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PUSHING MAGA OUT: THE RESISTANCE RAMPS UP  
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Max Elbaum
August 19, 2025
Convergence
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_ Zohran Mamdani wins big, outrage mounts at Israel’s genocide, and
new projects take off, including One Million Rising and the
Battleground Alliance PAC—all building momentum against MAGA’s
drive toward authoritarian rule. _

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In my previous article, A Path to Pushing MAGA Out of Power
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I offered a set of ideas about what is needed to block MAGA in a way
that offers more than temporary relief from authoritarian rule. The
goal is to put in place a new governing coalition in 2028 that will
start on the road toward deep structural reform.

To achieve that we need to:

* BUILD A POWERFUL SYNERGY OF MASS RESISTANCE AND ELECTORAL WORK:
scale up public protests, workplace actions, civil disobedience, and
organized noncompliance to block MAGA attacks and defend democratic
rights, including the right to elections that are at least minimally
free and fair; and 
* DEFEAT MAGA CANDIDATES AT ALL LEVELS IN THE 2026 AND 2028
ELECTIONS so that an anti-MAGA coalition gains governing power at the
federal level and increases its strength in blue, purple and red
states.

* STRENGTHEN THE PROGRESSIVE WING OF THE BROAD ANTI-MAGA COALITION
SO IT CAN:

* shape the politics of electoral campaigns against MAGA at all
levels of government; 
* put its stamp on both the domestic and foreign policy of a
post-MAGA federal government; and 
* play the leading role in state-level governing coalitions in at
least a few blue states while increasing its political weight in
purple and red states. If we don’t gain this leverage and end up
with a government that doesn’t deliver substantial change, MAGA will
have an opening to come roaring back.

 (A discussion guide for examining these points is available
[[link removed]].) 

New initiatives and Mamdani’s big win

An uptick in opposition to MAGA was already underway at the time A
Path to Pushing MAGA Out of Power
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published (June 16, 2025). It showed in spontaneous as well as
organized local actions against ICE kidnappings; enthusiastic crowds
at Anti-Oligarchy events
[[link removed]] featuring Bernie
Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and other prominent progressives;
protests against US military aid to Israel and repression of the
Palestine solidarity activists; organizing by the Federal Unionists
Network [[link removed]]; the nationwide Hands Off
mobilization and then the huge turnout at the No Kings
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on June 14.

Since No Kings Day, the Trump administration has accelerated its
full-spectrum effort to consolidate authoritarian rule. The Texas
GOP’s move to follow Trump’s “advice” and steal five House
seats via racist gerrymandering
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and the federal government taking over the DC police and deploying the
National Guard in the nation’s capital are only the most blatant of
their actions. 

Fortunately, resistance momentum has accelerated in both numbers and
militancy as well. For example, anti-ICE rapid responses
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become larger and more sophisticated. MoveOn added its weight
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the campaign to get young progressives to “Run for Something
[[link removed]].” Trans rights
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a special focus at Pride marches across the country, which generally
displayed a “defiant stance
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against MAGA efforts to roll back LGBTQ+ rights. Black and other
anti-racist formations led the way in the nationwide Good Trouble
Lives On [[link removed]] actions on July 17, the
five-year anniversary of SNCC leader and Congressman John Lewis’
death. A host of national organizing networks launched The Big
Betrayal: How We Fight Forward
[[link removed]] initiative in response to
the Big Ugly Bill with a mass call on July 30.

In response to the Texas gerrymander, a Fight the Trump Takeover
National Day of Action [[link removed]] saw
protests in dozens of cities. Spontaneous protests by DC residents
[[link removed]] against
the government’s move are being reported as this article is being
written and denunciations of the move are coming in from across the
country.

Amid the uptick in resistance, the new Battleground Alliance PAC and
One Million Rising initiatives are aiming to scale up coordinated
progressive action on both the electoral and non-electoral fronts.
Meanwhile Zohran Mamdani’s shellacking of Andrew Cuomo to become the
Democratic Party nominee for mayor of New York City has energized (and
educated!) progressives nationwide by taking an approach that is both
transformative and immensely popular. Mamdani’s win has had an
especially important impact on the fight to move Palestinian rights
central to the progressive agenda, making a big contribution to what
is now a “dam has burst” moment, according to key Palestine
solidarity fighters Yousef Munayyer
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Rabbani
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Strategic non-cooperation and flipping the House

On July 16, Indivisible held the first mass call
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initiative, “One Millon Rising: Strategic Non-Cooperation to Fight
Authoritarianism
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Aiming to train one million people in the strategic logic and practice
of non-cooperation, this effort draws from the work of the Horizons
Project [[link removed]] and others on how civil
resistance can undermine the pillars of authoritarian rule
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One Million Rising doesn’t intend to compete with or replace the
many nonviolent resistance efforts already underway in communities
across the country. Rather, organizers hope to tap the energy of the
surge of new people being drawn to activism and to increase the scale,
sophistication, and coordination of anti-authoritarian actions by
orders of magnitude. The second and third mass calls also drew
thousands of participants; recordings of each, as well as resources
and action toolkits, can be found here
[[link removed]]. 

On the electoral side, on the same day as the first One Million Rising
call, a labor-backed coalition launched a major working-class effort
to flip 35 or more House seats
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the 2026 mid-terms. Initiating organizations of the Battleground
Alliance PAC [[link removed]] include the Service
Employees International Union (SEIU); Communication Workers of America
(CWA); Working Families Party; Planned Parenthood Votes; Indivisible;
MoveOn; American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
(AFSCME); Peoples Action; and Popular Democracy in Action. Main
Street Action
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since joined the effort.

This $50 million effort will “target their efforts
toward mobilizing voters who have been hit the hardest by the
Republican agenda
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parents who will lose healthcare for their kids, families struggling
after [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] cuts, seniors not
being able to afford their medication, people struggling with higher
utility bills, and workers who’ve watched billionaires get tax
breaks while their wages stay flat. They’re not just participating;
they’re at the center of leading this effort to take back control
and make their voices heard at the ballot box,” according to the
PAC’s launch statement.

Like several other recent initiatives launched by social justice
partisans (for example, The Medicaid Union
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for Democracy [[link removed]]) and the
upcoming Workers Over Billionaires Labor Day protests
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[[link removed]] actions sponsored by The Women’s
March – Our Feminist Future, these efforts are focused on the fight
against MAGA. They demonstrate with on-the-ground activity that
progressives are the most combative sector of the anti-MAGA coalition
and the most capable of engaging people alienated from mainstream
politics. This is a crucial component of expanding the base and
influence of progressive politics. 

Another crucial component of our block and build work is direct
contention with the centrist and pro-corporate wings of the anti-MAGA
coalition whose main political vehicle is the establishment wing of
the Democratic Party. On that front, the most dramatic breakthrough
for the progressive movement and the US Left since at least
2020—Zohran Mamdani’s big win in New York City—models a path
with tremendous strategic potential. 

Mamdani shows how it’s done

Numerous assessments have been offered of how Mamdani pulled off his
earthquake victory, and the resulting lessons for progressives and
socialists across the country; among the best are Waleed Shahid’s
piece in _The Nation_
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Blanc’s in _Jacobin_
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Shahid notes how the ground was prepared for Mamdani’s effort by a
decade of organizing starting with Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign and
continuing with the rise of New York City DSA and the Justice
Democrats’ work to elect AOC and Jamaal Bowman. He stresses in this
paradigm the rise of “a new kind of Muslim American
politics—rooted in solidarity, visible in public, and grounded in
power, not just presence.” Many of the details of that development,
such as the deep community organizing done by Desis Rising Up and
Moving (DRUM) [[link removed]], DRUM Beats
[[link removed]], and CAAAV-Organizing Asian
Communities [[link removed]], are covered by Jasmine Gripper and
Lena Pervez Afridi in the June 21 episode
of _Convergence_’s _Block & Build_ podcast, “How Zohran Won
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Blanc summarizes many of the ingredients that Mamdani wove together
into a winning campaign: a commitment to economic populism and laser
focus on making New York City affordable; a “tireless ground game of
50,000 volunteers and the New York City Democratic Socialists of
America  [[link removed]](DSA) and other allied
organizations;” a brilliant attention-grabbing social media campaign
whose “secret sauce” was not primarily technical but
“_POLITICAL_: an authentic messenger armed with a compelling
platform;” successfully building a left-liberal coalition largely
via the cross-endorsement of Brad Lander; and crucial inroads into
organized labor (with almost all the unions that endorsed Cuomo
switching to Mamdani since the primary). Overall, Blanc argues:

Despite what his opponents claim, Zohran is not a dogmatic extremist
but a radical _pragmatist_. He could not have gotten this far had he
not focused on bread-and-butter economic issues, spoken in a
commonsense language, ran as a Democrat, dropped his support
for defunding the police
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and endorsed Brad Lander. Zohran refused to drop his support for
democratic socialism or his opposition to Zionist apartheid, but
performative ultraleftism was anathema to this campaign.

There are few other places where political conditions and the broad
Left’s level of development allow for duplicating Mamdani’s
achievement. Even in New York City the fight with establishment
Democrats is far from over, with all too many joining Republicans,
Wall Street and real estate moguls, and apologists for Israeli
genocide in a crusade to defeat Mamdani in November’s general
election. 

But the impact of Mamdani’s breakthrough win
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the primary cannot be undone. Progressives and socialists across the
country are wrestling with ways to apply the lessons of Mamdani’s
experience to the specific conditions (including the level of
development of the Left) in their localities. And the fight ahead in
New York, even with all its dangers, has the potential to expand
Mamdani’s base of support, build cooperation among unions that were
on opposite sides in June, and yield even more lessons for the bitter
contention within the Democratic Party that lies ahead. 

A tectonic shift in support for Palestine

One thread from Mamdani’s campaign deserves special attention. Cuomo
centered antisemitism in his attacks on Mamdani, trying to tar him
with that label for terming Israeli actions a genocide and refusing to
exempt Israel from his belief that only states in which all citizens
have equal rights have a “right to exist.” 

That Mamdani overcame this smear in the city with more Jews than any
other except Tel Aviv marks a political earthquake. It demonstrates
how much attitudes about Israel and Palestine are shifting—and in
turn it has spurred them to shift further. Mamdani’s win shows that
a pro-Palestine stance is not only morally just but politically
forward-looking. 
[[link removed]]A bombshell
poll released by the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy
Project [[link removed]] on July
29 reinforced the point. It showed that Mamdani’s pro-Palestinian
rights stance was an important factor in his getting the votes of more
than 60% of his supporters, and that among primary voters overall, 78%
said Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and 79% supported
restricting US weapon shipments to Israel. A poll by Zenith Research
and Public Progress
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shows Mamdani with a 17-point lead among New York Jewish voters going
into the general election.

These New York results are part of a massive shift underway
nationwide. A new Gallup poll
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support for Israeli dropping to unprecedented lows. Only 32% of all
those polled support Israel’s military action in Gaza, and this only
because 71% of Republicans do. Among Independents, support has dropped
to 25% and among Democrats the figure is a mere 8%. For the first
time, a majority of US people disapprove of Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu. 

Especially striking is the breakdown by age. Among all respondents
18-34, only 6% have a favorable view of Netanyahu and 9% approve of
Israel’s military actions in Gaza. 

This long-overdue tectonic shift is already having an impact on the
national discourse and politicians’ votes
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Mainstream media coverage in the last week or two has started to use
the term genocide without scare quotes
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run stories explicitly blaming Israel
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the human catastrophe in Gaza and contrasting Zionist values with
liberal democratic ones
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And a majority of Senate Democrats
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the first time voted to support restricting arms sales to Israel. 

It’s infuriating that it has taken so long to get to this point. But
more importantly, it is a tribute to the work of all those who have
participated in the movement for Palestinian rights, which has refused
to bow to repression, slander, and racist and Islamophobic
demonization. Now it is urgent to intensify that movement: to combine
protest and education on a mass scale to stop the escalation in
killing now being promised by the Israeli government and end every
aspect of the genocide currently underway. And to go further by making
defense of Palestinian human and national rights an integral part of
the progressive action agenda, taking that stance into the 2026 and
2028 electoral campaigns, and fighting like hell for it to be a key
component of the program of a post-MAGA government.

_Max Elbaum is a member of the Convergence Magazine editorial board
and the author of Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to
Lenin, Mao and Che 
[[link removed]](Verso
Books, Third Edition, 2018), a history of the 1970s-‘80s ‘New
Communist Movement’ in which he was an active participant. He is
also a co-editor, with Linda Burnham and María Poblet, of Power
Concedes Nothing: How Grassroots Organizing Wins Elections 
[[link removed]](OR Books, 2022)._

_Convergence [[link removed]] is a magazine for
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