Grassroots activists are studying tactics used by the influential Tea Party in an effort to harden Democrats’ resistance to Donald Trump

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

They came with chants and songs, banners and flyers and a chicken costume, and felt it was working – that this and other grassroots protests were steeling Democratic resistance to Donald Trump.

“We need to stand and fight. We are the majority. Let’s take our country back,” Mimi Fleischman told the crowd outside Senator Dianne Feinstein’s Los Angeles office on Tuesday afternoon.

It was the latest anti-Trump gathering to target congressional Democrats for perceived pusillanimity towards Trump’s embryonic, whirlwind administration.



About 200 protesters had picketed Feinstein’s house in San Francisco after she had voted for four of the president’s cabinet nominees. Then on Tuesday morning the California senator, the ranking Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee, announced she would oppose the nomination of Jeff Sessions as US attorney general.

“The pressure is working,” said Daniel Lee, 43, an actor and writer.



One rally speaker, Laura Smith, said congressional Democrats should imitate the blanket opposition their Republican colleagues waged against Barack Obama. “I hated that obstructionism but you know what, it frickin’ worked.”

Activists said they were studying tactics used by the Tea Party, a grassroots movement which yanked the GOP to the right and hardened congressional resistance to Obama. Some have called it the Herbal Tea Party.

Rory Carroll (@rorycarroll72) Crowd outside Diane Feinstein's LA office demanding resistance to Trump. Plenty cars honking in support. pic.twitter.com/9fYOop73W9

“As a mobilisation group the Tea Party was very successful. We’ve taken a page from that,” said Viviana Fefferman, 65, a retired insurance worker.

She was part of Indivisible of Sherman Oaks, a newly formed group which takes its name from Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda, a 23-page document written by congressional staffers who experienced the Tea Party’s impact.

Some speakers appropriated the radical right’s claim to represent US values. “Are the flyover states the real America? No. They bought all the fake news. Who says we are not the real America?” said Ginsberg.

Protesters acknowledged decrying Tea Party tactics when directed against Obama but justified imitation on the grounds Trump was an extreme, perilous aberration. “If John McCain or Mitt Romney was president I’d get behind him,” said Ginsberg.

Sessions may well become attorney general but for those outside Feinstein’s office her opposition still signalled a victory of sorts. And with other nominations for cabinet plus the supreme court looming, followed by an expected blizzard of controversial legislation, the stakes will get only higher.

Fleischman, who organised the rally, said activists needed to stiffen the resolve of their representatives in Washington DC. “People are really fired up. I don’t think there’s any doubt the protests are influencing the Democrats. They can’t hide in their little club any more.”

Merle Ginsberg, another speaker, said Feinstein and Kamala Harris, California’s other Democratic senator, had not grasped the intensity of hostility to Trump. “We voted these people in and we can vote them out. They need to listen.”

Several protesters said Harris had shown “a little more backbone” but wanted her to go further.

“Are we satisfied with the Democrats yet?” asked Pat Thomas, another speaker.

“No!” shouted back several hundred voices.

Banners expressed contempt and scorn for the president and his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, an architect of the travel bans. “Time to play hardball.” “No Manchurian president.” “Ban Bannon.” “You don’t need a time machine to fight Nazis.” “Fear is our gross national product.” “Shut it down.”

The Herbal Tea partiers are still finding their footing.

Protest organisers needed to master basics like audio – megaphones and microphones – to make sure people could hear, said one speaker.

Mike Strutz, a TV director who came dressed as a chicken, said the movement was on a learning curve. “We probably got a little complacent during the Obama years. We let some skills slide. At the Women’s March it was like we were getting back into practice. We didn’t have as much of the imagery as we should have.”

Strutz, who inherited the costume from a TV show, said it was going to be a long fight, he said. “We have to be ready to be on the streets for four years. I think a lot of people will be surprised at how resilient the left will be.”

He held a sign saying “Don’t be chicken. Keep fighting back.”