Maple leaf hoisted too. Among targets of Winona protesters was the Trump demonization of Canada. Trump has mobilized an economic attack against the historically friendly northern U.S. neighbor and threatened a take-over. Implicit: Military occupation like the Russia aggression neighboring Ukraine. Trump’s assault on Canadian sovereignty has insulted and angered normally mild-mannered Canadians like nothing else in memory. Images: Steve Lunde
Protest displays overwhelming array of grievances
WINONA, Minn. –An estimated 700 people assembled at Windom Park to voice grievances against the Trump presidency—the largest public protest in Winona since the Vietnam war. Protesters lined all four sides of sides of the Windom Park block and amassed at seven street corners. They waved and swung signs, almost all hand-made. Passing cars honked in support. Protesters cheered back and pointed thumbs-up.
The signs were a motley array of objection to Trump reforms since January when he:
> Began dismantling federal agencies and public services.
> Launched an isolationist withdrawal from international treaties.
> Set out on a racially profiled pogrom to deport thousands of foreign citizens in the country for business, schooling and a better life.
> Pledged to cut medical and other benefits for military veterans.
> Targeted Medicare health programs and also Medicaid for needy people.
The Winona rally was one of 1,000 one-day events nation wide to pressure Republicans in Congress who have acquiesced to Trump bullying to fall in line or be voted out of office. The protests also voiced support for federal judges to resist Trump overreaches of his constitutional authorities.
Trump executive orders
In Trump’s first 65 days in office, he signed 104 executive orders, more than any previous president in the first 100 days in office. These included withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization and the Paris global environmental treaty and killing the U.S. Agency for International Development. He rolled back federal recognition of gender identity. Without Congressional approval he created a federal agency to dismantle agencies as a pretense for government efficiency. He withdrew the U.S. designation of Cuba as a sponsor of terrorism, He dissolved a task force to reunite children who were unjustly separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. Despite their criminal convictions he pardoned his supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol in January 2021 in a failed attempt to install him as president even though he had lost the 2020 election. He ended birthright citizenship for children born in the country to illegal immigrants. He delayed an order for China to sell control of its media platform TikTok. He declared a national emergency on the southern border to facilitate the deployment the U.S. Army. Several Trump’s orders explicitly violated Congressionally passed federal laws and long-standing agency regulations and the U.S. Constitution.
Verbatim
First Amendment to U.S. Constitution: Government shall not restrain “the right of the people peaceably to assembly and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Conspicuously absent
Organizers invited any and all to participate in the protest. Not present were: Jerry Papenfuss. Chair, Winona County Republicans; Brad Finstad, Elected to Congress from southern Minnesota’s MN-1; Jeremy Miller, elected to state Senate from Winona and neighboring counties; Steve Drazkowski. Elected to the state Senate from Mazeppa; Aaron Repinski. Elected to state House from Winona; Steve Jacob. Elected to state House from Elba.
Targets: Save foreign students. No to authoritarism, oligarchy.
Yes. To women’s healthcare No to Musk. Yes to Medicare.
Paraphrasing Trump buddy Elon Musk: “I Am Stealing from You”
So much to say. So little space.
Heed the working class. Save education. Hands off human rights.