The current battle for democracy in America is a fight “for all the marbles,” Skye Perryman told a crowd of democracy advocates in Washington, D.C., Jan. 29.
Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, was the opening speaker for her organization’s two-day event called “Together for Democracy.” The annual symposium, now in its third year, has grown from about 100 participants in 2024 to nearly 500 this year.
She was first among a slate of speakers who warned of the real-time dangers posed by the Trump administration and the MAGA movement, who speaker after speaker characterized as supporting autocracy rather than democracy. Coinciding with the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s second inauguration as president, the messages at this year’s event were urgent and direct.
Perryman described the current situation as a “crisis” and “all-hands moment” that requires urgent and broad action: “We are all committed to both the fights of today and the work for tomorrow. And we understand that it all has to happen at the same time right now.”
“We are all committed to both the fights of today and the work for tomorrow.”
The invited group of attorneys, clergy, nonprofit leaders and organizers are “the courageous doers,” she said. “We know you are deliberate and you are persistent. You’re the change makers who refuse to ever give up, and you are the ones who have understood far before this moment that we are in today, far before this moment, what the real harms of extremism are, what the urgent work of justice has always been, and what a necessity it is to build a brighter and more inclusive future.”
As bleak as the news may seem, this is no time to give up, Perryman said. “We know this is a time that requires action for today and transformative tomorrow.”
At the first Together for Democracy event in January 2024, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 had just been published and most people were not yet aware of it, she noted.
However, “it was not unknown to many of the people that gathered with us because many people in our Together for Democracy community live and work in communities in a number of states across the nation with political leadership that had already bought into an extremist ideology that was being tested, that was being refined and that was being normalized at the state and local level.”
Democracy Forward was one of the first groups to sound an alarm that Project 2025 should be taken seriously and literally — even as others scoffed and said it never would happen.
Then and now, the goals of Project 2025 remain hugely unpopular with the American people, she said.
Democracy Forward was one of the first groups to sound an alarm that Project 2025 should be taken seriously and literally
“The vast majority of Americans, whether they consider themselves liberal, progressive, conservative, moderate, apolitical, the vast majority of Americans disapprove of the Project 2025 agenda. And in fact, it was such an unpopular agenda that in the 2024 elections the president refused to level with the American people, … refused to level with them about his support for this agenda. He said he didn’t know who it was and who was behind it.”
That all changed on election night, however, as Donald Trump began forming an administration filled with the authors of Project 2025.
In the early days of 2025, “the administration took office and immediately disregarded the rights of people. It sought to block and reverse birthright citizenship, spelled right out there in the 14th Amendment; sought (to end) community programs and accelerate Project 2025 in a way that is on a collision course with the U.S. Constitution.”
Last year, Trump falsely claimed he had a voter mandate to enact the agenda of Project 2025, Perryman said. And too many people didn’t take his words seriously.
“There was a lot of silliness going around, including silliness in the mainstream media. … There was a discussion among various political operatives about whether the American people voted for extremism, and if they did vote for it, we know they really didn’t because he’s lied. But if they did vote for it, should we just give up and let the president run roughshod over the U.S. Constitution.”
Another “silly” moment was when a DOGE Caucus formed in Congress, she continued. “There was a discussion among image consultants about whether the term ‘resistance’ should be used because of the White House’s claim of a mandate. A few months later there appears to have been a discussion among the nation’s most powerful law firms about whether when the White House threatens them they should capitulate or if they should be lawyers and challenge cases.”
“There wasn’t a mandate for the president’s form of boldness. One that literally weaponizes the very government that is meant to serve the American people.”
While the electorate might have sent a mandate for “doing bold things,” they did not mandate Trump’s agenda, Perryman said. “There wasn’t a mandate for the president’s form of boldness. One that literally weaponizes the very government that is meant to serve the American people.”
“There was never a mandate for the destruction of public education, for the curtailing of civil rights, for mass federal agents invading our communities, for an economic policy that has made things more expensive through tariffs and for making health care less accessible for people. And there certainly was not a mandate for targeting communities. … There was never a mandate for a government designed by Musk. And I don’t think there was a mandate to threaten our closest allies abroad and completely disrupt the post-World War II order.”
Now, a year later, the pro-democracy community “has shown the people of this nation are determined to overcome fear and division,” she continued. “As powerful institutions have stepped back, the people have stepped forward. You and the democracy community have organized in our communities. Over the past year, the nation has seen the single largest peaceful mobilization of people in the country’s entire 250 years.
“The president is saying, ‘If you dare protest, we’re going to call you anti-American,’ and they make you a domestic terrorist. We have seen the largest peaceful mobilization of people in U.S. history. Millions at No Kings protests, hands-off mobilizations and ICE-out protests, streets filled in Minneapolis with people who are peacefully refusing to turn their backs on their community and on their democracy. It turns out, despite what the White House says, we know Americans really don’t want to be governed by a king.”
Even though Congress has not acted to restrain the president’s assault on democracy, the legislative branch has, Perryman reported. More than 600 legal cases have been filed against the administration over the past year. “That is almost two cases a day. People in communities are winning in court 70% to 80% of the time.”
Big institutions like universities and national law firms have bent the knee to Trump but “it has been teachers and educators, students and community members in small public K through 12 school districts that have stepped forward,” she said.
“The agenda to blacklist diversity, equity, inclusion or accessibility programs has not been ruled lawful in one single court, including in the cases we’re winning before Trump-appointed judges. The president has had to pull back the National Guard in states like Illinois, California and Oregon because he could not even get the Supreme Court to enable his deployments.”
All this is due to people power, she said. “This work … has been powered by the people, people who are determined like you are to not let our democracy of the people in this nation go down without a fight. What the last year has shown us is that it will be the people, not the powerful, who are going to show the way forward. The people are leading.”
Despite those successes, the pro-democracy movement still faces tough challenges, she said, predicting things will get worse this year. “It is precisely the threat of the people that is making this administration accelerate it, the attack on the people and our institutions that protect them and those attacks are going to accelerate further over this next year.”
What the administration has been doing in Minnesota is headed next for more states, she predicted. And the ultimate goal is to prevent fair elections in November 2026.
“This is power grab we are seeing unfold. This group knows it was never about immigration; it was never about safety. It was never about affordability. It never was about those things. It was about consolidating power. And yes, this year it is headed straight for our elections.”