At Anti-Trump Rally, Less Chanting and More Organizing

By Michael Karlis

Reporting Texas

Organizers said more than 1,000 demonstrators descended upon the Texas State Capitol over the weekend to protest against what some experts say is the Trump administration’s increasingly authoritarian rule. 

Saturday’s protest, organized by the 50501, Hands Off! and Resist Austin movements — three grassroots campaigns aiming to prevent “plutocrats” from “undermining the rule of law”  — was the third such large-scale demonstration against the Trump administration in Austin this year.  

But unlike other protests in recent weeks that featured chanting slogans and witty signs, Saturday’s demonstration focused more on organizing, recruiting and next steps. 

“The Trump administration is a terrorist organization, and it is time to stop gathering and time to start organizing,” U.S. Marine veteran and former Hays County sheriff’s deputy Dan Webber told the crowd. “Military members and their family members and friends are here today to pass on this important message: You have so much power in saying no. You may be threatened, punished, insulted and demoted, but no chain of command, no matter how high, can take your voice or force you to betray your oaths.”

Webber was one of a dozen speakers at Saturday’s rally. They came from varied walks of life but shared a message of anger and fear.

“We are currently in a time of crisis; a story like no other is upon us,” transgender-rights activist Melody Tremallo told the rally. “Folks are afraid to come out to these events, and rightfully so. We have an administration in office that is openly defying court order, brazenly violating the Constitution and snatching people off the streets.’ 

Meagan Booth spoke on behalf of her 15-year-old autistic daughter. With the Trump administration’s funding cuts to the Department of Education, a civil rights investigation into incessant bullying directed at her daughter, which led to two hospitalizations, has vanished. 

“What does it say to families like mine when the very agency tasked with protecting our children’s rights is dissolved?” Booth said. “It sends a message to school districts that compliance is optional, that they can look the other way when children are bullied, denied services or discriminated against, and face no consequences.”

Meanwhile, Austin Community College professor Bryan Register cited “Why Civil Resistance Works,” a book by Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephen that examines effective case studies of regime overthrow, to offer  instructions on how the resistance movement should proceed in its defiance of the Trump administration. 

“As things stand, we don’t know whether soldiers will obey orders to fire on protesters,” Register cried out into the microphone. “But we do know about the illegal kidnappings that immigration police are already doing. It is going to be critical at some point in the next few years that the army and the police see us as human beings and fellow Americans, and refuse to follow orders. Wrapping ourselves in the flag is part of that.”

Although the rhetoric may sound hyperbolic, some legal experts and academics have become alarmed by the Trump administration’s challenges to constitutional law and political norms in recent weeks.  

They cite the administration’s refusal to facilitate the return of mistakenly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia from an El Salvador prison despite a Supreme Court ruling, not providing due process in deportation cases and most recently moving toward invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807, which some scholars equate to martial law. 

Defense Secretary Pete Hagseth and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ultimately declined to recommend that Trump invoke the Act, which the administration wanted to use to secure the southern border with military personnel—at least for now. 

However, experts, including American University assistant government professor and executive power expert Chris Edelson, warn that Trump’s ongoing war with Harvard University is another indication of constitutional decline. 

The White House has threatened to freeze $3.2 billion in federal grants and contracts for refusing to abide by the Trump administration’s demands, including eliminating DEI inclusion programs, banning facemasks, and enacting merit-based hiring and admission reforms.

“If presidents can simply freeze spending and impound spending without following the Impoundment Control Act, it means the constitutional system no longer exists in the way we think of it,” Edelson told Reporting Texas. “In that case, Congress could pass legislation that would become law requiring spending, and the president could just decide which and which not to follow.”

In response to warnings of a slide into authoritarianism, Webber called upon the various grassroots movements gathered at the state Capitol to collaborate with organizations that teach nonviolent resistance tactics, including the King Center, American Civil Liberties Union and United Farm Workers. 

“Too many people were abused, kicked, spat on. Too many people fought for too many rights for us to forget the lessons they suffered to teach us,” Webber said. 

ACC’s Register told the crowd that history shows that only 3.5% of a nation’s population is needed to engage in nonviolent protests for party loyalists to begin jumping ship, leading to regime change. 

“If 3.5% of us get in the streets and the regime remains, that doesn’t mean that we failed,” Register said. “It means that we need to get smarter.