17 February 2017 - As Republican lawmakers prepare to leave Washington for a weeklong congressional recess, liberal groups and Democratic Party organisers are hoping to make their homecoming as noisy and uncomfortable as possible.

But national organisers concede they are playing catch-up to a “dam-bursting level” of grass-roots activism that has bubbled up from street protests and the small groups that have swelled into crowds outside local congressional offices.

Protests against the Republican agenda have become routine since President Trump took office, with momentum building through widely shared videos of lawmakers being confronted by constituents angry over efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Now, national groups see the recess as the chance to capitalise on that local activism, with a show of might aimed at declaring the arrival of a new, and sustainable, political force — barely three months after their humiliating defeat in November.

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