From the very first day of the Trump presidency, massive numbers of protesters took to the streets to declare unyielding opposition to the real estate billionaire’s extreme right-wing agenda. The historic Women’s March on Washington in conjunction with hundreds of other cities across the U.S. and abroad, was the largest political protest in modern American history, challenging Trump’s positions on a wide array of issues as well as his Cabinet nominees.
In his first week in office, Trump signed more than a dozen executive orders, reversing many Obama administration-era policies. The orders, taken from a laundry list of Trump campaign pledges, aimed to revive the previously blocked Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, defund sanctuary cities that protect undocumented immigrants from federal deportation and the enactment of what essentially is a temporary ban on Muslim refugees and immigrants entering the U.S.
At the same time, many career civil servants who had served both Democratic and Republican presidents were forced out of their jobs in what some observers labeled a purge of personnel at government agencies deemed insufficiently loyal to Trump’s agenda. Frightening to many was the president’s recent promotion of his chief strategist Steve Bannon, a white nationalist, to a permanent seat on the National Security Council while demoting the Pentagon’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the women-led peace group CODEPINK, author and lifelong activist and organizer. Here, Benjamin assesses the future of the growing Trump resistance movement and the Democratic Party’s response to the mass mobilization.
For more information about Code Pink, visit their website at codepink.org.
Related Links:
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Interview with Medea Benjamin, conducted by Scott Harris, Counterpoint, Jan. 30, 2017 (21:49) - “We Are Mourning … but We Are Marching and Organizing for Democracy and the Earth,” Jan. 29, 2017
- “Trump Just Made An Unprecedented, ‘Radical’ Change to the National Security Council,” Business Insider, Jan. 29, 2017
- ” In the Age of Donald Trump, the Resistance Will Be Localized,” The Nation, Jan. 18, 2017
- ” Throw Sand in the Gears of Everything,” The Nation, Jan. 18, 2017
- “We Asked Protesters What They Pledge to Do for the Next 4 Years,” Mother Jones, Jan. 21, 2017
- “After the March: 10 Actions to Take in Trump’s First 100 Days,” AlterNet, Jan. 23, 2017
- “To Defeat Trumpism Will Take An Extraordinary Popular Resistance,” The Guardian, Jan. 30, 2017
- “State of Resistance: California in the Age of Trump,” AlterNet, Jan. 21, 2017
- Disrupt J20 at disruptj20.org
- Degenerate Artists Against Fascism at facebook.com/DegenerateArtists
- Women’s March on Washington at womensmarch.com
- @Occupy_Airports (Twitter) at twitter.com/Occupy_Airports
- Occupy Airports at getgroundgame.com/airportprotests.html