Calling President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration on Friday a blatant and unconstitutional “power grab,” progressive advocacy groups representing millions of Americans are gearing up to launch nationwide “crisis response” protests to fight back.
“If Donald Trump declares a national emergency to push his racist wall, we’ll mobilize nonviolent rapid-response events to stand up to defend our democracy and immigrant, Muslim, black, and brown communities from Trump’s dangerous national emergency power grab,” MoveOn.org declared.
After Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced on Thursday that Trump would declare a national emergency as he signs the bipartisan government spending deal, MoveOn launched the website CrisisResponse.us, where people can sign up to be notified of rapid response demonstrations in their area.
If Trump declares a #NationalEmergency for his racist & wasteful Wall, expect 1000s to hit streets in rapid response protests just days later — a mass, rapid visible outcry against the *real* emergency. Get ready & prepare to show up: https://t.co/CcbWcFw3D1 #DefundHate pic.twitter.com/2apqbgjnB9
— MoveOn (@MoveOn) February 14, 2019
“In the coming days, you will hear more from us about nationwide protests against Trump’s emergency declaration,” Public Citizen president Robert Weissman wrote in a letter to supporters late Thursday.
On top of legal and congressional action, Weissman argued that mass public outrage and demonstrations will be necessary to prevent Trump’s attempt to subvert the legislative process to construct a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“If the slide to authoritarianism and tyranny is to be averted, he must be restrained — in the first place by Congress and hopefully by the courts, but ultimately by the American people,” Weissman concluded. “The future of our country is very much at stake. It’s up to We the People to defend our nation against the tyranny rising before our eyes.”
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We’ve borne witness to a chaotic first few months in Trump’s presidency.
Over the last months, each executive order has delivered shock and bewilderment — a core part of a strategy to make the right-wing turn feel inevitable and overwhelming. But, as organizer Sandra Avalos implored us to remember in Truthout last November, “Together, we are more powerful than Trump.”
Indeed, the Trump administration is pushing through executive orders, but — as we’ve reported at Truthout — many are in legal limbo and face court challenges from unions and civil rights groups. Efforts to quash anti-racist teaching and DEI programs are stalled by education faculty, staff, and students refusing to comply. And communities across the country are coming together to raise the alarm on ICE raids, inform neighbors of their civil rights, and protect each other in moving shows of solidarity.
It will be a long fight ahead. And as nonprofit movement media, Truthout plans to be there documenting and uplifting resistance.
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