Five Signs the American People Will Resist Trump
When Donald Trump is sworn in as president on Monday, he’ll be joined onstage by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and other billionaires. Despite Trump’s ostensibly populist campaign, the moment will symbolize his toxic linkage of extremist, far-right bigotry with the class interests of billionaires.
Their wealth is already skyrocketing. As Chuck Collins calculates from Forbes wealth data, at the end of 2024 there were 813 U.S. billionaires with a combined total wealth of $6.72 trillion. Those billionaires and plutocrats are getting a front row seat in the next administration, Sam Pizzigati adds.
Also at the table? Fossil fuel “oil-garchs.” In another piece this week, Chuck highlights new data showing how fossil fuel barons are bankrolling Trump. It’s no wonder Trump is expected to immediately withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accords (again) — a step our Climate Policy Program has condemned.
In a sick irony, the inauguration will be held on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
As a courageous advocate of racial and economic justice, King would be disgusted by this display. But through the multi-racial, multi-issue Poor People’s Campaign he co-founded toward the end of his life, King also showed how these racist plutocrats can be defeated: by coming together.
Today, IPS is the research arm of the modern Poor People’s Campaign, a movement of poor people for peace and racial, economic, and environmental justice. And despite the crisis in our country’s politics, we see several signs people can still pull together to transform our system.
As Trump takes office, Peter Certo lays out five popular checks on Trump’s agenda, building on some major wins in 2024 — from unionization campaigns to an invigorated peace movement, climate wins, and progressive victories at the state and local levels. “Our politics are a mess right now. But our country isn’t ‘lost’ — only our leaders are,” he writes. “When Americans organize around our common decency, it’s going to get a lot harder for bullies like Trump to walk over us.”
Also this week, John Feffer warns how Trump’s policies could deepen the global climate crisis. Hanna Homestead and Aspen Coriz-Romero explain how the U.S. subsidizes militarism while underfunding climate solutions. And our board member Sulma Arias connects Trump’s looming immigration crackdown to the greed of private prison companies.
Our new Associate Fellow Christine Ahn explains in the Chronicle of Philanthropy how philanthropists can embrace a progressive feminist policy vision and fight militarism through their giving.
Finally, I’d like to offer a bit of inauguration counterprogramming with my new piece in Places Journal, “The City Was All I Had.” In it, I reflect on my early years in Washington D.C., and the various connections between policy and art. I hope you enjoy it, and thank you for being in this fight with us.
