Bulwark Takes - The RESISTANCE Is BACK! Will The DNC Listen?

Episode Date: June 17, 2025

Sam Stein and Lauren Egan take a closer look at the No Kings protests and how organizers are rethinking resistance. They explore why the movement feels different this time and why Democrats still seem stuck.

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This free virtual event brings together leaders like Senator Heidi Heitkamp, Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Governor Andy Beshear, and others for real talk and real solutions. Together we'll tackle the most urgent issues facing rural America. Register today or learn more at ruralprogress.com. Hey guys, it's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at The Bullwork,

and I'm joined by Lauren Egan to talk about Democrats, resistance, no Kings and drama at the DNC all in one video package for you. Uh, subscribe to the feed as always. Lauren, how was your weekend? It was great. How was yours? You were in a, you went to a no Kings protest. I did in Nashville.

Where you're based just so everyone knows. I'm not going to give away your home address. But it's important to know that you were down there. What was like? You didn't send me here. I live here. Yeah. I went to the Nashville protest. There were a couple thousand people there in front of the state Capitol. Is that good? Is it a lot? I don't know.

Is that by national standards? For Nashville, I think that's pretty decent. I mean, Nashville is like a liberal city in a red state. It was a good turnout, I thought. I'm surprised you left Broadway and all the honky tonk bars they usually go to on the weekends to do this. I mean, I started there and then ended there, obviously. It's in walking distance.

Come on. Okay, Brianna. Yeah, yeah. Gotta get your honky tonkin' first. Uh-huh, uh-huh, exactly. So what was it like? What'd you see? There were a ton of American flags.

I thought that the organizers did a good job sort of keeping it, which was their intention, to keep it really broad in terms of the messaging. It was a lot of stuff revolving around anti-fascism, anti-authoritarianism. There were some, you know, abolish ICE signs as well. But for the most part, it was like people from all over the state too. It wasn't just people from Nashville.

There were people with license plates there from, you know, red rural counties outside of here. And it was peaceful and people were, you know, pretty like communal and excited to be there. What did you do? You didn't go to the DC one, did you? I did not. I was doing a lot of father stuff. Oh, okay. I'm sorry.

Father's Day was Sunday, not Saturday. I took my kid to Fenway Park on Saturday trying to be a good dad. Sorry if I was, you know, not working. Who organized these things in Nashville? I was sort of curious about like, how does all come together as like hundreds of events across the country? They say something like what five million people total in the aggregate. It was, I mean, massive.

It was, you know, they're saying it's larger than the women's march. Our first real sort of national protest against Trump. And I have very little understanding of how it kind of came together. It's a bunch of different organizations that are all working on this together. So it's like your typical indivisible move on those kinds of folks. But they're on purpose not making it like, you know, one group like the women's march was organized by the women's march that turned out to be like an organization,

they're really purposely trying to make this like, very broad, very diffuse, there's no one leader, there's no one organization that's doing the whole thing. And it's going to look different in different places of the country based off of like, what matters there and what Organizations are are Strategic yeah. Yeah very much so I mean their whole thing is like we want to keep the coalition big and broad and so

You know, we don't want like ace just the ACLU or just indivisible or whatever. It might be to be the face of this So the PC row which I encourage people to read, I mean, we started out, you and I were talking it through before you wrote about it. And we started with the premise that maybe resistance culture is diminished in the age of Trump 2.0, because it just sort of felt that way, right? It's like I remember the first Trump term, there were the protests, the women's march right away. Then the travel ban came and people were running to the airport to demand that the travel ban

be lifted or at least give legal representation to the people who were showing up. It felt almost immediate that we were in this kind of defensive posture against Trumpism and that liberals were like called to arms. And then this go around, it's been, what is it, five months? We're 10% into the second term. And we really hadn't experienced that absent, the Tesla takedown movement and hands off. Like it hadn't really been all that much.

And you were talking about like, well, they did this new travel ban that's even bigger than the first one and no one really bothered to show up at the airports. And yet in the course of reporting, as these things usually happen, our, or at least your perception of it became different. Tell, tell a little viewer what you discovered in the process of reporting out this piece. Yeah. So there is some interesting data on this that actually more people have shown

up to protest at this point in Trump's administration compared to the same point in 2017, which I found fascinating because like that's not really what either of us thought when we were like, let's go do this story. I think that there's also some strategy by on behalf of the organizers there as well. I think there's a sense that like, people are exhausted. You can't ask people to show up to some big protests every single weekend. If you remember back to 2017, there was like, there was always something, right? And there was like, um, um, like the march for science and then like a march for families, I don't remember the march for science.

Okay. The march for science is a big one. I didn't, I forgot about it, but like, I think that speaks to it. Like there was just all these different things. And like you could go to something literally every weekend and there would be people there. And there's a sense that like that doesn't actually really work this time around. Like we're, you know, 10 years, what today's 10 years into Donald Trump's emergence on the political scene.

And yeah, well, I don't care. I think he emerged prior. This is a technical point. He'd been like a big birther and stuff and he, but yes, but yes, 10 years since he came down the escalator. Yes. Um, and so there's a sense that like you can't sustain like a certain amount of outrage, um, for too long.

Um, and there's also a recognition that like, Democrats really need to sort of expand the tent this time around. So having a protest, it's a march for science or things like that just isn't going to work this time around. It has to be like much bigger picture and a much broader message. And so I mean, that's what we saw. Yeah, but there's the kind of it It is interesting because there's also this... The other element of it is though, you know, there's these marches which are happening or at least happened this weekend and they're massive in scope, obviously. And then there's this, you know, what the lawmakers are kind of discovering they have to do, which is create moments, viral moments.

And so, I'm not saying Padilla went out to try to get arrested and handcuffed or anything like that, but like you had a disruption at a Kristi Noem event, you had the governors of some of the big democratic states show up on Capitol Hill and just kind of throw it right back at the Republican lawmakers. You have Chris Murphy in your piece being like, we need to like really step up on the urgency

and get really combative. It does seem like there's two tracks here. One is to build these movements strategically and pick your spots. And then the other one is to be disruptive in key moments, which Democrats seem to be understanding is the way to get attention in the modern age. Yeah. But I mean, I think they're both like strategic efforts. How so?

Well, I guess I understand that yeah Well, yeah, I like Pidya sure didn't go there, you know thinking that that was gonna play out how it did But I think he did go there to he did go there to check it out and he did confront her, right? Yeah, that was a strategic decision to walk into that room and I'm sure it crossed his mind that some weird shit could happen if he went into that room and I'm sure it crossed his mind that some weird shit could happen if he went into that room and he's chose to still go, right? Like he was not going to walk away from whatever might unfold if he went into the room. And then I think the protests are kind of like, the organizers will say, like, you have

to do both things at once. It has to be both of these tracks And I think there's a sense that like creating it sounds corny but like creating community around these moments too and bringing out Millions of people is impactful and does matter just not every weekend that last sentence It sounds like you work for McKinsey like a a real consultant speak. Create community in these important moments. What do the organizers think about the state of democratic leadership right now? No one's happy. I think there is a sense that perhaps this past week was a turning point.

A lot of people saw what happened with Padilla and felt really encouraged. At the same time, they were like, why are Democrats looking at everything that's happening with ICE in LA and these protests with LA and just calling this a distraction? Remember, that was the talking point from a lot of people last week. It's still this kind of the talking point for some. Yeah. So I think there's signs of hope, but at the same time, a deep frustration. And I will say some of the organizers were like,

look, at this point, we're not really looking to Hakeem Jeffries to tell us what to do. We're just going to do it. And we're just going to figure this out on our own, which is a discouraging thing to feel. Well, I was sort of grappling with this when I read your pieces. These two things don't, I mean, you can't have a comprehensive, effective,

grassroots protest movement if it's too aligned with elected leadership, right? If it feels like it's organized and orchestrated, then it becomes astroturfing in a way, and that makes it somewhat less effective. So there is some, there's always gonna be that type of tension, I think, between the movements and the leadership.

And it's always going to feel a little uncomfortable when the leadership tries to co-op the movement or get in on it, like Chuck Schumer showing up with a bullhorn or something like that. Totally. I think the frustration, though, is that, that's definitely true. Chuck Schumer should not show up with a bullhorn.

Or his flip phone. I think from a lot of the activists and the organizers, the frustration though is that they're saying, we believe that this is a turning point in American history and American democracy. We're in a crisis moment. It would be great if democratic leadership didn't undermine that by saying, what's going on in LA is a distraction. So I think there's a sense that they're actively working against the message and the urgency

that they're trying to bring to this moment. It's all anecdotal, obviously, but there is also the criticism that this protest, they know King's protests and some of the, obviously, the Tesla stuff, but that it's just kind of like, these are politically engaged, highly educated liberals. And that these are people who probably have a council on blue sky and watch MSNBC all day. And it's not, they're just dissatisfied,

but it's not actually materially important because the people they need to win over aren't really participating in this stuff. I know you're just at one protest, so I don't mind saying, oh, is it true? But is there concern among organizers that they're limited in their scope of reach, or are there efforts underway to try to expand

the people they're reaching to? Yeah, they're definitely worried about that. Part of the strategy around no hands was to do this. No hands? Sorry. No kings. No kings, hands off. No kings, hands off.

I'm just combining the two. No hands. And take down that Tesla king. Wait, that was bad. No. Part of the strategy was to do this in all 50 states. So get it outside of DC, outside of coastal cities, and to do it in red parts of the country, like small towns.

And they did have success with that. But just from my experience here in Nashville, I was, went around talking to a bunch of people and I was trying to find someone who had never been to a protest before. And I, I couldn't find anyone. Um, I'm sure someone was there who I just didn't talk to them. Um, so I do think that's, that's definitely a problem. They have a lot of the people I talked to were people that showed up, you know during the first Trump administration super engaged voters There are gonna be voting for Democrats no matter what yeah, I'm listening. That's like Not bad. It's important to keep those people engaged. I mean that you have to have them turn out if you have a chance

That kind of brings me I guess to the last topic, which is the actual democratic infrastructure here. They're not, like I just said, I don't think they should be participating in this stuff too aggressively because it could tank the stuff. At the same time, having a functioning DNC kind of matters to win and run, run in and win elections. And what we see today and what we saw last week is really a DNC that hasn't gotten its shit together, to be honest.

I mean, David Hogg, that whole fiasco, I've made my position clear on that. I don't think it makes sense to have someone at the DNC, a vice president, running campaigns to unseat Democrats, even if you think those Democrats suck. But whatever, put that aside. Then this morning or over the weekend, two very prominent union officials, Randy Weigarten and Lee Saunders, teachers union AFL, AFLCO, AFSCME, they both resigned from their positions at the ANC. And the people I'm talking to are like, this, you know, maybe it had to do with Hogg, maybe

it had to do with the fact that they were both prominent supporters for Ben Wickler, who was the other candidate who lost to Ken Martin. Either way, it doesn't matter. It's not good to have this type of dysfunction inside the party at the main apparatus. And it certainly doesn't seem good for them to be this disorganized at this point in time. No, I think this is Democrats' problem. Like they just shoot themselves in the foot with their own drama a lot. And this is exactly what is happening at the DNC right now.

And I think, um, the hog stuff was complicated for, for Ken Martin to deal with, there's no doubt about it, but it's kind of like, you got to get your people in line and like figure this out. Um, and I don't mean to interrupt you, but it gets to your earlier point, which is here you have millions of people coming up being like, this is an existential threat. And then the people who are supposed to be at the tip of the spear fighting it are like, oh, I don't really like your style.

And oh my god, you're doing this. And I'm quitting. And maybe they have valid reasons to quit. And I'm not trying to dismiss that. But it's like, it couldn't be more diametrically different attitudes about the current moment. Right. Like, right. If it's an existential moment, then act like it and put your big kid pants on and get over

whatever like drama you all have and get to work on midterms. There's still no plan to win the Senate, which is something that baffles me. I have not seen anything like that. Meanwhile, how much time have we spent talking about David Hogg and the DNC drama over the past really months at this point? I know. It's crazy. The prioritization here is out of whack. All right, Lauren, thanks so much. Appreciate it. Thank you for your service. You can take a comp day to go back to the honky tonk bars if needed. I know you need to, you're Phila Broadway.

I get it. I've been there. One shot of whiskey, one beer. All right, Lauren Egan, read her newsletter, The Opposition, subscribe to the newsletter, and subscribe to our YouTube feed where you get great content like this, where Lauren heckles me for a good 15 minutes

and I deal with it. Till then, don't shake your head. It's all good. Till then, we'll talk to you later. Bye-bye.