A Pro Democracy Movement

Feb 10, 2025

Local Indivisible groups across the country organized events last Wednesday in response to unlawful and unconstitutional initiatives unleashed by Donald Trump upon his return to power. Eight years ago Indivisible and like-minded groups spoke of their activities as resistance to a president contemptuous of laws, norms, and constitutional precedents that acted as restraints on his authority. Focus was on gun violence, Islamophobia, and the southern border where the administration pursued policies of deliberate cruelty to deter desperate people from seeking refuge in the US.

I attended the pro democracy rally in the courtyard outside Senator Ron Wyden’s Portland office organized by Indivisible Oregon, with which I have been loosely affiliated since checking out a Resist Trump Tuesday gathering in May 2018. We were there to voice our opposition to the administration’s assault on the federal government and to express support for Senators Wyden and Jeff Merkley and House members such as my representative Suzanne Bonamici who stand in the breach as best they are able.

11:45 a.m. Crowd begins to gather for rally at noon.

I have come to think of the task as hand in terms of being pro democracy as we speak out and stand against what Charlie Warzel dubbed an administrative coup under the direction of Elon Musk and his sketchy DOGE crew of twenty-something software engineers recruited from the fringes X and MAGA (Warzel, The ‘Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly’). Resistance is one aspect of that task. We should be clear-eyed about the limits that constrain us and what congressional Democrats can do in the present circumstances. It is well and good to call on a Democratic Party in disarray to do more, but truly there is little more than can be done while Republican majorities in House and Senate look to Trump for marching orders, salute, and smirk as he tramples norms and values that have inspired the best that is in us since the nation’s founding.

Guardrails that once acted as limits on abuse of power were battered in 2017 and the years that followed. Today the very notion of guardrails seems almost quaint. The courts are left. Judges have stepped up. So have much maligned federal bureaucrats whose display of integrity and courage is inspiring.

Federal judges appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents, including some by Trump in his first term, have issued rulings restraining executive orders and Musk’s takeover and demolition of federal agencies and departments.

At least nine federal judges—from Washington, D.C., to Washington state—have halted aspects of Trump’s early-term blitz, from his effort to rewrite the Constitution’s birthright citizenship guarantee to his sweeping effort to freeze federal spending to his plans to break and remake the federal workforce.

“In some cases,” writes Kyle Cheney at Politico, “judges are voicing distress and even visceral fury as they stand in Trump’s way.” One of the strongest rebukes came from U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, a Reagan appointee, thus probably not a radical Marxist extremist, who blocked Trump’s birthright citizenship policy: “It has become ever more apparent that to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals. The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore” (Cheney, As Trump steamrolls).

Coughenour’s remarks invite consideration of the coming constitutional crisis. Who will enforce judicial rulings if Trump and Musk defy them? Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice?

Several hundred people turned out on a cold, damp February 5 for the hastily organized event that commenced at noon. The protest was peaceful. Indivisible Oregon leaders always take steps to ensure that. Participants were instructed not to engage with counterprotesters. Peace teams were on hand to deescalate potential confrontations should they arise.

Fortunately the only counterprotester I witnessed was a disgruntled Indivisible member, maybe former member, who was a prominent voice in a splinter group that arose in response to Israel’s assault on Gaza following the Hamas attacks of October 7. Her group dissented from Indivisible Oregon’s support first for Joe Biden, then Kamala Harris, in the presidential race, instead calling for Biden and Antony Blinken to be charged with war crimes. Wednesday she carried a sign that read “Wyden War Criminal” and briefly shrieked her message from the fringes of the crowd. As best I could tell from the other side of the courtyard nothing more came of it. A fellow shouted “Trump” as I made my way with others to the Lloyd Center MAX station to return home after the rally. Not sure if this would count as counterprotest. Just a blockhead.

What did we accomplish? Are rallies of this sort anything more than performative exercises to ease our consciences? Do they matter? It goes without saying that I believe they do because I keep showing up, contributing to the body count, and writing about them. By itself it accomplishes little. As I observed during the 2020 protests, it is not enough to just keep showing up at demonstrations until showing up becomes an end in itself and the exercise becomes counterproductive.

Many of us feel we should do something but are unsure precisely what or how. Rallies and demonstrations contribute to solidarity and hope. They are occasions for civic-minded individuals to meet and exchange information, ideas, and strategies. Helplessness is not our default condition. We are not alone.

Indivisible Oregon volunteers with clipboards collected contact information for those interested in opportunities to do more. Contacting our elected representatives to express our views and getting out the vote remain at the forefront of the group’s efforts. Indivisible volunteers organize door-to-canvasing, phone banking, and letter-writing campaigns in collaboration with national groups like Swing Left and Vote Forward. The 2026 and 2028 elections are just over the horizon. Much hangs in the balance.

Peaceful rallies also send a message to those in power that we are watching, we care, and moved by the moral rightness of our cause we will not stand silently by as the constitution is shredded, a wrecking ball taken to the federal government, delusions of manifest destiny and imperial expansion pursued, friends and allies alienated and betrayed. Perhaps by our example we will influence some who are not yet with us to reflect on what is happening to the country and where they wish to stand. Maybe a few hearts and minds will be changed.

Combatting MAGA attempts to rewrite history is another imperative. The 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection are obvious cases in point. Another resurfaced last week when PBS News Hour co-anchor Geoff Bennett interviewed Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri about Kash Patel and plans to purge FBI agents who investigated the January 6 insurrection and Trump’s handling of classified documents following his first term as president. Schmitt recited scripted talking points about lawfare and weaponization of the FBI to argue “the FBI is ripe for real reform.” Twice he charged that the FBI “went after” Catholics and “parents who showed up to school board meetings.” Both claims have been around for years and thoroughly debunked.

The first refers to a ham-fisted internal memo circulated at the FBI Richmond office during an investigation into a man arrested in 2020 “after he vandalized and slashed the tires of a parked car.” He had a history of making “online statements advocating civil war and the murder of politicians” (Foley, FBI cleared) and remained on the FBI’s radar after release from jail a year later. Quelle surprise, agents found a social media page affiliated with him decorated with Nazi symbols and rhetoric. Posts called for killing police officers, attacking racial and religious minorities, armed resistance against the government, and so on. Along the way he became interested in “radical-traditionalist Catholic ideology” (Bukuris, Biden DOJ Report) and described himself as a “rad-trad Catholic clerical fascist” (Foley).

Inspector General Michael Horowitz issued a ten-page report to Congress “that concluded that the analysts who created an internal memo linking traditionalist Catholics to violent extremists ‘failed to adhere to FBI standards’ but showed no evidence of ‘malicious intent.’” No evidence was found

that anyone ordered either of the unidentified analysts who authored the memo to find a link between racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVEs) and members of any religion or political affiliation. The report concluded there was no “underlying policy direction” indicating a link. (Bukuris).

Horowitz determined that the investigation was appropriate while criticizing “aspects of the memo warning about potential extremism within certain Catholic churches that was shared by the FBI's Richmond field office” (Bukuris). The FBI issued a statement that the memo did not meet its “exacting standards” and retracted it. Both the FBI and the inspector general determined there was no intent or action taken to investigate Catholics or anyone else based on religion.

PolitiFact has addressed “misleading and false” Republican talking points that suggest federal officials target parents for their views about schools on multiple occasions (Greenberg, Rick Scott wrongly; Sherman, FBI, DOJ). The FBI did conduct investigations in response to threats against school officials and concerns about the safety of school employees and school board members that arose during the pandemic. Those investigations “focused on criminal conduct, not parents’ views about COVID-19 policies or school curriculum.” A Trump-nominated judge concluded that an October 4, 2021, memo from Merrick Garland to the FBI “does not target protected conduct under the Constitution and covers only criminal conduct.”

I have been what Trump, Vance, and Musk would call a radical Marxist extremist since my teens. Maybe more Groucho than Karl, but even so. Yet here I am defending the FBI. We have to push back and keep pushing back against the insidious creep of false narratives and revisionist history into public discourse.

Resistance to the lawlessness and moral vacancy of Trumpism is necessary but not an end in itself. The endeavor to reclaim and restore an American republic under constitutional governance and rule of law is more than just a resistance movement. Ours is a pro democracy movement. We should proclaim it as such.

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