The local anti-Trump resistance has deep roots in Croton-on-Hudson.
Our local branch of Indivisible is on the move, sponsoring protests and other actions.
It should be no surprise that in Westchester County, where registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by nearly three to one, the election of Donald Trump has generated some strong and emotional reactions. Certainly that was true in 2016, when Trump was elected to his first term. While there are a number of activist organizations in the county—the Working Families Party, WESPAC Foundation, Concerned Families of Westchester (CFOW), The New York Progressive Action Network (NYPAN), and others—one of the most active organizations is our local chapter of the group Indivisible.
The chapter, called CCoHOPE (the letters stand for Cortlandt, Croton-on-Hudson, Ossining, and Peekskill, and the name is pronounced “Co-Hope”), has been in existence since 2017, almost as long as the national Indivisible organization itself. Indivisible was founded after Trump’s first victory by former staffers to Congressional Democrats, and is often considered to be a part of the left-wing of the Democratic Party, although in recent years many chapters have emphasized their independence—even if Indivisible often endorses Democratic candidates.
(CCoHOPE is one of several Indivisible chapters in the 17th Congressional District.)
One of the first things the organization did was to publish a handbook entitled “Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda,” which local chapters used to develop their own strategies. With Trump’s election again in 2024, the organization has issued a new handbook, “Indivisible: A Practical Guide to Democracy on the Brink.”
CCoHOPE has serious Croton roots. It was largely founded by Gail Sasso, a psychotherapist and long-time Croton resident who died in October 2022. During her years in Croton, Sasso served both as president of the Croton-Harmon Board of Education and on the Croton-on-Hudson Water Control Commission.
The local organization currently has 368 members, about 30-40% of whom live in Croton, according to two of its leading organizers, Sara Campbell and Celeste Theis. We caught up with the two of them recently at The Black Cow, not long after CCoHOPE had co-sponsored a large and lively demonstration at the Tesla dealership in Mt. Kisco. (The group has also been involved in protests at Chuck Schumer’s office in Peekskill and Mike Lawler’s office in Pearl River.)
One of the first campaigns they were involved in was Pete Harckham’s successful 2018 effort to unseat incumbent state senator Terrence Murphy. Campbell says that before the founding of CCoHOPE she had gone “from group to group” trying to figure out “how to resist without reinventing the wheel.”
“We started in Croton and spread out,” Theis says. “Indivisible was such a perfect fit. It was really blossoming and growing.” She adds that the local chapter has a lot of independence, and that national Indivisible does not tell it what to do. “We get as much guidance from them as we want.”
And while the group has endorsed Democratic Party candidates—and is currently mounting a major pressure campaign to get Representative Mike Lawler to keep to his campaign promises not to cut Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security—Campbell emphasizes that CCoHOPE has “no affiliation with any political party. We wanted to be grassroots,” she says.
The group meets once each month on Zoom, and counts about 30 regularly active members out of the total 368. But since Trump was elected again there has been “an explosion in membership,” Theis says. In line with national Indivisible, the local group has tried to educate voters about what it sees as the dangers of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which many Trump opponents believe is a blueprint for authoritarian if not outright fascist rule of the United States.
(Although Trump distanced himself from Project 2025 during the election, his administration has appointed a significant number of its associates to important positions.)
Over the next two years, a lot of the group’s efforts will focus on retaking the House in the 2026 midterm elections, with Mike Lawler a major target. “He is really in the crosshairs now,” says Theis. “He talks a good game, but our strategy is to call attention to his votes” in Congress.
But Campbell and Theis say that the Trump administration can do a lot of damage in the meantime, which is why CCoHOPE and other organizations have focused a lot on street actions and other public protests.
“This election hit us in the face” and showed us “that we live in a bubble on the East Coast and in California,” Theis says, lamenting that despite all of the enthusiasm and passion for Kamala Harris “in the end all that really mattered was the price of eggs.” She adds that “Republicans are always better at messaging than we are,” a lesson that they hope can be learned this time around.
The group is nothing if not busy. In addition to local actions, the group is part of the organizing for a “Stop the Cuts!” rally at Patriots Park in Tarrytown this coming Saturday, March 15.
Editor’s Note: The Chronicle will provide ongoing coverage of all Croton-related political activities, no matter what their focus or political affiliation. We hope that readers will keep us informed about any such activities that we should know about.
********************************************************************************************************
To share this post, or to share The Croton Chronicle, please click on these links.
Comments policy: No personal attacks, please be polite and respectful despite political differences and sensibilities.
I recently joined CoHope and find the group to be inspirational!
"Campbell emphasizes that CCoHOPE has “no affiliation with any political party".
Funny!