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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Shortly after, President Donald Trump took the oath across town at the US Capitol, Jong Delacruz, 31, a local Filipino-American nurse, marched from another corner of the nation’s capital, on Meridian Hill at Northwest 16th Street, joining the cacophony of drums, chants, signs and conversations that left a little ambiguity regarding the ideological orientation of the assembly.
The man held up a pre-made “SOCIALISM DEFEAT FASCISM!” sign. Below the message is the name of the organization that paid for the sign: Democratic Socialists of America.
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A neon-green poster was made in advance with the inscription: “LABOR RIGHTS AND THE NEEDS OF THE PEOPLE. NOT WAR AND GENOCIDE”, with the inscription “People’s power”,
Another slogan, “FIGHTING THE TRUMP DAY PARADE,” attributed the socialist organization Freedom Road in smaller print.
Filipino-American nurse John Delacruz expressed support for socialism (Asra Nomani, Pearl Project)
A pre-printed banner carried by a group of demonstrators read: “WORKERS SHOULD BE IN POWER, NOT BILLIONAIRES!” Below him was the Party of Socialism and Liberation.
“I am proud to call myself a socialist who supports socialist movements,” Delacruz told me without hesitation. “I believe that this is the future of humanity and the right side of history. Well, ‘leftist’ if you will,” he added with a laugh.
But you wouldn’t know it from the media coverage of this so-called professional “resistance” to Trump from the Guardian reporting only that “Anti-Trump protests swept the globe on Inauguration Day.” Only the voice of America describing demonstrators as “protesters against Trump”, and NBC News writes about it “progressive groups” held marches across the country – not a word about the self-described socialist dreams of many groups.
Nearby, three activists dressed in winter clothes carried a banner of the blue and red colors of the Puerto Rican flag, which also floated overhead. It went by the name of the Diaspora Pa’lante Collective, advocating the independence of Puerto Rico and a socialist government to lead it.
A man and a woman in black masks gave a sharp push to a fake guillotine emblazoned with an ominous inscription: “COME ROB THE SUM.”
Lacy McAuley called herself an anarchist and expressed her support for socialism (Asra Nomani, Pearl Project)
These were not marginal meetings of lovers. Among them was Medea Benjamin, the wealthy co-founder of Code Pink, who marched with a heart-shaped cardboard sign painted hot pink.
“The media doesn’t give full and honest coverage of these kinds of movements,” Delacruz told me. “It aims to maintain the status quo of the capitalist system, if you will. If we believe that socialism is the antithesis of capitalism, then of course that won’t cover it. I think at best it will speak against “Trump protesters from various grassroots movements, if so, but I highly doubt they will go along with the calls and demands we have.”
Understanding these requirements is critical. The groups here weren’t just protesting Trump — they were promoting socialism, Marxism, and communism. Many of these organizations also take a pro-Russian stance based on a propaganda tradition founded by the Soviet Union: agitprop. Short for “campaign and propaganda,” agitprop combines political messages with provocative actions to influence and mobilize. I call such protests “agitation actions”.
Journalists I spoke to at the protests admitted that they rarely identify the groups behind the protests. “The audience doesn’t really understand socialism,” one reporter told me. “They tune out when they hear the word.” It is easier to reduce activists to concepts that their readers can understand.
The day before the protest, I stayed up until 3 a.m. researching the ideologies of 205 groups involved in the January 20th protests across the country as part of my reporting for the Pearl Project, a nonprofit investigative project I co-founded. my analysis: 27 were Palestinian, Muslim, Arab or Islamist; 63 identified themselves as socialist; and 115 fell into what I call “adjacent” categories.
The protest industry is a complex and often opaque web of organizations, funding streams, and ideological agendas that work together to organize demonstrations, shape public narratives, and influence political outcomes as an effective agitprop operation. Understanding this ecosystem is critical because it reveals the motives, alliances, and strategies behind what often appears to be spontaneous grassroots activism.
A walk through Meridian Hill Park revealed these plans more clearly. The groups’ slogans advocated socialism and anti-imperialism in countries like the Philippines, South Korea, Venezuela, Cuba—and here in the United States.
The protests are far from isolated often a coordinated effort with the participation of global actors, local branches and significant financial support. Through the Pearl project, I seek to investigate and expose the mechanisms of this industry—identifying the players, tracking their funding, and analyzing their influence. By shedding light on how the protests are organized and supported, positioning myself now as the “resistance” to the Trump administration, I hope to provide transparency and provide the public with a deeper understanding of the forces shaping political discourse and activism.
A walk through Meridian Hill Park revealed these plans more clearly. The groups’ slogans advocated socialism and anti-imperialism in countries such as the Philippines, South Korea, Venezuela, Cuba—and here in the United States, their supporters made no secret of their intentions.
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205 “endorsers” of groups across the country do not hide their goals. Based in Salt Lake City, “Mormons with Hope for a Better World” claims to be “committed to anti-racism, intersectional feminism, trans and queer liberation, disability justice, individual bodily autonomy, reproductive justice, socialism, anti-imperialism, and decolonization.” Leaders a Tiao teamThe media say they aim to “be a bridge between the US left and China’s rich Marxist, anti-imperialist political work and thought”. The “Project of the Revolutionary Marxist International” has its agenda in its name.
As the march turned northwest from 16th Street onto Massachusetts Avenue, 46-year-old Lacey McAuley became the focus of the cameras. Dressed in a disco outfit for the “dance protest,” she donned a mask over her sunglasses that read, “Trump is NOT the mood.”
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“I’m an anarchist,” she said with a smile. “I identify as single. It means that I question hierarchies and the domination of people over others.’ While Macaulay criticized socialism as often becoming “too centralised”, she added: “He’s thinking in the right direction”.
By the end of the day, the protest stopped at Dupont Circle. The smell of marijuana hung in the air as the protesters dispersed. One of the marchers stuck his sign into a trash can, and it read: “WE ARE GETTING OFF THE NET.”
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