Besides having people on his own staff working against him in his first term, Donald Trump also contended with those who deemed themselves the “resistance.” Various left-wing groups and organizations intent on thwarting his agenda. But this is not 2016, and Trump has had a hardcore education in how the Swamp works. In 2024, those groups are still around, but they may have a much rougher time mounting the new “resistance” they would like. The reason is that potential donors do not think they will get the resistance bang for the buck they once did and are, therefore, not ponying up.
The usual suspects from 2016, like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), are getting less than enthusiastic responses from liberal donors after Trump and the Republican’s crushing landslide in the November 5 election. Trump has yet to be sworn in, but already, many of these groups are ready to file lawsuits on day one of the new Trump administration. Because the donations are drying up, the heads of these groups are starting to sweat.
Vincent Warren is the Executive Director of the CCR. He said of their donation rate, “The response from donors has been shock, anger and depression, sprinkled in with a few checks. It’s not been a flood.” CCR was instrumental in a lawsuit during the first Trump administration over the immigration ban from some Muslim-majority countries and could also be a participant in fighting any new Trump-era immigration policy.
Another group that plans on opposing the Trump agenda is the Center for Biological Diversity. Executive Director Kieran Suckling wants to hire 12 new attorneys to be ready to start the avalanche of lawsuits on January 21, Trump’s first full day in office. Right now, however, he does not have the money to hire those attorneys, saying, “We can’t wait for the money to come in. We have to be prepared immediately.” The organization filed roughly 266 lawsuits during Trump’s first term, primarily to block the building of the border wall for environmental reasons. NILC Executive Director Kica Matos has also seen a drop in donations. She said, “Thus far, we have not seen the same levels of giving we experienced as compared to this time in 2016.” She added that they did see an increase in donations after Trump took office in 2017.
So, what do all these groups need donations for exactly? Well, for starters, the ACLU plans to challenge mass deportation plans by the Trump administration on constitutional grounds. They plan to work with members of Congress to block funding and urge restrictions on where Customs and Border Protection officials can operate. The NILC is amassing volunteers to go across the nation to document immigration raids and intervene if they believe any illegalities are occurring.
All of these groups have had help from grants from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, but they also need the grassroots left-wing activists to keep things humming. Another problem facing liberal groups that plan on fighting the Trump administration is the fact that the Kamala Harris campaign continues to ask for donations as well. My colleague Sister Toldjah reported that after racking up a $1 billion price tag on a four-month-long campaign in which Kamala Harris lost badly, the campaign now finds itself a whopping $20 million in debt. This was the woman who was going to “fix” the economy.
Help could be on the way for all of these leftists. A group called the Democracy Alliance, a group of liberal donors, will meet next week in Washington to strategize the next anti-Trump resistance movement. Not only is the left still in the grips of post-election depression, but they also have to deal with the fact that the Biden-Harris economy has even affected the high cost of “resistance.”
