fewer resources, and with none of the luxury enjoyed by the elites who spent their time pointing fingers. There's no time for that when the work itself is the emergency.
They are helpers to those in need. Across the country, in response to what is now a full-scale domestic human rights crisis, leadership has come from the streets, not from those in elected office. People assisting neighbors. Defending their communities. Protecting kids. Showing up at courthouses and ICE check-ins so no one faces fascism alone. And immigrants and citizens standing and marching together, courageously, in the streets to demand: ICE out of our cities.
While Democrats continue to read polls and ruminate over slide decks, the vilified street protests are doing their work for them. The resistance that Beltway Democrats shun has become their lifeline—turning the tide on the one issue Trump was supposed to own.
And those sanctuary policies, once treated as the source of Democrats' problems back in 2016? They have literally stopped hundreds of thousands of deportations—in police stations, in jails, in courthouses across the country.
The Beltway Democrats' skittishness—their craven blaming of immigrants to conceal their own failure—has been a brake on progress. Those people need to join the resistance. Do something. Help someone. And stop bashing the people you claim to defend.
Absent the mother of all pivots from the White House, the downward trajectory for Trump on immigration will continue inexorably. The only questions are about the rate of decline and what comes next.
Rather than continue internecine fights, Democratic elites should join the grassroots in fighting the real adversary—the brutal, violent, white-nationalist deportation campaign now tearing this country apart. They should get out of their conference rooms and Zoom calls and hit the streets with us. A number of members of Congress have already followed Sen. Van Hollen's lead, forcing their way into the warehouses where immigrants are jailed in defense of their constituents. Every Democrat should do the same. Not as a photo op, but because it's right. And because in every election to come, Democrats will be judged not by their campaign promises, but by what they did in years Trump was in office.
The stakes go beyond the midterms. Fighting back now, unequivocally, is what will get Democratic leaders ready for what comes after Trump's inevitable downfall. They need to think about the vast possibilities ahead—restoring truth to immigration discourse, and pursuing policies that make a real difference in the lives of real people. They should be as ambitious in proposing new ways to help immigrants and rebuild this country as Trump has been in trying to destroy it.
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Marco 'McCarthy' Rubio Is Wrong on Cuba and Where 'Terrorism' Is Coming From
Those who challenge and protest US policies are not terrorists, and they are certainly not paid by other governments.
Aug 05, 2026
Thin-skinned and heavy-handed, the Trump administration apparently feels like it is being singled out by those who dissent from its policies. As a result, Trump appointees are taking drastic "McCarthy" tactics to stop dissent.
In less than one month, alleging that dissent and protests are part of attempts of other governments “to overthrow the government of the United States,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio has sponsored two major initiatives to frighten those who oppose the Trump administration's policies. The first salvo was orchestrating a conference with 60 countries participating over “Threats From Left-Wing Terrorists.” The second was the report on Cuba that alleged virtually every group that has ever visited Cuba is paid by the Cuban government.
No One is Paid to Protest—If One Is NOT Outraged Then You Aren’t Watching
These allegations of paid protest and travelling on the dime of another country are unfounded, untrue, and fly in the face of the history of protests in the US and travel by US citizens to see the effects of US polices on other countries.
President Donald Trump’s erratic foreign policy, including the disastrous attacks on Iran as a favor to Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli war machine; attacks domestically cutting health and education; horrific treatment of migrants; daily outlandish statements on just about every subject; and disregard for facts in virtually every issue all provide good reasons for protests by outraged US citizens.
I have not been paid by any country to protest US policies, nor do I know anyone who has been paid.
No one needs to be paid to be outraged!!!
Dissent is Not Illegal and Is Not Paid by Other Countries
In particular, Secretary of State and National Security adviser Marco Rubio, who has authored the latest "McCarthy" report to quell opposition to illegal, immoral policies of his department and the Trump administration in general, seems to have lost his grasp on the history of dissent in the US.
From his 15 years in the US Senate, he should remember that many of each administration's domestic and international policies have been lawfully and non-violently protested by US citizens in the US Congress.
Having been a part of many protests since I resigned from the State Department in March 2003 in opposition to a war policy, President George W. Bush's war on Iraq, I know that these protests are NOT a part of attempts of other governments to “overthrow the government of the United States,” but are legitimate shows of concern about specific policies. Rubio’s allegations of other countries’ influence in these protests are unfounded and untrue.
I was not paid by a foreign government to resign. I resigned because I felt the war on Iraq was illegal, immoral, and a dangerous action jeopardizing the national security of the United States.
I have not been paid by any country to protest US policies, nor do I know anyone who has been paid. Protest is a legitimate, time-consuming act of outrage about a policy that people use to bring attention to the policy, and hopefully effect change in the policy.
Marco “McCarthy” Rubio’s Tactics: Blame the Left When the Right Has Violently Attacked the US Government
The first attack against legitimate protest came in the US Department of State sponsored conference on “Far-Left Terrorism” held in Washington, DC in July 2026, where Rubio and White House pit bull Stephen Miller harangued the representatives of 66 nations about terrorists from the left wanting to overthrow the US government.
In his opening statement Rubio railed: “This is a distinctive and unique evil. It has always been driven by a hatred above all else, a hatred for civilization itself. It is a revolt of the worst against the best, a revolt of the weak and the cowardly against the strong and the good.”
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called left-wing extremism a growing threat aimed at “the overthrow of our system and form of government” that officials previously failed to sufficiently address. Miller railed: “We must stay the course and be completely unflinching in the pursuit of justice against these enemies of civilization. If the left is allowed to use the real or actual threat of violence to destabilize our institutions, then those institutions cannot and will not succeed.”
A White House press release stated, “Under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump, far-left extremism will be treated with the same seriousness and ferocity the world has long reserved for jihadist terrorism.”
Oops, Trump and Rubio Forget to Mention the Violent Attempt at Overthrow of the US Electoral Process by the Trump-Inspired, Right-Wing January 6 Mob
Of course, neither Rubio nor Miller mentioned President Trump’s pardon of the over 1,500 persons who did try to violently overthrow the United States electoral process on January 6, 2021 as they attacked the Capitol police and broke into and destroyed many offices in the US Capitol.
The attempted overthrow of the 2020 election by seeking to nullify the election results through lawsuits in 62 federal and state courts was attempted by Trump’s loyal personal lawyers including the current acting US Attorney General and head of the US Department of Justice Todd Blanche and disgraced and disbarred lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Their cases of election fraud were stopped by rulings in all 62 federal and state lawsuits that no election fraud had occurred.
Rubio and the State Department’s Untruthful, Dishonest Report About Cuba and Paid Protesters
The most recent and most ludicrous allegations of left-wing violence and protests being funded by other countries is in Secretary of Rubio's 10- page report on “Cuba: the Capitol of 21st Century Communism.” Rubio accuses the National Network on Cuba, National Lawyers Guild, CODEPINK: Women for Peace, the People's Forum, IFCO/Pastors For Peace, and the Democratic Socialists of America of being paid by the Cuban government whose goal, the report states, has been for 60 years the overthrow of the US government.
Talk about turning the facts on their heads! As is well-documented, 13 successive US presidential administrations since 1959—Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama (first term when CIA policies were still in effect, but changing in Obama’s second term with diplomatic recognition), Trump 1, Biden, and Trump 2—have attempted to overthrow the Cuban government in the 60-plus years of its existence.
The current attempt of overthrow of the Cuban government by the United States is centered on the brutal total blockade of fuel going to Cuba, which has left Cuban citizens without electricity for operations in hospitals, for food preparation, for the ability to conduct normal life activities. Making life so miserable for the Cuban citizenry that they overthrow their government would fulfill the longstanding hopes of Cuban-American Rubio.
Rubio Is Not Honest About His Background as a Cuban American
Marco Rubio has been less than forthright about his heritage as a Cuban American in his quest for the overthrow of the Cuban government.
Marco Rubio, “Mr. Righteous against birthright citizenship,” is a "birthright citizen" born in the US of noncitizen parents who had immigrated in 1956 from Cuba under the Batista dictatorship, not under the 1959 revolutionary government.
Marco Rubio, “Mr. Tough on illegal immigrants,” ignores that his own grandfather entered the US illegally and was ordered to be deported but was saved from deportation by an amnesty during the Cuban missile crisis.
Despite these brutal, heavy-handed attempts to silence us, dissent is spreading to regular citizens.
Marco Rubio, “Mr. Kill the Boat Drug Runners of the Caribbean,” disregards that his own brother-in-law was convicted of drug running and his sister implicated but never charged.
Marco Rubio, “Mr. I Know All About Cuba Because I Am Cuban American,” has been to Cuba only once—where in Cuba did he go? A few hours at the US prison on the U. Naval base at Guantánamo.
No doubt, more will come in the next two years as Rubio, Miller, and others in the administration seem to think they can get away with outrageous bullying of individuals and organizations that do not agree with them and that challenge them in non-violent ways, in contrast to the January 6 gang.
In particular, there are always protests against the horrific effects of brutal sanctions that the US government uses to make life so difficult for citizens of other countries that they will overthrow their own governments, whether it be Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, or Nicaragua.
Israel’s Paid Influence on US Citizen Perceptions Seems to Be OK With Rubio
However, Rubio no doubt is thinking that since his buddies in the Netanyahu government have paid Trump’s former campaign manager, Brad Parscale, millions of dollars in a specific program to influence US public opinion to stop the massive decline in Israel’s “likability,” that other countries have paid off US persons to work clandestinely on the same scale.
Parscale's firm was hired by Israel for $6 million in September 2025 and then signed a $15 million contract with Israeli firm Havas to conduct a digital campaign on behalf of the State of Israel according to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Parscale and his team sent conservative influencers suggested positive language about Israel for posts on social media sites such as X, Instagram, and TikTok. The influencers are then compensated based on how many “likes” each post gets from readers.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government has dramatically increased spending on influence operations. Earlier this year, Israel increased by four times its “public diplomacy” influence budget from $150 million in 2025 to $730 million in 2026.
But even The Times of Israel says it’s too late for a “face lift” as a Pew Research Center poll reported that 60% of Americans now view Israel unfavorably, up seven points in a single year, with only 37% viewing it favorably after Israel has committed genocide of Palestinians in Gaza; pillaged and plundered homes, farms, animals in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian West Bank; destroyed southern Lebanon; and got the Trump administration up to its neck in the war on Iran.
Keep Challenging Illegal, Immoral, and Criminal Policies
The two recent major attempts of the Trump administration to quell dissent show how serious challenging illegal, immoral, and criminal policies has become and how important it is that we push back hard against these attempts intimidating citizens to silence their dissent.
However, despite these brutal, heavy-handed attempts to silence us, dissent is spreading to regular citizens. In a recent letter to the editor of my hometown newspaper Honolulu Star Advertiser, which serves a large US military population, a resident of Hawaii summarized the challenge very well: “The true domestic enemy includes those who monopolize political and economic power. The real enemy includes individuals who misinform, threaten, and disenfranchise the less powerful. The true enemy are those who are antidemocratic, have little or no concern regarding the welfare of others, and enrich themselves, family, and a few friends at the expense of the general population.”
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De-ICE Citizens Bank: A Model of a Successful Civil Resistance Campaign
The grassroots effort was a textbook example of sustained, targeted civil resistance that can undermine Trump administration policies; by chipping away at corporate supporters of programs like ICE, citizen activism can erode and stop these initiatives.
Aug 02, 2026
Just as a great loaf of bread requires the right ingredients to rise, a winning civil resistance campaign needs three essentials to rise up: a compelling vision, broad community engagement, and a spark for action.
The De-ICE Citizens Bank campaign had all these ingredients, which is why it succeeded in forcing Citizens Bank to stop financing prison company giants, CoreCivic and GEO Group, operating dozens of detention centers for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The Rhode Island bank severed its ties in mid-July after months of protests and other targeted actions across the country.
Hundreds of rallies, faith-led actions, shareholder demands, billboard and flyover campaigns, and withering financial pressure—withdrawals totaling $380 million, with more still happening—created a tsunami of opposition the bank could not ignore.
It is a textbook example of sustained, targeted civil resistance that can undermine Trump administration policies. By chipping away at corporate supporters of programs like ICE, citizen activism can erode and stop these initiatives.
While Bank of America and a half-dozen other banks ended their relationships with private prison companies in 2019, Citizens strengthened its ties, providing more than $2.8 billion in loans and other credit to CoreCivic and GEO Group over a dozen years.
“No, Citizens Bank won’t credit you at all for its decision, but it is what it is,” MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow said, during a 10-minute segment on the campaign win in late July. “Actions have consequences, including when you work hard, when you organize, and when you decide to just never give up.
"And then the day does come when you win.”
It Started With One Person
This civil resistance story began with a single person, a woman in Texas, taking a stand. She didn’t carry a protest sign or march alone. She built a website.
Horrified by ICE’s mass incarceration campaign early last year, research-nerd activist Laura Berlin, a mother of two teenagers, built a website, boycottcitizens.org, to expose Citizens Bank’s role.
While Bank of America and a half-dozen other banks ended their relationships with private prison companies in 2019, Citizens strengthened its ties, providing more than $2.8 billion in loans and other credit to CoreCivic and GEO Group over a dozen years.
Drawing on Securities and Exchange Commission filings and other documents, the website showed Citizen’s duplicity, loan-by-loan, year-by-year. Still, the website didn’t get much attention when it was launched 13 months ago, only a dozen or so views a day in the first few months.
That all changed in January when ICE’s aggressive crackdown sparked and exploded. Just as a dozen Northeast activists were organizing their first coordinated protest day against Citizens Ban—an effort of the new De-ICE Citizens Bank Coalition—mother and poet Renee Good was gunned down January 7 by an ICE agent in Minneapolis.
Campaign interest and traffic on Berlin’s website took off. When Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse, was shot and killed 17 days later in the same city, momentum skyrocketed.
And It Kept Growing
On January 24, the campaign held three-dozen rallies in six states. By March, there were 70 protests in a dozen states. Three months later, 140 protests were organized nationwide, drawing in thousands of regular people angry about an immigration crackdown that has booked and detained more than 600,000 people, 66,000 of whom have been deported.
As protests swelled, coalition members brought new partners into the campaign. One brought in a key union group and activist students at Brown University. Others brought in faith groups. Dozens of local Indivisible groups also joined, including a Rightful Resistance group in New York City that specialized in billboard campaigns.
The Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO), a powerful faith group with deep historic ties to Citizens Bank, was an especially important partner.
The city’s pullout was a bit of a surprise, with the vote and initial withdrawal of $150 million happening in less than 24 hours. It was a clear sign that the campaign, which had swelled to 175 groups in 17 states, was now a movement.
In the early 2000s, GBIO teamed up with Citizens to offer a financial literacy program for its immigrant members around Boston. The bank also lowered fees for immigrants sending remittances to their families. “We were proud to bank with Citizens, and I was proud to be a member of the bank’s board of directors at that time,” wrote Rev. Ray Hammond, a key GBIO leader, in a recent column.
By winter 2026, the good vibes were over.
In early March, GBIO sent a letter to the bank requesting it cut financial ties with the prison companies. In April, Hammond and other shareholders confronted Citizens CEO Bruce Van Saun at the bank’s annual meeting in Providence. As Van Saun answered questions about reputation and legal risks, hundreds of protesters, young and old, sang and chanted loudly outside. They also pledged to withdraw their deposits if changes were not made.
The financial pressure campaign, "Not with Our Money, Citizens," came at a key moment. While rallies and billboards boosted awareness and sullied the bank’s reputation, the campaign now had a lever to harm the bank financially.
Within a few weeks, GBIO and the coalition had mobilized $20 million in withdrawal pledges by churches, synagogues, nonprofits, and individual customers angered by the bank’s role in bankrolling prisons. By May, GBIO had pulled $2 million of its deposits, while a similar faith organization in Ohio, the Greater Cleveland Congregations, was threatening to do the same.
Millions of withdrawals may sound like a lot, but it’s relatively small for a bank like Citizens, with $233 billion in assets. At weekly meetings, coalition members brainstormed how it could increase the financial bleeding—to turn those millions into hundreds of millions.
New Jersey Takes a Stand
The answer came in June and the spark came from New Jersey. After weeks of hunger strikes and protests at GEO Group’s Delaney Hall ICE prison in Newark, municipalities started fighting back. The first blow was Jersey City’s June 7 vote to close its accounts with Citizens and pull all $276 million of its deposits.
The city’s pullout was a bit of a surprise, with the vote and initial withdrawal of $150 million happening in less than 24 hours. It was a clear sign that the campaign, which had swelled to 175 groups in 17 states, was now a movement.
One month later, Montclair, New Jersey did the same—another $91 million in deposits out the door. And other communities, including Bloomfield and Hoboken, were looking to follow suit.
Three days after Montclair’s vote, Citizens Bank called it quits. With no public fanfare, it released a statement to a Boston Globe reporter saying, “Citizens has determined that it is now appropriate to exit the credit facilities for these clients.”
The bank called it a ‘business decision,” while repeatedly downplaying the role of activists.
We know better.
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The Cockroach Movement Is Reinvigorating Democracy in India
The protests have yet to produce lasting institutional change, yet they have already demonstrated the capacity of young people to organize and exercise self-determination over their own political future.
Aug 01, 2026
Through a meme and a movement, Indian students have once again mobilized, this time in response to Chief Justice Surya Kant’s comparison of unemployed youth to “cockroaches” and “parasites” attacking the system. This remark led to the creation of the Cockroach Janta Party, or CJP, a mass-scale satirical movement with a mission to amplify the “voice of the lazy & unemployed.”
The political movement was fueled by compounding grievances. The precipitating factor was the leak of a medical entrance exam paper and irregularities in the government’s on-screen marking system forced millions of students to retake exams. But discontent has been building up for some time because of surging unemployment rates and a deepening disillusionment with the government. Student suicides associated with increasing academic pressure have reached as many as 13,000 a year.
Matters escalated further when hunger-striking activist Sonam Wangchuk was forcibly removed from a student protest site in Delhi and hospitalized by authorities. Tear gas and baton charges on student protesters catalyzed a countrywide youth uprising that would culminate in the resignation last week of the Modi government’s education minister.
Apart from material grievance, the student movement was ignited by what philosopher Axel Honneth argues is a form of moral indignation. Widespread feelings of injustice have changed the nature of emancipatory struggles from rational economic interests to ones that are personal and emotional. Framing students as parasites through dehumanizing language, rather than as citizens facing systemic and institutional barriers, strips them of political dignity and represents them as inferior and shameful in addition to diverting attention from the state’s own policy failures.
Region-Wide Discontent
Across South Asia, contemporaneous youth-led, digitally organized uprisings have taken place in quick succession. Sri Lanka’s Aragalaya protest in 2022 forced the resignation of both the president and the prime minister. Bangladesh’s student-led movement in 2024 against a quota system in government jobs, compounded by rising authoritarianism, led to the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina after 15 years in power. And in Nepal, a country where nearly 56% of the population is under 30, a generation disproportionately affected by economic precarity and a housing crisis, a Gen Z protest in 2025 toppled Prime Minister K.P Sharma Oli within days of a government ban on social media.
These cases mark different points on the spectrum of outcomes. Protesters in Sri Lanka and Nepal converted disruption into institutional turnover, resulting in the installation of new elected governments following the uprisings. Young people in Bangladesh toppled a government but have struggled to translate that disruption into a stable institutional order. In India, CJP called off its protest after the government met its three immediate demands—the education minister’s resignation, withdrawal of criminal investigations against protesters, and compensation for the families of students who died by suicide following the leak. However, the settlement remains contentious, as CJP raised concerns that the government was not honoring its commitments, with a spokesperson warning that the protest would resume if punitive action against student protesters continued.
Youth uprisings matter, then, not simply as sudden, spectacular action but as a means of amplifying the voice of a demographic majority and reshaping the terms of legitimacy and accountability between citizens and the state.
The movement’s broader charter—a new Public Examinations Act, reform of national examination bodies, a students’ rights charter, a national aspirant welfare fund, and permanent parliamentary oversight of examination authorities—is due to be taken up in a further round of talks with the government. The protests have yet to produce lasting institutional change, yet they have already demonstrated the capacity of young people to organize and exercise self-determination over their own political future.
Generation Gap
The United Nations estimates that the world is home to 1.3 billion young people, more than half of them living in low- and lower-middle-income countries. Almost half of South Asia’s 1.8 billion people are under the age of 24, giving the region the world’s largest youth labor force until 2040.
Yet political power across South Asia remains generationally divided with the average age of Indian parliamentary representatives at 56. In Sri Lanka, only 4 of 212 MPs are under 30, while in Pakistan it’s just 7 of 311.
These figures expose a widening generational gap between aging political elites who have long monopolized legislative power and a younger generation that has grown up in the digital age expecting greater accountability but experiencing political marginalization. A related tension is a growing disconnect between economic liberalization and meaningful employment opportunities and social mobility for a generation of youth pursuing higher education.
In India, a democracy of 1.4 billion people, youth representation in the country’s legislative politics remains strikingly narrow along lines of age, gender, and caste. Over the past few decades, the share of young MPs aged 25-40 in the lower house of India’s parliament has fallen from 30% to just 10%.
Youth uprisings matter, then, not simply as sudden, spectacular action but as a means of amplifying the voice of a demographic majority and reshaping the terms of legitimacy and accountability between citizens and the state. These movements have galvanized global solidarity around regional struggles. They have been made increasingly possible by digitally mediated technology and decentralized, leaderless organizing.
Digital Pluses and Minuses
Central to the profound historical shifts in social movements is the emergence of the internet as a space for dissent. Sociologist Manuel Castells frames the internet as a “hybrid space of autonomy” where cyberspace and physical urban space merge into a new kind of social location for political actions. These networked movements, Castells argues, are characterized by spontaneity, virality, decentralization, and ad hoc collaborative deliberation with no single leader.
As the CJP movement tweeted, filmed, and Instagrammed in real time, its networked visibility diversified participation and displaced the state and the traditional media’s monopoly over the narratives of its violence and police brutality. However, Zeynep Tufekci cautions against the fragility of networked movements, which mobilize with extraordinary speed but often lack the internal capacities, leadership structures, negotiating experience, and resilience that older movements built over years of slower political organization.
Their activism reflects a wider shift toward collective action that is increasingly contentious, globalized, and proactive.
Although digital movements enable horizontal mobilization and egalitarian participation in emancipatory struggles, post-uprising outcomes often remain uncertain. Social movement scholars have noted a recurring pattern. Movements built on decentralized coordination excel at forcing concessions or toppling governments, but they struggle to convert that same horizontal structure into hierarchical institutional governance. This leaves established political actors better positioned to reassert control during the transition, making it harder for movements to transcend regime change and translate initial disruption into long-term democratic transformation that the participants demanded. Nevertheless, these movements have expanded democratic possibilities by opening up new locations of collective belonging, political self-expression, and altruism.
In the end, the collective benefits of a social movement can outweigh the success or failure of a challenger’s program because social movements have many influences, both tangible and intangible, that go beyond the explicitly stated goals. In CJP’s case, these benefits include the representation of youth voices and the democratic rights of the country’s largest demographic group. Their activism reflects a wider shift toward collective action that is increasingly contentious, globalized, and proactive. In a larger sense, this contributes to a more participatory polity where Indian citizens exercise political rights and shape political outcomes directly.
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'Bibi, You Can't Hide!': Protests Follow Netanyahu Everywhere as He Visits Trump in DC
Israel’s prime minister has been met with relentless chants and jeers of “war criminal” and “genocide” around the US capital.
Jul 29, 2026
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has traversed Washington, DC this week amid talks with US President Donald Trump, scores of angry protesters have rarely been far behind.
Across the nation's capital, relentless chants and jeers have followed Israel's leader, who has been accused of war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and whom numerous human rights organizations say has committed genocide in Gaza.
American support for Israel has only continued to curdle as Trump has plunged deeper into a war with Iran that Netanyahu has goaded him to escalate; Israeli settlers have rampaged across the West Bank committing what have been described as "pogroms" against Palestinians; and the Israel Defense Forces have flattened entire neighborhoods in Lebanon, displacing over a million people.
Polls from YouGov earlier this week found that Americans believe Israel is committing genocide by a 19-point margin. By a margin of 22 points, they said they wanted to see American authorities arrest Netanyahu in accordance with the ICC warrant.
As Netanyahu's motorcade arrived near the White House on Monday, protesters were there to let him know, waving Palestinian flags and pepper him with expletives.
"That's our tax dollars going right there, to protect a fucking war criminal!" shouted one man as a squadron of black SUVs escorted Netanyahu, one video from Al Jazeera shows.
Outside his government-provided residence, Blair House, more protesters gathered, pounding drums, blowing whistles, and holding signs calling to "expose Israel's control of Washington" and "stop the US/Israel war machine."
One keffiyeh-clad protester, identified as Joey, said he was taking part because "the only place [Netanyahu] belongs is locked up at the ICC." He said he did not want his tax dollars being used by the US government "to defend someone like that."
The Trump administration has not only refused to enforce the warrant, but aggressively sanctioned the ICC and those who cooperate with it as part of what Secretary of State Marco Rubio described as an effort to "dismantle" the court.
While he appears immune from legal justice on US soil, protesters have taken it upon themselves to remind him that he's still on trial in the court of public opinion.
As the prime minister joined members of Congress for a dinner at the Four Seasons hotel honoring the late war hawk Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Monday night, more protesters stormed the hotel lobby.
"Bibi, Bibi, you can’t hide! You’re committing genocide!" they chanted before they were escorted out by armed security.
The protests continued the next day as Netanyahu met with Trump at the White House, where they reportedly discussed negotiations with Iran regarding its nuclear program and its control over the Strait of Hormuz, US attempts to increase economic pressure on Iran, and the possibility of Israel once again joining US attacks.
At the height of rush hour, a group of protesters braved the pouring rain to occupy a roadway in an attempt to block Netanyahu's motorcade.
According to Bloomberg reporter Emily Birnbaum, the "unreal scene" occurred "because the White House erected extra black fencing that prevented the protest from setting up where they usually do, in front of Lafayette Square."
Video posted by the social media account Eye on Palestine shows police forming a barricade and forcibly dispersing the protesters.
"Despite an ICC war crimes warrant," the account said, "the Trump administration and local authorities allowed his free movement, fencing off a sprawling section of the city to shield him from demonstrators' arrest demands."
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'Cockroaches Won!': Youth-Led Protests Called Off After India's Education Minister Quits
"Don't mistake the beginning for the end," said the Cockroach Janta Party, which vowed to press for further reforms and government accountability.
Jul 26, 2026
India's Cockroach Janta Party ended its five-week multi-city protest on Saturday after the youth-led movement's key demand—the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan—was met.
“We have done it,” CJP spokesperson Saurav Das told a jubilant crowd at New Delhi's Jantar Mantar. "Pradhan has sent in his resignation, which means that our first demand has been met."
Das said that the protesters' second main demand, the withdrawal of criminal investigations targeting CJP members, was also met. However, members and supporters of the movement noted that some cockroach protesters remain in detention and vowed to continue pressing for their release.
Pradhan's resignation is the first such surrender to public pressure during the 12-year tenure of Hindu nationalist Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“Considering the situation at Jantar Mantar and elsewhere in the country, and so that anti-national forces do not take advantage of the circumstances, national unity is maintained, no student’s future gets entangled in legal complications, and our children can focus on their studies and building their careers, I have submitted my resignation," Pradhan said in a statement.
Pradhan's tenure was marred by repeated leaks of National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) papers in a scandal that has upended the lives of millions of students by forcing them to retake the grueling exams and delaying their university admissions. CJP organizers said more than 20 students have killed themselves over the matter.
The now-ex education minister had dismissed the protesters as “the B-team of terrorists.”
On Sunday, Modi said he would authorize the creation of an examination reform task force headed by Nandan Nilekani, co-founder of Indian tech giant Infosys.
“The government of India is continuously taking various measures for the future of students," the Bharatiya Janata Party prime minister said in a video posted on social media. "However, we must look to the future. Our examination system needs to be reliable and transparent, and it must make maximum use of technology."
The protest movement began in May after Chief Justice of India Surya Kant reportedly compared unemployed young people to “cockroaches.” The protesters, led by political strategist Abhijeet Dipke, satirically reclaimed the slur as the symbol of a movement that has grown into a broader challenge to Modi’s increasingly authoritarian rule, which has seen mounting repression of protest and dissent, including restrictions on journalists and activists, and the use of "lawfare" to target critics.
Last week, tens of thousands of youth-led protesters marched in New Delhi, where they were met and attacked by police batons and tear gas. Indian media reported thousands of injuries.
The mood was markedly different following Pradhan's resignation.
"Cockroaches won!" many CJP members and supporters said.
Others added, "Democracy Won!"
"This is democracy," said the CJP.
"Now that the cockroaches have won their first battle, may they win many more," Tavleen Singh, a columnist for The Indian Express, wrote on X. "May they become a real political party in the near future."
Sonam Wangchuk, an environmentalist whose hunger strike was a focal point of the cockroach protests, was released Sunday from a Gurugram hospital, where he had been recovering from his 26-day fast since Thursday.
Emboldened by the CJP victory, members of the Communist Party of India (CPI)-affiliated All-India Youth Federation and All-India Students' Federation marched on the Chennai residence of Tamil Nadu Gov. Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar demanding the abolition of the NEET. According to Indian media reports, police detained more than 200 of the demonstrators.
"The struggle will intensify," said CPI.
"Don't mistake the beginning for the end," echoed CJP.
Asked Sunday what's next for the cockroach movement, Dipke told an ANI reporter that "we will soon share the next strategy."
"This has just ended yesterday," he added, "please give us a little time."
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'We Will Not Forget Them': Nationwide Vigils Demand Justice for People Killed by ICE
Protesters rallied against the Trump administration's deadly anti-immigrant crackdown in the wake of the killings of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, Johan Sebastían Guerrero, Juan Jairo Coronilla Durán, and others.
Jul 26, 2026
Protesters gathered in cities and towns across the United States on Saturday at vigils to remember and demand justice for people killed by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agents during President Donald Trump's deadly crackdown on immigrants and their defenders.
The July 25 Day of Action was organized by advocacy groups and volunteers across the country, with support from the Disappeared in America project hosted by Public Citizen, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, The Workers Circle, Detention Watch Network, and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).
The vigils brought together clergy, activists, progressive advocates, and other concerned and outraged citizens, who remembered Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, Johan Sebastían Guerrero, Juan Jairo Coronilla Durán, and the dozens of people who have died in ICE custody during Trump's second term.
“Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was a husband, a father of three, and a small business owner who built his American dream with his own hands. Johan Sebastían Guerrero was killed in front of his partner and his toddler,” LULAC CEO Juan Proaño said in a statement. “ICE has now taken the lives of immigrants and US citizens alike, and if they can kill Lorenzo and Johan, they can kill anyone."
In the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, vigils honored the immigrants killed by ICE, as well as Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two US citizens fatally shot by Department of Homeland Security agents in January.
“They weren’t doing anything wrong. They were trying to help their neighbors, simple as that," said Lisa Erbes of Indivisible Twin Cities. "They were legally observing what ICE was doing, and they were both killed for it, and that could have happened to me. It could have happened to probably every single person who is here right now. Any of us could have been Renee or Alex."
This weekend marked six months since Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, was shot by US Customs and Border Protection agents in Minneapolis.
"No one has been held accountable, no apologies, not a single phone call from any governmental official, hospital personnel, or the police," Susan Pretti, Alex's mother, wrote Saturday on social media.
“Six months of pain, a roller-coaster of trauma over and over," she added. "I wonder how to move forward. Will I ever get over this loss and this pain? Will I ever be able to enjoy life again?”
In Chicago—where Trump deployed hundreds of federal enforcers during Operation Midway Blitz—at least hundreds of people gathered in Grant Park and marched down Michigan Avenue.
“There’s collective trauma that impacted our communities that no one can understand unless you were here and felt the helicopters and saw the unpredictability of neighbors getting snatched off the streets,” 46-year-old demonstrator Melody Rose of Rogers Park told the Chicago Tribune. “All of us, especially those who have been directly impacted and seen what that’s like, have to keep showing up and spreading the word because this isn’t over and it could be us any day."
United Church of Rogers Park pastor Rev. Hannah Kardon told Chicago rallygoers: “Remember the dead and demand the kind of world where we never would have lost them in the first place. We will not forget them, and we will live differently because of them.”
Los Angeles-area demonstrations included a march by hundreds of people in downtown LA, where protesters carried cardboard coffins representing lives lost to Trump's crackdown.
"Our communities will never be the same," protester Joseph Morales told KABC. "Even though we're strong and we hold each other together, our communities are not the same, and we grieve that loss."
STOP KILLING US!
Justice for All
Disappeared in America Coalition Vigil for ICE slain immigrant in America!
Los Angeles Coffin Protest #StopKillingUs #USDemocracy #JusticeForAll #SomosLorenzo #DondeEstan #USDemocracy pic.twitter.com/KnqeTBRTHh
— Ruben Garcia (@goRubenRuben) July 26, 2026
In Pasadena, around 50 people turned out to protest the ICE killings.
“We were originally told, ‘Oh they’re going to go after the criminals, the people who are the worst of the worst.’ That’s a lie; that is not what’s happening," 61-year-old organizer Andra Clarke—who held a sign reading "Neighbors Say ICE Out"—told the Los Angeles Times.
“They’re targeting communities, they’re targeting people of color. It’s fascism," she added. "Anybody who cares about humanity should care about what’s happening.”
Around 100 protesters rallied outside ICE's downtown Atlanta field office, including Gail Maclin, who told Atlanta News First that her Senegalese husband is among the 675,000 people forcibly deported during Trump's second term.
“I lost my housing. I’ve lost my car. I’ve lost all my worldly possessions," she said. "I still have Amari, but Amari’s not here—he’s in Senegal."
Among the approximately 150 people who attended a vigil in the Silicon Valley city of Mountain View—headquarters of Google, where workers have protested the company's complicity in Trump's deadly crackdown—were members of the Raging Grannies, a longtime activist group known for their protest songs.
"People are being targeted here, and are afraid," Raging Granny Ruth Robertson told CBS News Bay Area. "They're afraid to go out of their houses, they're afraid to go to work."
A crowd of demonstrators gathered for a roadside vigil along Route 29 in Centreville, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, DC.
Rev. David Miller of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fairfax told protesters: “I think that there is a moral obligation for us to speak up about our values. These values are not being represented well by this administration and certainly not by the way that ICE has been acting in our communities.”
Julio Hernandez, the director of the Congregation Action Network, told Centreville vigilgoers that “we're here to tell the story of our community being terrorized and torn apart, families being separated, children living in fear."
“We're here to ask the community to be aware of what's happening and also asking ICE to get out of our communities,” he added.
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