Shaking off inertia, civic opposition to Trump's cuts gathers pace

On a bright winter's day last week, a group of protesters fanned out along a palm-tree-lined thoroughfare in the picturesque city of Palm Desert to demand that their Republican congressman stand up to Donald Trump and Elon Musk's slash-and-burn effort to reshape the US government.

- Lauren Gambino

"You work for us, not Musk!" read one sign. "Remember your oath," another warned, as a mobile billboard circled nearby, featuring the president and the billionaire tech mogul, with the message: "When he's snooping through your bank accounts, you dump him."

A smaller contingent of constituents had attempted to secure a meeting with the congressman, Ken Calvert, but found the door of his regional office locked and the blinds drawn. "He needs to hear from us, we the people," said Colleen Duffy-Smith, 71, who helped to organise the demonstration as a volunteer with the political advocacy group MoveOn.

Progressive activists and concerned constituents spent the first week-long recess of the new Trump administration pressuring congressional Republicans to stand up to the president, Musk and their potentially unlawful power grabs. At congressional offices, Tesla dealerships and town halls across the country, including in solidly conservative corners of Georgia, Wisconsin and Oregon, voters registered their alarm at Republicans' proposed cuts to Medicaid, the widening influence of Musk's "department of government efficiency" (Doge) and the Trump administration's efforts to dismantle federal agencies that Americans rely on for essential services.