Editorial: Marin message heard loud and clear at Trump protest
Just hours after the stock market was sent into a White House-induced trade wars tailspin, President Donald Trump was focusing on his golf game while more than 5,000 Marin residents gathered on April 5 to protest.
They spent a sunny Saturday afternoon, joining hundreds of thousands of others across our nation, letting Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Elon Musk and his other political disciples know their anger and angst over what they are doing to our country, its economy, its culture and its governance.
They see Trump’s “Golden Age” agenda running roughshod over our civil rights, over our nation’s longstanding priorities, over our loyal allies, over our justice system, over our freedoms of speech and press and our Constitution. He’s even trying to intimidate universities to change their curriculum and trying to redraw maps, demanding the changing names of our landscape and repeatedly asserting that Greenland and Canada should be annexed to the United States.
He’s even sent the economy into a roller-coaster ride, imposing costly tariffs only to back off of them after they had sent the stock market into a deep slide. It was the largest dive since the pandemic. This one was Trump-induced and Americans saw their savings eroding until the president put a “pause” on the levies, all except those on imports from China – amid warnings of increased prices and financial problems for U.S. businesses that rely on imported products and parts.
Trump said he “paused” the tariffs for 90 days because market investors were getting “yippy” and called the stocks nosedive a “transition.” His supporters called him “courageous.”
Critics who gathered at the Marin Center fairgrounds aren’t impressed or yippy.
They are angry and understandably feel threatened by the road that Trump, whose autocratic hand is wielding wide-ranging executive powers that are going unchecked by Congress or the courts, has our country heading down.
The president and Congress have convinced themselves that 2024 gave them a national “mandate.” Trump won with 49.8% of the vote and the GOP has slim majorities in both houses – hardly a national mandate.
Last Saturday, protesters waved signs, among them: “Congress it’s up to you to stop this madness. Not the COURTS!!” “Fire Musk Save Elmo,” “Get Outa DOGE,” “Ikeda has better cabinets,” “We are the people, not DOGE,” and “Hands off our rights.”
Marin Congressman Jared Huffman, a stalwart critic of Trump and his agenda, said the showing, here and across the country, sends a strong message to Washington. “We won’t sit on our hands as he crushes the economy and drives up the cost of living for all of us with his unhinged tariff and trade wars,” he said.
“We are being gaslit and fleeced and betrayed and we’re not going to take it,” Huffman said.
“Hands off,” he and the crowd chanted at Saturday’s peaceful protest.
The protest and crowds may not have had as great an effect on Washington as if they were to take place with those numbers in Trump-supporting congressional districts. Still it sends a strong message of grave concern and discontent.
After all, Trump got a mere 16.7% of the vote in Marin just five months ago. Marin isn’t Trump territory. But the White House, even with its flurry of executive orders, can’t afford to lose any loyal GOP-held seats and its slim majority in Congress.
Marin Supervisor Eric Lucan characterized Trump’s leadership as “intentionally hurtful, harmful and hateful.”
Saturday’s turnout was a reflection of a deep-seated need of many Marin citizens to speak out. They exercised their constitutionally ensured freedom of speech and spoke out.
It was a large turnout for a small county.
They were loud and clear to make sure Washington clearly knows what they think and how they feel.