Americans everywhere are rising up.

Even if the national media and politicians miss it

Welcome to a Sunday edition of Progress Report.

Hide your grandma, hide your daughters: The big news in my neighborhood is that corrupt chronic sex pest and grandparent-killer Andrew Cuomo is running for mayor of New York City. And not only is this a huge pain in the ass for us New Yorkers, Cuomo’s reemergence from the depths of disgrace represents a threat to decent people everywhere.

Cuomo is ultimately running because he has an insatiable ego and thirst for political power, but the reason he’s jumping in so late is that he wanted to wait until the city’s current corrupt leader had damaged himself so badly that not even his closest allies could stand by him. Eric Adams drove the final stake into his career last week by using a slur while berating Black leaders for not vocally having his back, and Cuomo plans to pounce and lock up their support by calling in favors and long-expired political capital.

He already has the backing of the business community and conservative “Democrats” who desperately want to avoid the prospect of a strong progressive mayor, no matter how tarnished their guy is. This is a microcosm of what’s going on in the Democratic Party nationwide, with Wall Street and tech industry centrists scheming to assimilate to America to the Trump policies they like while keeping control of the captured opposition.

Third Way, the corporate think tank that gave us the Clintons, NAFTA, and Wall Street deregulation, held a summit this weekend where a band of tired, gutless mercenaries plotted out their vision of a Democratic path back to power. Their grand strategy to rebuild a political a party somehow entails beating down grassroots energy and even more thoroughly eschewing populism in favor of accommodating fascism.

Seriously, they’re so committed to the whims of the wealthy that they suggest downplaying small donors, and earnestly believe that what amounts to Kamala Harris’s economic message is the path back to trust with working class voters.

You can read the whole memo right here, and I recommend doing so if you’re looking to understand the corruption and stasis that passes for “opposition” right now. It’s obvious that Democratic leaders have already embarked on this road to nowhere, a sad reality that I’ve written about quite frequently here, and I could go on and on tonight, too. Yet as temporarily cathartic as that can be to write and read, I also have been looking for ways to go beyond the reporting and the rhetorical in service of efforts to salvage what we can of society.

One contention that I’ve always had is that the size of this country makes it hard to govern in any progressive way. Organic movements are even harder, because the death of local journalism, sensationalism of national media, and the algorithmic traps of social media have made it almost impossible to keep track of the good things that other people are doing. Fortunately, the inaction of Democratic lawmakers has not taken root among everyday people who are being tangibly harmed by DOGE and the Trump administration, and there is a growing number of protests, rallies, coordinated confrontations, and other actions happening on the ground, even if they don’t get much news coverage. Other issues are also animating many protests, as so many state governments are now run by bullies and sickos.

My goal going forward is to use Progress Report in part as a hub for people who want to organize and spread the word about these actions and antsy would-be activists looking for a way to get involved. Tonight I’ll wrap up what happened this weekend and preview a few big actions coming this week, and am asking for you to send over any upcoming protests, organizing events, campaigning, education opportunities, and similar relevant happenings. And if you can become a paid subscriber, it’ll help me spend more time digging into, vetting, and coordinating this new coverage.

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Upward of 1300 people lined the blocks around a Tesla dealership in Tempe, AZ on Saturday to protest Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and their ongoing destruction of the federal government.

Organized locally by an 82-year-old named Phineas Anderson, the protest was one of dozens that took place across the country on Saturday. The actions were coordinated by volunteers at Tesla Takedown, a loose national movement that has sprung up since Musk began his assault on federal workers and whole swaths of the government.

The movement aims to disrupt the sales and tarnish the reputation of the electric automaker, which has turned Musk, its CEO, into the wealthiest man in the world. Tesla’s share price soared in the months following Trump’s election victory, but has tumbled by 37% after reaching a record high in mid-December.

The fall has come in part due to the company’s low sales numbers, which have at the very least not been helped by Musk’s transformation from off-putting tech guy to global villain.

There were more than 50 protests on Saturday, drawing angry citizens from liberal enclaves on the coasts and in small cities across the middle of the country. Actions in Seattle and New York City were matched by sit-ins and protests in places like Council Bluffs, IA and the small town of Wexford, in Western Pennsylvania.

On Friday, activists in Silicon Valley gathered at Tesla’s headquarters in Palo Alto, where they took aim at both Musk and Trump in the heart of the right-wing’s new base of power. There were more than 500 protestors at the Tesla HQ, including representatives from labor unions, which have long struggled to unionize the automaker.

Musk has publicly voiced opposition to unions and Tesla has frequently – and illegally — fired employees with any active connection to the United Autoworkers. The Department of Labor recently fined Tesla for the electrocution death of a contractor who worked at the Tesla Gigafactory in Texas. The NLRB has pursued more than a dozen complaints against Tesla and other Musk-run companies, but now sits in limbo after Trump illegally fired one of its Democratic members.

Musk’s place at the center of DOGE project has made him perhaps the most actively unpopular public figure in American history, but that’s done little to shield Trump from blowback over the illegal mass firings, slashing of government funding, shuttering of agencies, and attacks on minority groups. The president’s approval rating, above water for the first time shortly after his inauguration, has begun to plummet once again, and he was the target of plenty of animus of his own at weekend protests.

Organized over both specific issues and omnibus grievances with the White House, marches and protests lit up small downtowns and state capitals, even in what is broadly considered Trump country. There were protests in — among other places — Wilkes Barre, PA and across Missouri, including one with hundreds of people gathered in the Ozarks, where Kamala Harris voters were sparse in November. The Missouri protests brought together activists engaged on a number of issues, including LGBTQ+ rights, and were notably organized by a state Democratic Party that is firmly ensconced in the super-minority. Imagine that: a political leadership that does more than insist that it’s powerless.

It’s important to recognize that so little of the oppositional organizing energy is coming from official Democratic Party channels, even when it’s explicitly political. Angry citizens are demanding answers from their Republican representatives at one town hall after another, including one held by Texas Rep. Keith Self on Saturday afternoon. He had little to offer his constituents in the way of concern for the ongoing coup taking place in Washington and how it’s impacting Pepe back at home, who responded with generous boos and heckling.

Some of these hostile encounters are being organized by the #50501 Movement, a fact that only underscores how angry the electorate has become, no matter how much the right-wing media — which of course stoked the astroturf Tea Party town halls — tries to delegitimize them.

The #50501 network began on Reddit, where it’s still primarily being organized, and has evolved into a sort of Trump 2.0 version of Indivisible (which is still going strong in many places, as well). At the moment, #50501 is gearing up for another national day of protests this coming Tuesday — more info on that below.

The weekend also saw around 12,000 protestors show up to actions at least 170 national parks and recreation areas all over the US. From the Yukon to Acadia, through the Rockies and Yellowstone all the way down to Fort Sumter in South Carolina, many of these gatherings had hundreds of people in attendance to fight back against the enormous budget cuts.

They were organized under the auspices of Resistance Rangers, a movement of more than 700+ current and recently fired national parks employees who know that the terrain will be virtually unmanageable under these new conditions.

Various other rallies continued all weekend, including one with more than 150 people in Wyoming on Friday who were protesting both the DOGE cuts and the universal school vouchers that they know will destroy public schools.

Upcoming actions and protests

Nationwide: On March 4th, #50501 will hold its third national day of action, with protests at state capitals and in other cities around the country. Find your local event here.

Nationwide: On March 5th, a new organization called Stand Up For Science will hold rallies nationwide to protest the massive cuts being made to medical research, the NIH, CDC, NOAA, university medical centers, and climate change mitigation.

Ohio: On March 20th, activists will gather at the capital in Columbus for Cannabis Lobby Day, which aims to stop the GOP bill that would gut marijuana legalization that has been in place for more than a year.

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