The newly surfaced Sunrise Movement slides outline a staged plan for what the group calls a “political revolution,” pushing for eco-socialist goals, campus pressure campaigns, coordinated corporate disruption, and mass actions timed to elections and labor days; this is a clear challenge to constitutional norms and civic order that conservative voters and institutions should view with concern.
The presentation openly frames a long-term strategy to “structurally change the foundations of this country” and to pursue “eco-socialism” within a “multi-racial democracy.” Those phrases aren’t hidden in footnotes — they appear as core objectives, signaling a political project that aims to reconfigure American institutions rather than work within them.
The slides spell out a multi-phase roadmap. Phase 1 lists goals including “Stop Trump’s grip on power,” “build up to mass noncooperation,” and “use the 2026 midterms to to build toward electoral breakthrough — win big.” That mix of electoral play and civil disruption is designed to fuse street tactics with ballot-box ambitions.
Phase 2 ramps up the pressure into 2028 with plans for “MASS strikes,” “Huge historic 2028 turnout for our candidate,” and “biggest tentpole of masses against Trump + his billionaires.” The organizers are explicit about using strikes and turnout as leverage, and the language leaves little doubt about an intent to apply economic pain to force political outcomes.
Beyond electoral years, the roadmap moves into Phase 3 and Phase 4, titled “political revolution” and “The New System,” respectively, with the latter even promising “Happiness (maybe).” That theatrical phrasing masks a serious blueprint: reshape institutions, realign corporate behavior, and impose a new political-economic order over decades.
The materials also get tactical, describing campaigns aimed at corporations and universities alike. One slide suggests booking and cancelling reservations at hotel chains, naming “ICE enablers like Hilton” as targets, and urging students to pressure schools to sever vendor ties as a way to “topple the corporate pillar.” This is operational advice for coordinated economic disruption.
Campus organizing is positioned as a critical lever, with the movement telling students to use institutional relationships and contracts to drive boycotts and broader campaigns. Turning campuses into nodes of national pressure blurs the line between education and activism and weaponizes university resources against private-sector partners.
The slides also map out three political scenarios they imagine: a “full dictatorship” where elections are “stolen” and rights are crushed, a “seesaw democracy” of unstable governance, and a preferred path centered on “mass noncooperation and huge electoral turnout” to remove political opponents and remake the system. Those framings are meant to justify escalations and normalize disruptive tactics as defensive or preemptive measures.
What’s striking is how the presentation stitches together protest playbooks, election strategy, and corporate pressure into a single coherent plan. That coordination suggests this is not diffuse activism but a directed campaign to rewrite the rules of political engagement and force structural change from the outside in.
Leaders linked to wider progressive organizing have already publicly called for a nationwide strike on May Day, framing it as an “economic show of force.” At a recent rally, one organizer urged attendees to treat May 1 as a day of shutdown, saying, “I want everyone here to put this on their calendar… It is a tactical goal, an escalation… It is an economic show of force, inspired by Minnesota’s own day of truth and action.”
He continued, “On May 1, on May Day, we are saying, ‘No business as usual.’ No work, no school, no shopping. We’re going to show up and say, ‘We’re putting workers over billionaires and kings.’” Those words make clear the movement embraces wide-scale disruption as a legitimate tactic to achieve its ends.
This blend of direct action and electoral ambition should alarm conservatives who value rule of law, property rights, and institutional stability. When universities, corporations, and mass protests are harnessed to push an ideological overhaul, the result is not debate but coercion, and that is why the public and policymakers need to pay attention now.
