Trump Protest Rally

Nashville Protest Rally (3/15/17), My Thoughts….

Here’s what I noticed at the Trump rally/protest in Nashville last night.

Anti-Trump people far outnumbered the pro-Trump people. (We were a BIGLY group!) It was a mostly peaceful protest, and the police were wonderful. They even let a 20-something-year-old disabled vet sit up against their police car when he was too tired to stand on his prosthetic leg. Kudos to the Nashville police who did their jobs well. (A state trooper also tried to pick me up on my way home, but that’s a story to be told at another time….)

We (anti-Trump protesters) were a diverse group. I talked to a guy who said he hadn’t been to a protest since the Vietnam War, and there were people of all hues and folks of all ages. The Trump people skewed young and were mostly white, though there were a few people of color, including a few Latinos and disabled folks. Weird.

Many of us who came to protest the SCROTUM (So-Called Ruler of the Uneducated ‘Mericans) had signs, some of which were so funny and/or so creative. Or, these signs just expressed folks’ angst–and anger–over a president who seems to mostly care about enriching himself and his rich friends.

My favorites?

–“Who’s Your Daddy?” (with a picture of Putin on the other side)
–“Honk if you think Trump is a raging loon”
–“I’ve made a huge mistake.” (held by a Vietnam Vet)
–“We need a leader and not a dreadful tweeter.”
–“Ban Assholism.”
–“40 Percent Approval? SAD!” (The woman carrying the sign told everyone that his approval ratings had dropped since she had written it.)
–“SAD!”
–“Trumpcare: Thinning the Herd Since 2017.”
–“Congress, give me your health insurance.”
–“IKEA makes better cabinets than Trump does.”

There was also the guy dressed as Darth Vader whose sign said, “I thought I was evil, but he’s beating me.” Of course, I loved the dude with the Alec Baldwin face mask.
DNG and Alex

 

Not one Trump supporter I saw had a sign that touted what they liked about him. How did we know who was a Trump supporter? They were either wearing a red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap or ski hat, or they were waving a Trump sign (sometimes in a protester’s face), or they had some anti-Hillary meme. That’s it. They’re making the Trump family richer, one crappy red Chinese-made hat at a time….

HRC

I don’t really know what it means that the Trump people didn’t seem to articulate what it is they like about him (I’m going to stay away from any jokes right now that critique the critical thinking abilities of the average Trump voter), but I guess it’s hard to put on paper how cool it is that the “Pussy Grabber” (as many signs called him) you love goes on vacation (to his private resort) just about every weekend to play golf; watches six hours of tv each day and gets his security briefings from Fox News and Breitbart; has proposed a budget that eliminates Meals on Wheels and other programs that help the poor and the disabled and the elderly; has handlers like KellyAnne and Spicey Boy who wouldn’t know the truth if Frederick Douglass visited them from the Bowling Green Massacre and slapped them upside the head with a microwave oven; gives tax breaks to his rich friends while pretending these tax cuts will trickle down to the middle class in the form of more jobs; rolls back regulations so that those who live near coal mines can get sludge in their water which will probably cause many more people to get cancer; and promotes a replacement to the Affordable Care Act which will mean millions of folks will lose their health insurance while the wealthy get more tax cuts.

As a sign at the rally said, “Republican Insurance Plan–R.I.P. to You and Yours”

I think the best sign of all the ones I saw holds the most hope for this country. It was a painting of three people that said, “We ALL Belong Here. We Will DEFEND each other.”

Yes, we will. It is, after all, what truly makes America great.

We All Belong