Greetings from Pittsburgh, where Congresswoman Summer Lee Summer Lee held a very inspiring town hall at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in the Hill District, just down the street from Payday Report’s Headquarters.
Congresswoman Summer Lee Compares State of the Union to a “Lynch Mob”.
In a very moving mixed-race town hall of 300 people at a historic Black church in Pittsburgh, Congresswoman Summer Lee decided to begin with a mass singing of “Lift Every Voice And Sing.”
The townhall, which had the vibes of a revival, was not a traditional Congressional town hall. Lee repeatedly called for members of Congress to engage in direct action to stop Trump’s fascist takeover.
Lee lamented that her fellow members of Congress did not do enough to defend Texas Congressman Al Green, when he was physically ejected from Trump’s “State of the Union” for interrupting. Sitting on the floor during the speech, Lee described Republicans’ reaction to Trump as having the feeling of a “lynch mob” and called for more bold tactics to stop Trump’s fascist takeover.
“I was paralyzed. even I was paralyzed, as active as I am, as vocal as I am,” said Lee. “And I sat in that room, and I'm not going to lie, and I looked across at the other side. It looked like a lynch mob, and it felt like a lynch mob.”
However, Lee encouraged citizens in the room to engage in new tactics to stop Trump.
“There are a lot of people who have to get their bearings, and there are a lot of people who don't want to get their bearings. They don't want to and they can't,” said Lee.
“There are a lot of people right now who don't want to disrupt because we have, as a Democratic Party, valued decorum so much, so what I'm going to ask, is that we as Democrats here, before we even get to them, we have to redefine the type of leadership that we want,” continued Lee.
Lee warned that the fight against fellow Democrats would be bloody, but that it was necessary.
“it's harder to stand up to your friends. But also, listen, in this moment, and this moment is not for you, and there's no shame in that. There's no shame in that,” said Lee. “If you serve for 40 years, you served your time, and this isn't the moment where you're ready to stand up, fight back, scream, shout, hold the floor, and you're not willing to shut down sessions, then maybe it's okay to step aside.”
Protests Against Trump Doubled Since 2017
Major outlets like The New York Times have bemoaned that ‘the resistance” hasn’t shown up to protests on the level that they did in 2017 when Trump was first eleected.
However, according to research from Harvard’s Crowd Counting Consortium, the number of protests have doubled since 2017. From the authors of the study writing for Waging Nonviolence:
Many underestimate resistance to the current Republican administration because they view resistance through a narrow lens. The 2017 Women’s March in particular — immediate in its response, massive in its scope and size — may inform collective imaginations about what the beginning of a resistance movement should look like during Trump 2.0.
In fact, our research shows that street protests today are far more numerous and frequent than skeptics might suggest. Although it is true that the reconfigured Peoples’ March of 2025 — held on Jan. 18 — saw lower turnout than the 2017 Women’s March, that date also saw the most protests in a single day for over a year. And since Jan. 22, we’ve seen more than twice as many street protests than took place during the same period eight years ago.
In February 2025 alone, we have already tallied over 2,085 protests, which included major protests in support of federal workers, LGBTQ rights, immigrant rights, Palestinian self-determination, Ukraine, and demonstrations against Tesla and Trump’s agenda more generally. This is compared with 937 protests in the United States in February 2017, which included major protests against the so-called Muslim ban along with other pro-immigrant and pro-choice protests. Coordinated days of protest such as March Fourth for Democracy (March 4), Stand Up for Science (March 7), rallies in recognition of International Women’s Day (March 8), and protests demanding the release of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil suggest little likelihood of these actions slowing down. These are all occurring in the background of a tidal wave of lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s early moves.
For more, check out Waging Nonviolence
Donate to Cover Ignored “Days without Immigrants” Strikes
While Payday Report tracked smaller “Day Without Immigrants” strikes in 120 cities and 40 states in early February, neither The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, or any of the big three media networks did.
Now, 1 million immigrants are gearing up to strike on May 1st. Not enough outlets are covering it, but Payday is beginning to prepare for this massive strike.
Donate to help us track these strikes. Please, if you can, sign up as one of our recurring donors today.
Tesla Takedown to Protest at All 277 Tesla Showrooms
Over the past month, Tesla’s stock has plunged by more than half as activists continue to protest the company due to Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s role as Trump’s right hand man.
Some activists have begun protesting at Tesla showroom in an effort to hurt Musk financially. Trump even has called for labeling some protesters as “domestic terrorists.”
Unfettered by Trump’s threats, activists plan to intensify. On March 29th, activists plan to protest at all 277 Tesla showrooms in the US.
“We need to show Elon that he can throw a tantrum online because his stocks are tanking,” one of the organizers Alice Hu told Verge. “He can get Trump to put on a humiliating used car show in front of the White House. These wannabe authoritarians can try to intimidate us from exercising our First Amendment rights, but they can’t stop us from fighting back.”
For more, check out The Verge.
Unions Win Key Legislation Changes in Georgia & Colorado
While workers may be stymied on passing legislation at the national level, unions continue to win at the state level.
In Georgia, workers won passage of a bill that would eliminate the sub-minimum wage for workers with disabilities.
In Colorado, workers are optimistic that they can finally repeal an anti-union law that requires unions to win two union elections two years in a row to have a union.
However, in Michigan, union forces are frustrated that Republican StateHouse Speaker Matt Hall won’t allow a vote on a series of union measures that labor leaders are confident could pass with some Republican support.
Even worse, in neighboring Ohio, Republicans have outlawed strikes at public universities.
Detained Columbia Protest Leader Issues Appeal
Finally, detained Columbia Palestinian solidarity activist Mahmoud Khalil has written an open letter from his prison cell in Louisiana:
I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria to a family which has been displaced from their land since the 1948 Nakba. I spent my youth in proximity to yet distant from my homeland. But being Palestinian is an experience that transcends borders. I see in my circumstances similarities to Israel’s use of administrative detention — imprisonment without trial or charge — to strip Palestinians of their rights. I think of our friend Omar Khatib, who was incarcerated without charge or trial by Israel as he returned home from travel. I think of Gaza hospital director and pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who was taken captive by the Israeli military on December 27 and remains in an Israeli torture camp today. For Palestinians, imprisonment without due process is commonplace.
I have always believed that my duty is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear. My unjust detention is indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past 16 months as the U.S. has continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention. For decades, anti-Palestinian racism has driven efforts to expand U.S. laws and practices that are used to violently repress Palestinians, Arab Americans, and other communities. That is precisely why I am being targeted.
While I await legal decisions that hold the futures of my wife and child in the balance, those who enabled my targeting remain comfortably at Columbia University. Presidents Shafik, Armstrong, and Dean Yarhi-Milo laid the groundwork for the U.S. government to target me by arbitrarily disciplining pro-Palestinian students and allowing viral doxing — based on racism and disinformation—to go unchecked.
News & Links Elsewhere
- Trump expands attacks on law firms that fight him
- Tesla German plant unions dig in for a fight against Elon Musk
- Pentagon staffer, who deleted the Jackie Robinson webpage tribute, was reassigned
- 1 in 10 workers in Maryland are federal employees
- St. Louis Public Radio separating from UMSL, leaving future of fledgling union in question
- Victoria, Canada Uber drivers could be the first in Canada to have a union certified
- Videogame union organizers issue a new training book on how to organize in the Trump era
- Robert Synder has a new oral history of essential workers during the pandemic
- Finally, here in Pittsburgh, a racing Pierogi is suing the Pittsburgh Pirates for a workplace injury she endured
Alrights folk, send us story ideas for tomorrow at melk@paydayreport.com
Donate to help us cover the growing movement against Trump. Please, sign up as a recurring donor today.
See yinz tomorrow,
Melk
