Other estimates put it at ~5.2 million. The 3 million estimates appear to be excluding the west coast
That’s around 1.6% of the US population which is pretty large for a protest. This isn’t the first nationwide protest nor will it be the last. Next date planned for 50501 is April 19th
https://bsky.app/profile/altnps.bsky.social/post/3lm5nnz5ook2q
This wasn’t the first nationwide protest of his second term nor will it be the last. This was the 4th nationwide 50501 protest. Plus other movement like Tesla Takedown had large nationwide protests prior too. It’s just that now it’s gotten large enough that the media can no longer ignore it. It took time to get here. Each protest keeps getting larger than the last
Millions of people have just been put in touch with the various local groups organizing these protests. Usually at these protests they’ll be people going around giving info, sigining people up for mailing lists, etc. That’s a good part of how each protest gets bigger
Besides just protests, that will enable much more action and more rapid action in the future. For instance Indivisible does tons of work on directed pressure of congress and local leaders. 50501 organized smaller boycotts in the past when the crowds were smaller. Now they can organize boycotts more with more effect
Call your senators and tell them to vote no
https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm
(if dems, also tell them to push for replacing minority senate leadership)
Call your house reps and tell them to vote no
https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
Make them feel the pressure keep building. Calls are just step one to build that pressure, protests in person, etc.
Glad to hear my posts are going noticed. Indeed, there are lot more than you might think. I’ll repost one of my long comments with details about protests here. Wrote this five days ago so mentally subtract 5 days from all the times
They are being suppressed in media coverage, but there are people protesting. Media coverage paints a false picture that no one in the US is fighting back
Here’s one from today [meaning five days ago] with 1000 people in Boise, Idaho
Here’s a super incomplete timeline with just a handful of the nationwide protests. I’m missing a lot, I’m just showing your the photos I had from recent memory
8 days ago there were national protest for science funding cuts. Here’s the main one in DC
11 days ago there were nationwide protests in all 50 US state capitols + DC + Many cities within those states. This was part of the 50501 movement
Portland, Oregon
Monroe, Wisconsin
San Fransisco, California
Albany, New York
Raleigh, North Carolina
Richmond, Virginia
Austin, Texas
Protests Outside Fox News in New York City
16 days ago there were large protest in the Iowa Statehouse
19 days ago, a protest in Cherry Hill, New Jersy outside Tesla Showroom as part of a nationwide movement protesting Telsas. There have been tons more than just this one and these happen basically every day
21 days ago, large protests in DC for Ukraine aid
And so on. There’s a lot more going on than just this
There are groups working to do that. We don’t have to talk about this as a hypothetical can get involved today
For instance, groups like Indivisible are pushing for Schumer to be pushed out. Groups like Run for Something are supporting progressives under 40 to run for all positions in state and local elections (generals and primaries)
Indeed, there’s a reason the Federal Worker Unions are saying to vote against the CR despite the likely shutdown that would entail
Plus it would teach senate Republicans that they can do basically whatever they want as long as they threaten a shutdown. You have to stand up strong to bullies it’s the only thing they understand
That’s even better certainly. Showing up and protesting outside their office or someplace they can see is great
But the vote is in the morning, so I imagine most of the people here are not going to be able to show up at such short notice
Not immediately
Unlike executive branch agencies, the federal courts can continue operations for about two weeks following a government shutdown. When a shutdown loomed in September 2019, the U.S. federal courts confirmed they could use reserve or carryover funds accumulated from various revenue sources not dependent on Congress, such as case filing fees. When courts are on notice that a government shutdown may be looming, they can take steps to conserve funds by deferring non-critical expenses — for example, by curbing travel, new hires, and certain contracts.
Plus voting in favor of this CR would be codifying much of what these cases are about. Many of the illegal spending cuts would become legal until September making the cases moot.
It would also fuck over DC local government in a way the executive branch cannot easily do. Congress can control DC budgets but very little of the DC budget comes from federal money (<1%) where Trump could mess with. The CR has a clause to cut $1 billion from their budget despite that not saving the federal government any money
I mean that they tally support / oppose issue in volume. Congressional staffers do note that calls matter in terms of people’s votes. They are used a proxy for the opinions of constituents and also how strongly people hold those beliefs. Whether or not that’s fair is a different question. Republicans have historically been waaaay better than leftists about flooding the phone, but the large backlash here is starting to have an impact.
Some of the senators have switched their pledged vote in large part due to the calls. For instance, Tim Kaine went from actively encouraging others to vote in favor of letting it pass the filibuster to now being a hard no against it
Plus other dems in congress are deeply pissed about it on the house side. The larger the number of calls the more ammo they have to senate dems. This is the kind of ideal situation for outside voices mattering - when people within the system are pissed with you
What we’re hearing: House Democrats’ text chains lit up Thursday night with expressions of blinding anger, according to numerous lawmakers who described the conversations on the condition of anonymity.
“People are PISSED,” one House Democrat told Axios in a text message. Several members — including moderates — have begun voicing support for a primary challenge to Schumer, floating Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) as possible candidates, three House Democrats said.
One lawmaker even vowed at the House Democratic retreat to “write a check tonight” supporting Ocasio-Cortez, said the senior House Democrat
https://www.axios.com/2025/03/14/house-democrats-angry-chuck-schumer-shutdown
Leave voicemails, those matter too when they see them in the morning
This is about volume of calls. That’s what they tally
House dems are pissed enough at senate dems right now that she actually might be able to move up. This is the ideal moment for outside leverage where people within the system are pissed off
What we’re hearing: House Democrats’ text chains lit up Thursday night with expressions of blinding anger, according to numerous lawmakers who described the conversations on the condition of anonymity.
“People are PISSED,” one House Democrat told Axios in a text message. Several members — including moderates — have begun voicing support for a primary challenge to Schumer, floating Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) as possible candidates, three House Democrats said.
One lawmaker even vowed at the House Democratic retreat to “write a check tonight” supporting Ocasio-Cortez, said the senior House Democrat
https://www.axios.com/2025/03/14/house-democrats-angry-chuck-schumer-shutdown
Turns out it was actually 10 as I accidentally counted Cortez Masto as two people whoops
Schumer, Hassan, Peters, Durbin, Schatz, King, Shaheen, Fetterman, Cortez Masto and Gillibrand
https://bsky.app/profile/joshtpm.bsky.social/post/3lkbxyja44s2c
In terms of what’s more confirmed by statement and such here’s one tracker that seems to somewhat regularly update
Kevin McCarthy would still be the house leader if that were 100% true. Congressional leadership can changed with enough intrer-party pressure. Schumer is highly unlikely to face any expulsion vote from congress, but he could more realistically be stripped of leadership position. This is a breaking point that might actually build that pressure and we can play a roll in that by calling your senators.
Not delaying Trump’s nominees with all tools (only some of them) isn’t nearly serious as him pushing to give up the one piece of genuine dem leverage until September for basically no gain. Directed pressure - not on social media - but in places senators can see will let us do it. That means calling them, emailing them, hell even faxing, showing up in person to their office and town halls, etc.
Also do this for the bill vote itself too before tomorrow morning. See my comment about we can still block this vote
Call your senators, they can still block this despite Schumers push. The vote is tomorrow. If all republican vote for it, they need 7 dems. 8 with Rand Paul who has said he’ll vote no. (Republicans are not using reconciliation so it needs the the filibuster)
Many senate dems are publicly coming out against voting for cloture (meaning they won’t vote to let it get through the filibuster). As of what I last read, around 11 10 dems are thought to potentially vote to let it pass filibuster. Most of those are still not sure. We only need a handful more of those to become noes and it will get blocked. Some yeses have flipped to noes because of public pressure. We cannot let up now
Link to find direct numbers your senators
https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm
Or call the capitol switch board (202) 224-3121
House dems are publicly telling the senate not to do this (and it’s not just AOC on this - it’s quite a few of them). Earlier read that 7 Dem state AGs are saying the same. Federal worker unions are telling senate dems not do this. Keep the pressure up
Or instead there are also some good vegan eggs out there to give a try
If you want something that cooks and bakes like eggs there’s stuff you can by like Just Egg
For baking there’s a million things you can use that are pretty cheap. For instance, Aquafaba is the leftover water from cooking chickpeas or the water in the can if you buy it canned. Acts like egg whites and can be used as a binder for baking
The good news is that some progress has been made in the US. The semi-recent (2022) FDA modernization act 2.0 removes mandates for animal testing in law and allows other testing methods to be used instead
There’s another bill (FDA modernization act 3.0) that was just reintroduced a few days ago to not just allow the FDA to use non-animal testing, but to require that the FDA start actually working to allow it and setup pathways, rules, requirements, etc. And prioritize the review of drugs done via approved non-animal testing
It includes various reporting, safety, etc. requirements laid out so it wouldn’t just be handing it blindly to the current admin
The 2.0 act was suprisingly bipartisan, so it’s not a given that the 3.0 act would be doomed. Call your house representative and senators to make sure it gets through!
But but it worked on my machine
In 2004, the FDA estimated that 92 percent of drugs that pass preclinical tests, including “pivotal” animal tests, fail to proceed to the market.More recent analysis suggests that, despite efforts to improve the predictability of animal testing, the failure rate has actually increased and is now closer to 96 percent
We’ve solved ethics. Pack it up everyone
A reminder that we still have power. They want us too tired to fight back. Don’t give in. Power flows from the bottom up
AI detectors are massively flawed. They have terrible accuracy and have high numbers of false positives. Especially over short bodies of text like parts of one page