Will the big US protests matter?
5 million Americans made a lot of noise on Saturday. How does that change anything?
A few of the “No Kings” protesters who showed up in my city on June 14.
I haven’t produced a Wednesday post interpreting US politics for a while, so it’s about time!
Last Saturday, June 14, over 2,000 protest rallies took place in the United States, with estimated total attendance of 4 to 6 million. Data analyst G. Elliott Morris suggested that it may have been the largest national protest turnout in US history.
I attended the event in my city, wearing my “Canada Is Not for Sale” T-shirt as a good conversation starter. Among the most interesting signs I saw:
“If there’s money for a parade, there’s money for Medicaid.” (President Trump held a military parade on June 14 at an estimated cost of $40 million, but Republicans are seeking to reduce spending on Medicaid, the US healthcare program for the poor.)
“Trump is Ra_ist” (with a picture of a stick man trying to decide whether to place the letter “c” or “p” in the blank space).
“If your faith justifies cruelty, it’s not Christ you’re following.”
About 1.5 percent of the total US population walked up and down streets on the same day. So what? Morris points out the 3.5% rule: no government has withstood a challenge of 3.5% population mobilization in a protest. We’re far short of that.
Nevertheless, mobilization can produce change. Here’s how I would interpret the present situation.
When a new US president is elected, he often claims a mandate to implement the policies on which he campaigned. However, getting bills passed is harder than making campaign promises. Media and advocacy organizations point out problems in the actual proposals, causing them to lose popularity.
In 1993, for example, President Bill Clinton called for a tax increase. He had enough Democrats in Congress to pass the bill with no Republican support. In 1994, angry voters defeated many of those Democrats, and the Republican Party gained control of the US House for the first time in decades.
President Trump’s methods are extreme and unusual, but most of his controversial policies—such as imposing tariffs, deporting undocumented immigrants, and reducing support for Ukraine—are things he said he would do when campaigning. Now, people are recognizing consequences they may not have thought about. For instance, businesses that depend on Canadian tourism or the labor of undocumented immigrants are suffering.
Last week, six Republican legislators wrote a letter asking the Trump administration to prioritize deportation of immigrants who have committed violent crimes, rather than people who may have entered the US illegally but have no record of other crimes. Trump himself acknowledged that his policies were hurting the agriculture and leisure industries. A senior administration official promptly announced a pause in raids on those businesses. (And then the administration reversed itself again a few days later.)
In the US, each of the 100 members of the Senate represents a whole state, but each of the 435 House members represents his or her own district. There are currently 220 Republicans in the House. About two dozen of them had close elections in 2024. If Trump’s popularity continues to slide, these vulnerable members may begin to take positions in line with their constituents’ attitudes rather than with Trump. In that case, Trump may struggle to get any legislation passed by Congress.
Of course, Trump has been extremely creative in finding ways to do things without congressional approval, such as using the tiny flow of fentanyl from Canada to the US as justification for declaring an “emergency” and imposing tariffs on Canada. But those actions carry a risk of decreased popularity as well.
Even under normal conditions, the party that holds the White House usually loses seats in Congress during the “midterm” elections—i.e., an election in the middle of a presidential term. (A US president is elected for four years, but House members have two-year terms and Senators are elected for six years. Therefore, in 2026, there will be elections for all 435 House seats and one-third of the Senate.)
Trump and his advisors know all this, which is why they are working so hard to dismantle or reshape the parts of the government they don’t like within two years, in a manner that will make those programs hard to restore.
The 2026 elections are 17 months away. Between now and then, the Trump administration may make adjustments to its most unpopular policies, in the hope of retaining Republican control of Congress. A bigger fear is that if polls show the Republicans headed for a resounding defeat in 2026, the Trump administration might declare a national emergency and attempt to cancel the election, or to overturn its results as Trump sought to do in 2020. The appearance of growing unrest might give him a pretext for such action.
Given the widespread resistance to Trump and the perception that he has acted in an authoritarian manner, I expect the Trump era to end ugly. Since white evangelicals are seen as key supporters of the Trump administration, I expect that we will have a lot of apologizing and explaining to do in the post-Trump years, much as white South Africans did after apartheid. I am trying to plan ahead for that eventuality and would welcome anyone who wants to join me in that effort, regardless of their political stance.