Anti-Trump Resistance Didn't Go Too Far. It Didn't Go Far Enough | Opinion

Since Trump's election, many pundits, consultants, and Democratic elites have indicated it's time to stand down. Supposedly, the surge of activism in 2016-2020 that included anti-Trump "Resistance" pushed Democrats into radical positions, which voters rejected... in 2024. They suggest those who believe in radical concepts like "all people are created equal" should now fight him less hard.

I call these people "The Desistance," because they seem to believe it's the anti-Trump Resistance's fault he was elected again. But that's wrong. The "Resistance" won in 2020, beating Trump. Anyone who wants to win this fight for good must understand why The Desistance—which includes everyone from pundit Yascha Mounk to Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries—suggests it's true.

The Desistance isn't new. They represent the same centrist wisdom that's existed since President Bill Clinton's triangulation in the 1990s ended Democrats' 40 year-long congressional majority. To admit that Trump has disproved them twice by beating the centrists Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Kamala Harris in 2024 would be to lose credibility forever.

That would also mean admitting the real way to make change isn't through letting elites eke out compromises their corporate backers tolerate, but full-throated demands by ordinary people for everything we need to not only survive, but flourish.

When remembering the anti-Trump resistance, you probably think big images: record-setting protests in the Women's March and George Floyd uprisings, electoral victories that unseated Republicans and replaced Desistance Democrats with more progressive, and in hundreds of cases, democratic socialist representatives, promoting legislation far more ambitious than the Clintons offered.

But on the ground, what was clearest was the belief awakened in millions: we can make change by fighting for more, not settling for less.

This surge of energy moved politics left to the point that Democratic contenders for president in 2019 tailed the democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, supporting a host of economic populist policies like Medicare for all, a Green New Deal, and expanded worker protections. Even Joe Biden moved left, beating Trump. (Against Trump, the Resistance is 1/1; the Desistance 0/2)

What happened next is what actually enabled Trump's return. Biden Democrats failed to visibly fight for the demands of the "Resistance" that brought them to power. Organizing on the ground, I saw directly how the Desistance worked to stall energy that threatened them or their donors.

Take another Desistance boogeyman, a set of progressive nonprofits that Matt Yglesias has ominously termed "the groups," claiming these organizations pulled Democrats to become far too radical for ordinary people to support, and thus elected Trump.

Anyone involved in the major policy fights knows this is the opposite of what happened. Through 2019, organizations like the Sunrise Movement made their name with sweeping Green New Deal demands and highly confrontational actions against Republicans and Democrats alike. But with Biden in office, powerful donors pushed members to tone down conflict in order to work with the administration. This demobilized the potent organizing weapon of volunteer energy, by pressuring grassroots activists to become management-directed lobbyists. And it's far from the only case.

When anyone talks about leftists "staying home," remember that it was the Desistance who said "stay home." By hamstringing committed activists and spurning the new voters who beat Trumpism in 2018, 2020, and 2022, the Desistance got exactly what they wanted.

The protests against Trump's inauguration last month were smaller than in 2017, but the thousands of people who showed up across America have fewer illusions eight years later, after Democrats squandered the chance to demonstrate a real alternative for working-class people.

As Trump's tyrannical power grabs spark outrage, there's hope. Traveling the country as co-chair of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), I hear a common trend in every conversation. What people want are fighters. People who will fight for them, their families, their co-workers, and their communities.

That's why as Democratic enthusiasm crumbles, and pundits lower expectations, organizations like DSA, with no corporate funders to answer to, keep growing.

While Biden gave up a month into his term on a minimum wage over 7 dollars, Seattle DSA won over $20, the highest in the country.

While Democratic turnout plummeted even in deep blue cities, DSA chapters from Los Angeles to Louisville, from San Antonio to Maine, are growing in record numbers.

While Sen. Raphael Warnock betrays his roots in Martin Luther King, Jr's parish by voting to pass one of the largest affronts to civil rights in generations, DSA members replaced a Georgia incumbent with a Stop Cop City organizer, Gabriel Sanchez. In Biden's backyard, Delaware Rep. Madinah Wilson-Anton was re-elected after consistently protesting US military support for Israel. In New York City, Muslim democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani's unapologetic populism is turning the race against Trump-loving mayor Eric Adams upside down.

Don't let the cowering Desistance trick you. The Resistance didn't go "too far." It didn't go far enough. The only way to win is to fight for our rights as hard as we can, for as many and as much as we can. We know it works, and so do they.

Ashik Siddique is co-chair of Democratic Socialists of America.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.