MILWAUKEE — While the attempted assassination of Donald Trump has muted his Democratic rivals, grassroots protesters from around the country descended here en masse for his presidential nominating convention as vocal as ever and determined to keep protest alive.
Thousands turned out to Red Arrow Park, a designated protest zone, in Milwaukee Monday morning to voice their opinions about the upcoming presidential election while the GOP nominating convention kicked off just a few blocks away at the Fiserv Forum. Trump cinched the nomination and named J.D. Vance as his running mate inside the Forum while the protests were taking place outside.
Read in the Connecticut Mirror here about how delegates are embracing the attempted shooting as a political opportunity, with Connecticut Republican Chairman Ben Proto describing the picture of a bloodied Trump as “the best political poster ever.”
“Since Saturday, obviously, we have to reassess our strategy,” 59-year-old Nadine Seiler, who flew two hours from Maryland to speak out against Trump’s candidacy, told the Independent at the Red Arrow protest.
Protesters in Milwaukee (New Haven Independent)
“All I’m concerned about now is bringing awareness to Project 2025 and Agenda 47,” she said, referring to the Heritage Foundation’s policy blueprint for the next Trump administration and Trump’s own policy plans.
Seiler was not campaigning on behalf of a particular organization on Monday. “I’m thinking about me!” she said of her reason to fight against Trump and in favor of Biden in advance of November.
“Biden is not my candidate. He’s funding a genocide in Gaza,” she said. But leftists who are refusing to vote altogether out of protest of the two-party system are “stupid, they’re dense,” she said.
Protesters delivered speeches for more than two hours before taking to the streets, where drummers in keffiyehs produced beats over which organizers chanted “No Donald! No Joe! Genocide has got to go!” and the common call-and-response: “Whose streets?” “Our Streets!” En Vogue’s “Free Your Mind” blasted from an organizer’s boom box.
“Free Palestine” was the most common sentiment surrounding the park. Other messages protested restrictions on abortion, deportation of immigrants, and mass incarceration.
Few expressed genuine support for presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden — though there were some die hard fans, like 70-year-old Cheri Smith, who passed out “Ridin’ with Biden” shirts to anyone who would take them. She also said she wished Trump’s shooter had demonstrated better aim.
“Lifelong protester” Andy Hope of Milwaukee, on the other hand, said he thought the assassination attempt was “a terrible thing. I don’t support that at all — I just hope it doesn’t have too much of an effect on people’s decision on who to vote for.”
Hope said he “voted for third parties on the left until Trump beat Clinton,” after which he decided: “I need to vote strategic rather than ideological.”
Concerning this year’s election, he said he’s “skeptical” that protesting will have much of an impact on who wins the race. “But it does fire people up and motivate them,” he said, and voter turnout should benefit Biden more so than Trump, he reasoned.
Others protested the upcoming election altogether, swearing off both Biden and Trump as presidential possibilities. Those individuals did not talk about broader political strategy, but argued that protesting against rising Republican power was the only way to sustain a semblance of people power.
“We have to show that the power of the people is greater than the people in power,” activist Kobi Guillory said on stage. The assassination attempt was largely irrelevant to him, he said: “What we are doing here is bigger than that. We’ve had these plans for years. What happened on Saturday doesn’t change our plans at all.”
“I’m just really upset that they’re here,” 19-year-old Milwaukee native Paige Dulski weighed in. “They’re shutting down our highways and stuff. I can’t go to work — just go home, leave me alone, leave me out of your bullshit.”
“Go home! That’s what they’re telling everyone else to do. Go back to where you came from. I’m saying the same to them,” they said of their rationale for attending the protest.
“I just want to use my vote to tell the government I hate these people,” Dulski said.
Asked their candidate preference, they said they may vote third party — either for Green Jill Stein or … “What’s that guy’s name?”
Oh, yeah: Robert F. Kennedy Jr
“I think he sucks, but does he suck as much as the other ones? He likes the environment and I’ve seen him in a tin foil hat. So good on him for that.”
Dulski’s friend, 28-year-old Jalen Myers, had a different take.
“This election, more than any other, we stand to lose a lot. A whole fucking lot,” they said. They’re sympathetic to those rejecting Biden as the nominee, but said that they’ll vote for whoever will reduce the odds of a Trump presidency: Because while the war in Gaza is unacceptable, they said, reproductive rights and “the right for trans and gay people to fucking exist” are also on the line.
“Project 2025 just started trending, and that stuff’s been public knowledge” for a lot longer, Myers said. “We need to get the word out. And protesting is the best way to do that.”
That’s the same way Seiler sold the point of protesting. Part of Project 2025 is intent to privatize education, she said. “They want to create a society of people who are uneducated — the masses will be uneducated and automators for the 1 percent.”
“Educate yourself on Project 2025,” she implored.
Frank Chapman: “I’m hot and exhausted… but I’m never tired of fighting.”
Veteran activist Frank Chapman also spoke to the full crowd before everyone took to the streets.
Rather than Biden or Trump, he said, “We want Palestine to win.”
But “the way we make that happen,” he prioritized, “is we stop these Republicans, and this convicted criminal… Don’t let these fascist hounds hound us out of the streets.”
“I’m hot and exhausted,” he declared, as the audience sighed in sweaty agreement. “But I’m never tired of fighting.”
He plunged his own fist into the air as a swath of younger individuals helped him down from the stage into his wheelchair — presenting an image that mirrored Trump’s viral portrait.
“The people united can never be defeated,” he concluded. “And the people fighting back are destined for victory.”
Nora Grace-Flood and Fred Noland are in Milwaukee covering the Republican National Convention for the Independent.
This story was first published July 16, 2024 by New Haven Independent.