Groups Demand Democrats Convene Emergency Meeting To Counter Trump’s Authoritarian Coup

Interview with Sam Rosenthal, political director of RootsAction.org, conducted by Scott Harris

By Scott Harris, Between The Lines

A growing number of Americans are worried about the future of the country. There’s new concern Wall Street’s worst April performance since the 1932 Depression era in response to President Donald Trump’s imposition of indiscriminate international tariffs, the dismantling of the Social Security system, congressional Republicans’ plan to defund Medicaid, the illegal deportation of U.S. residents without due process and a mafia-like extortion scheme targeting universities, law firms and the media.

Amid rising fear and anger, it’s not surprising to find that Trump’s approval rating edged down to its lowest level since his return to the White House. An April 9 Quinnipiac University poll found Trump had a 53 percent unfavorable rating, compared to 41 percent who had a favorable view. At the same time, Democratic party leaders have major problems. A Gallup poll released in mid-April found just 25 percent of respondents expressed confidence in Democratic congressional leadership, down 9 points from the previous historic low of 34 percent set in 2023.

Progressive activist groups RootsAction.org and Progressive Democrats for America have recently launched a petition drive calling on the Democratic National Committee to convene an emergency meeting to develop a bold action plan to mobilize effective opposition to the unpopular, autocratic agenda of Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the Republican party.  Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke withSam Rosenthal, political director of RootsAction.org, who explains what he and other progressive activists are asking of the Democratic party in response to the current constitutional crisis.

SAM ROSENTHAL: Generally as a party, I think that there’s this really apparent lack of coordinated strategy, and this is one of the reasons that we wanted to target the DNC instead of going after individual members of the party or people who are in leadership, because we think it’s the DNC’s responsibility to be driving this strategy.

One of the things that’s most stunning and most galling really, is that there appears to have been no strategy heading into the beginning of the Trump administration. It seems like Democrats within the DNC and those in elected leadership were as surprised and stunned and bowled over as all the rest of us were, which the Trump administration has pursued a very aggressive tax. So I get that somewhat, but it appears that there had been no preparatory conversations — that the Democrats didn’t have a strategy for what they would do if Trump moved to the most excessive, the most authoritarian, the rightmost extreme, which is what he’s done.

It’s a really, really — “disappointing” isn’t even a strong enough word — but it’s a really shockingly incommensurate response. I think there have been some bright spots. We’ve been happy to see that Bernie Sanders and AOC, that’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have been on this sort of barnstorming tour. They’ve been drawing these huge crowds. It’s clear that there’s still really an appetite for progressive politics, and I think taking a message directly to voters has been really good. We’ve also seen some other Democrats who are holding town halls in red districts or purple districts where Republicans are too afraid to meet with their constituents because they know that what’s happening at the federal level is so unpopular. People like Ro Khanna, who have been going into purple districts near his own to talk to voters there — I think that’s a really good effort — one that I’d like to see happening in many more parts of the country.

And then I think in the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen a better response on the horrendous racist immigration policies that we’ve seen from the Trump administration. You had Sen. Van Hollen traveling down to El Salvador. I think that was a good move. Something that directly was a finger in the eye of a Trump administration and also was an urgent humanitarian mission.

And so there are some moves that we see that seem like they’re invigorating, the Democratic party’s base that are sort of responding to what Democrats are seeing in the streets. But still, the Gulf between what the base clearly wants from the party, the level of activity the base wants from the party, and what those at the DNC and inside Congress are willing to do is really vast. So we really want to see that gulf close. We want to see Democratic leadership meet the energy and enthusiasm that the base has for fighting Trump and Trumpism.

SCOTT HARRIS: Well, Sam, how’s the campaign going in terms of the Democratic National Committee’s response to your call for an emergency meeting to really strategize and develop tactics to challenge the Trump administration’s attack on democracy?

SAM ROSENTHAL: Yeah, we haven’t gotten an official response from the DNC yet. You’ll be surprised to hear they have a regularly scheduled meeting coming up at the end of the summer, and so I guess they think that that’s okay to kick a can down the road a few more months and just sort of let Trump do whatever he wants during that period.But we’ve heard a lot of positive feedback from grassroots activists, even from some people in the party who sort of off the record will send us a note or send us a text saying, this is a good campaign. We approve of this initiative.

But you won’t see anyone publicly stepping out of line against the party right now. At the same time, they could decide to convene a party meeting at any moment, they can do it virtually. It’s well within the power of the elected leadership to do this. So the ball is really in their court. And we hope that folks who are listening, who are curious about the campaign, who are involved in grassroots activism will think about contacting the DNC and telling them, “I heard about this idea. I think it’s a really good one and I hope that you take it seriously and that you try to convene a meeting much earlier than the regularly scheduled one at the end of the summer.”

For more information, visit Roots Action’s website at rootsaction.org.

Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Sam Rosenthal (21:02) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the related links section of this page. For weekly updates on the Trump authoritarian playbook now underway, subscribe here to our Between The Lines Radio Newsmagazine Substack newsletter to get updates to our “Hey AmeriKKKa, It’s Not Normal” compilation.

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