If predictions hold true, today should be the day Donald Trump’s warped delusion of an international focus entirely on him reaches fruition, just not necessarily in the way he’s fantasized about for years.
While Americans are increasingly taking issue with the federal government being either decimated into uselessness or substantially retooled to address the president’s laundry list of personal grievances, the rest of the world is taking notice as well.
With more than 600 events planned across all 50 states, as well as in a number of locations around the globe, demonstrators will take to the streets in what is expected to be the largest protest since Trump took office in January. Organizers have said the message is unified and urgent: “Hands off our rights, our resources and our democracy.” Indivisible groups are planning large gatherings from coast to coast, including here in Vermont, where a substantial crowd is expected to gather beginning at noon at the State House in Montpelier.
Fully embracing the near-total immunity bestowed by the Supreme Court last fall, Trump has been running roughshod over much of what it has historically meant to be American — undermining the country’s status in the world; threatening long-standing alliances; embracing authoritarian leaders; and near crippling aid agencies poor and undeveloped countries have relied on for decades. The president’s cabinet represents a circus train’s worth of appointments as unsuited and poorly equipped for their respective positions, as the president is for the Oval Office.
The organizers of today’s demonstration have said, “This is a crisis and the time to act is now,” citing Trump’s unprecedented threats to “take” Greenland, absorb Canada, invade Panama, and “daring the world to stop them.” Protesters will mass in London’s Trafalgar Square, joining the thousands assembling at Washington Monument for a massive rally on the National Mall. Threats to essential services and programs like Social Security, public education, health care and civil rights protections by the president, Elon Musk’s DOGE and congressional Republicans have outraged many in the United States and beyond.
“This mass mobilization day” claimed the D.C. organizers, “is our message to the world that we do not consent to the destruction of our government and our economy for the benefit of Trump and his billionaire allies. Alongside Americans across the country, we are marching, rallying and protesting, to demand a stop to the chaos and build an opposition movement against the looting of our country.”
With Trump and Republicans holding the presidency, the Senate and the House of Representatives, today’s marches and demonstrations are largely symbolic, but, a massive, international turnout could signal the beginning of a large enough shift in public opinion to alter the trajectory of what thus far has been an alarmingly swift lurch into chaos and startling manifestation of just how fragile democracy is.
And while many Americans feel left out in the wilderness by the Trump-Musk agenda that has done so much damage so quickly — disrupting the international order, shredding the social safety net at home, and throwing tens of thousands out of work — earlier this week New Jersey’s Cory Booker may have provided the first spark to light the way back, taking to the Senate podium for a blistering, 25-hour indictment of the president’s warped vision for the country.
Paraphrasing civil rights icon John Lewis, he began: “I rise tonight with the intention of getting into some good trouble. I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business in the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able.” Booker’s marathon surpassed the previous record ironically held by avowed segregationist and South Carolina senator, Strom Thurmond, who filibustered the Civil Rights Act in 1957, which would have certainly earned him a leadership position in the Trump administration were he alive today.
According to the Guardian, Booker was emotional, voice cracking, eyes on the verge of tears, as he read dozens of letters from “terrified people” with heartbreaking stories who were feeling the brunt of Musk’s budget cuts and terminations. He was often angry, “channeling the fury of those who feel their beloved country slipping away.” There were recurring themes: economic chaos and rising prices; increasing influence of billionaires; world’s richest man slashing entire government programs without consent of Congress “inflicting pain on children, military veterans, and other vulnerable groups.”
With images of Trump’s ICE offering no credentials, proffering no identification, “disappearing” people from the streets without due process like an American Stasi still fresh in people’s minds, Booker warned of tyranny. He charged the president with attempting to create a press corps like Russia’s Vladimir Putin or Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and putting democracy in grave peril by seizing more and more executive power.
As he neared the record, Booker admitted it was possible his ego “got caught up in maybe, maybe, just maybe, I could break this record of the man who tried to stop the rights upon which I stand … I’m not here though because of his speech; I’m here despite his speech.” Praised for its “crystalline brilliance” by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who said that, to the end, “his mind was clear and his voice was strong,” called a masterclass in political rhetoric, the speech earned over 350 million likes on TikTok with even some Republicans taking notice.
Well-respected GOP pollster Frank Luntz said, “What I saw over the last 25 hours absolutely blew me away,” adding he thought it “may have changed the course of political history,” vaulting Booker to the head of the 2028 Democratic pack as new leader of a party that desperately needs one.
Before yielding the floor, Booker cited Lewis one more time in a call to arms of sorts: “I don’t know what John Lewis would say but John Lewis would have done something. He would say something. What we will have to repent is not for the words and violent actions of bad people, but the appalling silence and inaction of good people.”
“This is our moral moment.”
Walt Amses lives in North Calais.
