A Beginning, Not an End: Hands Off What?
April 8, 2025
Image by Marc Pell.
The numbers are coming in, and as always, the estimates vary widely. Let’s just say there were more than a million people across the United States in the streets protesting the excesses of the Trump administration since January 20, 2025. Also, like always, the demands of the organizers (who went by the name Hands Off) were often transcended by the intentions of those actually attending the rallies, marches and other manifestations of discontent. Just as predictable as the speculation about the number of people in the streets are the complaints by some on the left, complaining that the protest demands were not radical enough and were just an attempt by the Democratic party to divert the growing anger of the US population.
Meanwhile, another large march was held in the streets of Washington, DC. This protest was organized by Palestinian solidarity organizations, leftist groups against US imperialism, Muslim and Jewish organizations opposed to the Israel-US genocide and occupation in Palestine and others. It’s estimated that this protest involved at least a hundred thousand or more protesters. In addition, many of the local protests organized under the auspices of the Hands Off group highlighted the US-Israeli massacre in Gaza and the West Bank. This meant that the opposition to the occupation and the repression of anti-occupation protesters was humanized and brought to the attention of thousands of US residents who previously had only the anti-Palestinian US media providing its take on the slaughter. This is a positive development, especially as the crackdown on students and others supporting an end to the Israeli occupation takes a considerably more ominous and despotic turn.
At Vermont’s two largest protests—Montpelier (3000 or more) and Burlington(1000)—there was a substantial anti-genocide presence. Montpelier also had a large labor presence. However, the majority of people were liberals. Instead of disparaging the protesters, who are angry and looking for answers, we should focus our criticism on the leadership while encouraging the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist dialogue being introduced to these new protesters. Unless the left starts getting its own act together, the Democrats will turn these into a US version of the color “revolutions,” putting the neoliberals who helped get us to this point back into power. Nothing will change. The ruling class shell game will continue only with the house having better odds than at any time in US history.
The previous remark regarding the kvetching from some on the left about the liberal nature of the organizers was not meant to disparage the content of those leftists’ critique. Indeed, it’s quite accurate at its core. This is not unusual or unique; it does need to be addressed. Historically speaking, many if not most of the protest movements since World War Two for greater rights and economic justice in the United States have been popularized by liberals. Those that arguably weren’t—the movement against the US war on Vietnam, for example—reached their peak when more liberal organizers took the reins from the leftist and radical pacifist organizers that birthed the movement. At the same time, the efforts of the liberals and the subsequent popularization of the essential demands of the civil rights movement opened space for revolutionary groups like the Black Panthers to exist and grow. Looking back, the results of this dynamic are at best, mixed. Radical organizations exist in the historical record, with some even getting the respect they deserve. However, their descendants in today’s political milieu are left out of the conversation and, when they do make enough noise to be heard, they are arrested, fired from their jobs, and attacked as agents of some foreign power. This is exactly what we are seeing happen to the radical movement calling for Palestinian freedom and against the US-Israeli genocide of Palestinians.
There is a historical moment taking place. The US ruling class has exposed its fascist core. Trumpism is the manifestation of long-time right-wing dreams. Sure, it’s a bit uncouth for the more cultured on the right, but that hasn’t prevented them from supporting the Trumpist executive orders designed to destroy what remains of the social welfare system in the United States. The wealthy understand that to achieve the complete power they desire, some may suffer. They intend to make sure it is not them who do. Furthermore, they believe the suffering they cause now will make them very rich later, when private endeavors run former government programs.
The role of the liberals organizing protests like those this past weekend is to save US capitalism. They may not see themselves in that role, but the objective truth says otherwise. The ruling elites represented by the Democrats believe that by keeping working people employed and benefiting from capitalism, they will continue to rule and make money. The programs the Trumpists and their right-wing allies want to cut will render such a scenario impossible. Neither sector of the ruling class can abide Palestinian freedom from occupation. Nor can either sector free itself from the war machine that
US capital relies on for its plans of permanence.
The role of the radical left regarding these types of protests is to show up with our signs and our energy; to join organizing committees and coalitions and push the demands leftward. A friend in Olympia, Washington wrote on social media that the organizers there included anti-occupation activists who made the demands around Palestine and the repression of anti-occupation activists part of the program. This is a great example of how these protests can be expanded beyond the Democrats’ agenda—an agenda that became obvious when NATO was one of the programs the organizers demanded Trump keep his hands off of.
Let me close with the final sentences of a recently-released pamphlet from Fomite Press: “What is needed is a popular rejection of the Trump White House and its fascism; not just one led by Democrats in the courts and the legislature. This struggle needs to be waged in the streets, the schools, the workplace and throughout the United States. It’s a struggle against fascism, not a battle between the political parties of the elites.”
Onward.
Monday 7 April 2025, by Dan La Botz
Millions of people in all 50 states, joined 1,600 demonstrations in large cities and small towns to protest against President Donald Trump and his henchman billionaire Elon Musk on April 5, with a number of small solidarity demonstrations in European cities. The “Hands Off” demonstrations, the largest anti-Trump protests yet, demanded that Trump keep his hands off democracy, human rights, reproductive rights, Social Security, Medicaid, public schools, immigrants, and LGBT people.
In New York City, where I joined the protest in the drizzle, some 50,000 people took part in a spirited march with many creative home-made signs and banners. I saw signs reading: “Hands off Our Planet,” “Disappearing People for Speech = Fascism,” and “Hands Off Our Bodies, Our Democracy, Our Freedom, Our Constitution.” And scattered through the demonstration a few signs in support of Ukraine, though fewer addressed the Palestinian genocide.
In the Republican dominated state of Ohio, Common Cause, a group that works for free and fair elections, helped to organize the protest. Mia Lewis of Common Cause Ohio said, “For many people, this will be the first protest they have attended. They are coming out not to tear anything down, but to stand up for the Constitution, for the rule of law, for our democracy. Enough is enough!”
In Colorado, a state controlled by the Democrats, 8,000 turned out at the State Capitol in Denver. “We were expecting a good turnout, but this is better than we thought it would be here,” Morgan Miransky, a volunteer organizer said, “We’re looking forward to having more people come out and join us, and we’re hoping to build this into a larger nationwide movement for resistance.”
The demonstrations were called by a variety of organizations, including the Democratic Party groups like Indivisible, workers’ groups such as the Federal Unionists Network, and environmental, religious, human rights, and civil rights groups. Yet in New York City, the largest unions such as the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, with many Black members, failed to turn out their ranks. An exception was the union of workers of the City University of New York. Most unions failed to mobilize their members nationally, though Federal workers, many recently fired, did join the protests.
The NYC protest was overwhelmingly white, with only a small number of Black, participants in a city where Blacks make up 20%, Latinos 28%, and Asians 15% of the population. Some Latinos may have stayed home because of fear of being detained and deported, as Trump is now engaged in a massive deportation campaign. Some Black influencers on social media told their followers to stay home, that the march was not their affair. The low level of participation of Black people was an issue almost everywhere.
In some cities, particularly Washington, D.C., but others as well, Democratic Party politicians spoke in an attempt to win back support from party members who have been deeply disappointed in the Democrats’ failure to fight back against Trump. Jamie Raskin, a leading Congressman from Maryland, told the crowd, “They believe democracy is doomed and they believe regime change is upon us if only they can seize our payments system. If they think they are going to overthrow the foundations of democracy, they don’t know who they are dealing with.” Across the country, especially in state capitals, Democrats tried to woo voters, but many disappointed in Senator Kamala Harris’ campaign or in Democratic support for Israel’s genocidal war will be hard to convince.
These protests were a significant step forward, but the big unions are still not really in the fight and there is no common leadership and no consensus on whether the Democrats or mass protests represent the future. The left has only a small presence and plays little role so far.
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Dan La Botz
Dan La Botz was a founding member of Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU). He is the author of Rank-and-File Rebellion: Teamsters for a Democratic Union (1991). He is also a co-editor of New Politics and editor of Mexican Labor News and Analysis.
International Viewpoint is published under the responsibility of the Bureau of the Fourth International. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect editorial policy. Articles can be reprinted with acknowledgement, and a live link if possible.
Photo: Jonah Raskin.
They did not come to the Civic Center in San Francisco on April 5, 2025 to speak truth to power. They know that power doesn’t listen to people, not the powerful but vulnerable demigods in the White House. They came to acknowledge one another, to build a community in the open air and to air their grievances. It was a defining feature of the crowd that numbered in the thousands that no two signs were identical just as no people were identical and no two people dressed identically. They were individuals, separate and autonomous and yet linked by their total rejection of Trump and Musk whose names were deliberately misspelled in the spirit of disdain and disgust.
I wandered from the edge of the crowd opposite the main branch of the public library to the heart of the crowd where it was so crowded I couldn’t move forward or to the side and had to go backward for room to breathe. I saw T-shirts that read “Gulf of Mexico,” signs that mention Greenland and Gaza, and just one that mentioned Ukraine.
I saw the word “FUCK” in capital letters dozens of times, signs that called for Democracy with a capital D, signs that called for money and jobs, signs with the capital letter X through the Tesla icon, and the world Oligarchy with an X across it. “Defund DODGE” I read and “we the people,” and a quotation from Benjamin Franklin, and passages from Isiah and Matthew and a T-shirt that shouted “Our Revolution California.” The signs were all hand-lettered and also drawn by hand. Not a single one was store bought. This was a DIY crowd who cared not a fig about Pelosi, AOC, Waltz, Sanders or Kamala Harris. It was a crowd that didn’t have a favorite politician, though one sign read “We’re angry and we’re voting.” The protesters were not waiting for the midterm elections to express their disapproval of the whole lousy political landscape.
I was there. I felt at one with the crowd, the most diverse crowd I’ve ever experienced with men and women wearing green hats, blue hats, red hats, black hats and white hats, big and little hats, angry people but happy people, too, happy to be protesting on a Sunday in the sun in San Francisco. My favorite two signs were held by the same woman who sat on a curb. Both featured American flags. One read “Fuck Nazis” six times. The other read “We the People love Democracy, Zelensky, Ukraine,” followed by “celebrate diversity, equity and inclusion” —three words that defined the crowd itself that care about inclusivity, diversity, fairness and justice.
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