After Donald Trump’s 2017 election, many suburban Democrats were galvanized into action, joining marches and grassroots groups. However, with Joe Biden in office, much of that initial momentum faded. Now, ahead of the next election, leftist organizers are strategizing regardless of who wins, focusing on continuous, intersectional activism rather than reactive protest. Will liberals rise again if Trump wins, or has the activist spark dwindled? by Hannah Krieg When former President Donald Trump took office in 2017, white, suburban Democrats got nervous. They joined Facebook groups, became the token, outspoken liberal at their family’s Thanksgiving dinner, and flooded the streets in a nationwide “Women’s March.” But when President Joe Biden defeated Trump in 2020, many of the newly activated liberals shelved their pink pussyhats. As the left derisively describes it, the liberals went back to “brunch.” Basically, the average, center-left Democratic voter felt comfortable once again under Biden, even as he oversaw massive losses to reproductive access, an increase in child poverty, proposed cruel border crackdowns and funded Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. Now, days before what Democrats tout as the most consequential election of our lifetimes, organizers across the broader left strategize  their response to either presidency. If Trump loses, will the liberals order another round of mimosas? If he wins, will it once again draw hundreds of thousands more people to join those already in the streets today?  Regardless of the outcome in November, liberal and lefty organizers in Washington say they won’t make a big hoopla — their activism before the election, whether protesting for a free Palestine or campaigning for centrist Democrat Kim Schrier, will not dramatically change after it.  Shockwaves Through The Suburbs The anti-Trump libs don’t appear to have the same juice as in 2016.  “A lot of people felt that the original mandate was defeating the Trump agenda,” says Kat Pipkin, an organizer Indivisible, which sprung up around Trump’s presidency. “And organizations grew to continue to advance democratic and progressive policies nationally, at the state level and locally, but there were people for sure who felt like, once Trump was out of office, their job was done.”  Pipkin doubts that a second Trump term will bring the same level of public engagement from the groups spawned from the backlash of his first term such as Indivisible, #Resistance liberals, the Women’s March organization, and others hellbent on defeating his extremist agenda.  “We've been inured over the past eight years by inflammatory rhetoric and political violence, and I mean, people are tired,” Pipkin says.  Trump’s first election marked an activation for many Democrats, particularly white women.  “Up until 2016, I was on the periphery like many folks who should have known better,” says Robin Gitelman, an Indivisible WA 8th organizer. “When Trump won, I was just absolutely devastated. And after that, I realized that it wasn’t enough to just be a voter.” And while large-scale demonstrations such as Seattle’s  Women’s March may have provided collective catharsis for its attendees, organizers in Washington have since found more effective ways of pushing their agenda, Pipkin says. Riding the anti-Trump high, Indivisible WA organizers on the eastside successfully flipped 8th congressional district, a purple swath of voters straddling the Cascades, from several decades of Republican rule to its first Democrat representative in Shrier in 2018. That same year, Indivisible WA 8th also helped replace Republicans with Democrats in both State House seats in the 5th LD. It seems a Trump presidency won’t change Indivisible groups in Washington’s strategy much. They will continue to vehemently defend moderate Schrier, the two seats in the 5th LD, and advocate for state legislation —including Rep. My-Linh Thai and Sen. Noel Frame’s wealth tax. Pipkin believes this is positive growth for the Indivisible movement, showing that their work is “not purely reactionary,” but part of a long-term, continuous strategy for making change regardless of who is president.  Liberal Limitations But Indivisible didn’t bring out millions across the country following Trump’s Inauguration — that was the Women’s March. The Seattle “Womxn’s March” set a city record for a public demonstration, attracting more than 100,000 people and far surpassing the previous mark of roughly 40,000 people who descended on Seattle for the World Trade Organization protests in 1999. By all appearances, the Seattle chapter has not organized a march or rally since Oct. 2021 when they brought out an estimated 2,500 people for a rally in Westlake. Reproductive rights activists gathered just a few thousand for a march downtown after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.  While the national Women’s March organization still exists and organizes, the organizers never pulled as many “Nasty Women” out of the suburbs as the day after Trump’s inauguration when 4 million people across the country took to the streets to protest his extreme, misogynistic agenda. Some women, particularly women of color, disabled women, queer women, or women who otherwise experience compounding oppressions have argued that actions like the Women’s March advance “white feminism,” which fails to use an intersectional approach to activism, making long-term, sustained organizing more difficult. Without an intersectional and inclusive understanding of liberation, white feminists will fill the streets when Trump threatens their rights, but will stay home and watch Gilmore Girls under Biden.  Palmira Figueroa, who organized with Seattle Womxn’s March for two years after Trump got elected says that Seattle’s now relatively inactive chapter put more effort into promoting intersectional feminism, largely because so many women of color coordinated the chapter. But nationally, the Women’s March movement seems too narrowly focused for Figueroa’s liking. Women’s March PAC endorsed Harris, due to her stronger pro-abortion agenda, very quickly and without criticism. Figueroa found that troubling, particularly as Harris promotes cruelty at the border and permits genocide in Palestine.  “Abortion rights are important. I know that. But I’m not a single issue organizer,” says Figueroa, who now organizes for immigration justice with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.  Figueroa expects white feminists may iron their “This Pussy Grabs Back” T-shirts if Trump gets elected again, but if Harris wins, then they will feel fine to hang off on the sidelines, particularly in Washington, which maintains abortion access. “But the reality is, if Harris gets elected, kids in Palestine still get murdered and the families still get separated at the border,” she says.  Gina Petry, from Radical Women, a socialist feminist advocacy group, says that all these struggles are connected. She anticipates that more liberal feminists will argue for siloing advocacy, which Petry says is a mistake. Indivisible WA’s Gitelman recalls a workshop with the League of Women Voters shortly after Trump’s first election where the speaker encouraged attendees to imagine just one issue in their mind and focus on that for the sake of their bandwidth. Gitelman remembers the speakers saying that people will have different priorities and then all issues will get covered.  Figueroa encourages people to take a broader approach. If Democrats give Harris a pass on Palestine or immigration because she promises to restore federal abortion protections, then the party will continue ratcheting to the right. It is that complacency, Figueroa argues, that gives rise to a Trump.  Pro Palestine Advocates March On While it's unclear to what degree the pussyhats will pink out Seattle’s streets after the election, the keffiyehs are here to stay.  Taara Khalilnaji, co-chair of the Seattle Democratic Socialist of America’s Palestine Solidarity international working group, says the presidential election does not change their work. The working group will continue to support marches and actions as well as what Khalilnaji called the group’s “baby,” their campaign supporting the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. So far, the working group has collected more than 1,500 consumer pledges from locals promising to shop BDS compliant products and services. Next, the group will start to pressure businesses to de-stock and replace boycotted items.  Similarly, Jack Hogan, an organizer with Seattle Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), said the group will stay the course under either presidency. But for now, Hogan notes that Biden is still president for a couple months. In that time, JVP intends to continue pressuring the administration for an arms embargo. JVP plans specifically to badger Sen. Patty Murray to support Sen. Bernie Sander’s newly introduced Joint Resolutions of Disapproval, which would block the sale of more than $20 billion in offensive U.S. weapons to Israel.  Khalilnaji says their advocacy will not stop until Palestine is free. And that’s not on either presidential candidate’s agenda. Khalilnaji described Biden as “unmoveable” on his support for Israel’s genocide. He may have called for a ceasefire, but Biden failed to exert the pressure to enact it by embargoing arms, and has failed to investigate reports that U.S arms were used to kill Gazans.  While it seems Harris’s platform mirrors Biden’s, some people see Harris’ rhetoric as more “empathetic” toward the plight of Palestinians. But Khanlilnaji says she’s far from an ally to the cause.  “Whatever words Harris may use to show empathy for Palestinians do not really hold any value when in the same breath she'll call Oct. 7 a greater tragedy than Israel’s ongoing genocide,” says Khalilnaji. At the same time, Hogan acknowledges that Harris would be a preferable enemy to their protests. Pro-Palestine protesters understand Harris is no ally to their cause, but will at least allow them to protest. According to the ACLU Integrated advocacy director Vanessa Torres Hernandez, Trump’s record does not paint a pretty picture for protests under a possible second term. For example, during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, Trump instructed governors to deploy the National Guard to “dominate the streets,” and threatened to unleash the military on protesters. He also called out the National Guard to disrupt peaceful protests in Washington DC, Hernandez notes. Under his watch, federal marshals and a militarized unit of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection descended on Portland, OR to stifle protests and unlawfully arrest both journalists and legal observers. Hernandez worries Trump might also “exploit the executive branch’s vast and unprecedented powers to spy on Americans’ lives with dragnet surveillance of our data, potentially abusing that information to suppress protest and political dissent.” Not to mention Trump has explicitly called for the deportation of pro-Palestinian protesters.  Hogan says JVP will strategize how to best protest under Trump when the time comes. Despite the threat of repression, lefty organizers anticipate a Trump victory would bring reengaged liberals out to the streets too.  “I think liberals will be galvanized if Trump wins. I just don't know that they're going to be galvanized for Palestine,” says Khalilnaji.  Khalilnaji adds that some American women will advocate for their own reproductive rights under a Trump presidency, but did not fight the Biden administration to extend those rights to women in red states. Those same women do not always express outrage over Israel’s slaughter of women and children or the abhorrently inadequate access to reproductive care in Gaza as the genocide rages on, Khalilnaji added.  “I don’t know how much of the reading that folks did in 2020 about institutional racism is sticking,” says Khalilnaji. “I don’t know why some people did not retain the concept that ‘none of us are free until all of us are free.’” Should the pussyhats return to the streets, Khalilnaji says anti-imperial, anti-capitalist, and intersectional feminists won’t lose focus. She just hopes liberal feminists will “connect the dots” between the struggles at home and abroad this time. Even if Harris wins, even if white feminists feel safe to keep their bullhorn in storage, the fight for liberation goes on.