Here are some pictures from the April 5 rally on Boston Common against Trump’s power grab.
Yes, I went. Will it make any difference? Probably not. Trump isn’t going to stop his quest for tyrannical power just because a lot of people object, nor will Homan stop inflicting Hell on Boston with his Gestapo-like abductions. But it’s nice to see that people do object, and some of them even have the right reasons.
Lots of people brought signs. They expressed many different views, broadly falling into three categories: (1) Trump is abusing his power and aiming to be Dictator of America. (2) People aren’t getting the money they expect from the federal government. (2) The smallest category, fortunately: We need to get rid of residual economic freedoms and establish a socialist state.
Penguin protest
In the first category, many signs opposed arbitrary detention, upheld separation of powers, and denounced tariffs by executive decree. Some people reclaimed symbols which the Trumpist right has too long appropriated; there were U. S. flags and Gadsden Flag representations. One sign quoted Senator Booker: “This is not right or left, it is right or wrong.”
As many signs complained about the loss of money from government programs. This ought to be a secondary point right now. Clamoring for the maintenance of spending programs makes the issue “right or left.” We need to focus now on stopping Trump’s power grab and get a broad range of Americans on board, or nothing else will matter. Even if people can’t think beyond their pockets and don’t care about the president’s claiming the power to tax, the destructive impact of the confiscatory tariffs should be near the top of everyone’s list. The AP news story, predictably, mentioned only the “hands off [source of money]” signs when covering the Boston rally.
Then there were a couple of outright socialist groups. In their eyes, the problem isn’t that Trump is destroying economic freedom but that the economy isn’t entirely under government control. And, of course, that they aren’t in charge. The people who hand out literature on the street always discover too late that they aren’t the ones commanding the command economy. The grand prize for idiocy goes to someone who had a sign reading “Global capitalism kills.” If that’s true, then Trump’s tariffs are going to save countless lives as international trade is taxed to death.
The atmosphere was friendly and pleasant. If there was any trouble, I didn’t notice it. The cops seemed as relaxed as they could be around such a big crowd. I liked all the representations of penguins, a response to Trump’s notorious “penguin tariff.” It would have been more useful if thousands gathered around the White House and refused to leave till Trump resigned and Vance made major concessions, but that’s harder to do. If nothing else, the crowd would have a half-life of no more than a few hours.
The news coverage I’ve seen of other rallies suggests that the emphasis was mostly on keeping the government spending its way into bankruptcy. If you saw just those reports, you’d think no one cared about people being snatched without charges and sent to brutal foreign prisons. Maybe Boston was better than average because ICE targeted the city, but I suspect distorted coverage.
In the end, what happened on April 5 won’t make much difference. But it was nice to see so many people objecting to what’s happening to America.