When Donald Trump reassumed his presence in the Oval Office, doomsayers and scolds wondered if ordinary liberals would greet his return with anything more than apathy and exhaustion. Having worked so hard to bring the first Trump era to an end, did people have it in them to mount up and do it again? 

Yes, and then some. Hitting the streets under the “Hands Off” and “No Kings” banners, last year’s anti-Trump forces surfaced energy, patriotism, and perhaps more importantly, joy—a simmering movement is now roiling, with millions taking to the public square, and perhaps millions more waiting in the wings.

So what do they do for an encore? And how can this burgeoning movement play a role in fostering the electoral shifts necessary to bring change to Washington, D.C.? To get a sense of this, The New Republic turned to Ezra Levin, a co-founder of Indivisible, the affiliation of progressive organizations that has been a prime mover in last year’s Hands Off and No Kings protests. 

Indivisible was both a response to and inspired by the Tea Party movement. But in 2025, it eclipsed the Tea Party’s most expansive count of public participation, which never topped 500,000. According to the Crowd Counting Consortium, April’s Hands Off brought in around one million protesters. June’s No Kings rallies netted at least two million and maybe as many as 4.8 million. The consortium has yet to count October’s No Kings rallies, but one nonpartisan estimate put it between five and 6.5 million.

The groups behind the No Kings coalition, including Levin at Indivisible, are aiming for the goal articulated by researcher Erica Chenoweth: Authoritarian regimes can be toppled if 3.5 percent of a population engage in nonviolent resistance. Chenoweth’s unambiguous estimate is disputed in some academic circles—but Indivisible is determined to put it to a real-world trial. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

So, is this the year?

It’s probably gonna get worse before it gets better. 

We saw a lot of mobilization under Trump’s first term, but nothing like this. What’s different now? We can say, “Well, he’s worse,” but that is the kind of thing that could dampen turnout.

What we saw in 2017 was “Protest is the new brunch.” I think the opponent is much scarier this time. Trump was limited back then, in a way that he’s not now, because he’s functionally taken over the whole party. And I think especially with No Kings 1, compared to Hands Off, you saw younger and more diverse audiences than you saw in Hands Off. I think that’s largely in response to the attacks on immigrants.

What has this movement learned from progressive movements of the past?

One of the cautionary tales that lives in my mind is Obama. It’s 2008, and Obama’s built an incredible grassroots force; it’s historic. Marshall Ganz was one of the architects of his field program, and he was Cesar Chavez’s organizing director. You had this wondrous thing, new in American politics. It was ready to back up an incoming trifecta Democratic administration, because we had just taken the presidency off,........

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