P is for Peaceful Pro-Democracy Protests (Part 1)

At a plastics facility on March 14, 2025 in Bay City, Michigan, Vice President JD Vance smugly pontificated, “I’m sure all of us saw that there were a few protestors outside, and I can’t be the only person wondering… you know, it’s a little after noon on a Friday, and don’t you all have jobs? Who are these people? And I think that’s one of the reasons we’ve got to rebuild American manufacturing and support great companies like Vantage Plastics, because we want those people to get off the streets and back to work. It’d be good for them, and it would be good for everybody else, too.”¹

Vice Presidents take an oath to preserve and to protect the U.S. Constitution. Implicit in this role is service towards all Americans regardless of political party. Perhaps it would be good for the country, too, if Vance spent as much time and energy understanding his elected office as he does berating citizens that don’t agree with his far-right agenda.

Few people truly desire to be out on the streets protesting Make America Great Again (MAGA) policies. They do it because they feel that they must express their outrage! A thorough study of the U.S. Constitution might help Vance to grasp that for citizens of the United States, protesting against what are perceived as harmful government policies, especially those that violate the rule of law, is a protected right; a duty akin to a job for all thoughtful Americans.

Public shaming of peaceful protesters, instead of humanely addressing their real concerns, is the aggressive default tactic of the Trump administration and his allies. It is becoming modus operandi for Vance. Earlier in March, Vance became angry at attendees of a pro-Ukraine demonstration near his home in Connecticut. He claimed that they were stalking him and frightening his toddler, and later called them names on social media. Demonstrators told the Cincinnati Enquirer that “protesters weren’t following Vance, but happened to come upon him en route to the protest.”² This seems more likely, since Vance and his family are shadowed by Secret Service agents wherever they go. Vance’s security detail would not have allowed the general public to go anywhere near him without the Vice President’s permission, so Vance must have anticipated and perhaps even have deliberately forced a confrontation with demonstrators so that he could play the victim.

Considering the Grievances of All American Citizens is the Job of Elected Officials Like Trump and Vance

The long line of protestors that met Vance’s motorcade in Michigan on March 14th seemed to be worried about the overall direction that the federal government is taking. Protestors in all 50 states echo these fears. The signs that the Michiganders carried reflected a myriad of issues ranging from opposition to abortion bans, cuts to the federal workforce, the outsized political influence of billionaires and foreign dictators, potential cuts to healthcare services, union busting policies, and executive orders that violate civil rights.³

Who were those people wanting to be seen and heard by Vance? Informed Americans like Karen Tighe, former chair of the Democratic Party of Bay County, intent on exercising her freedoms in support of democracy. Tighe explained, “we rely on veteran’s benefits, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and all of those things are on a chopping block with an unelected person [Elon Musk] showing off his chainsaw and making a joke of it. To us, it’s personal. It’s not a joke. Cutting those benefits is going to hurt people and we would like him [Vance] to take that message back to Washington.”⁴ Tighe was referring to a media stunt in which Musk used a real chainsaw prop as a metaphor for the destructive force he and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team have wielded upon government agencies.

Vance’s contempt for Tighe and her fellow Michiganders during his Bay City visit was transparent and illogical. It is a condescending leap to assume that people protesting on a Friday afternoon do not have jobs. Protestors like Tighe might have taken time off from work for the opportunity to directly express their dissent. Many of the protestors may have been retirees. Also, Americans have a variety of work schedules. Not everyone works nine-to-five weekday positions; not everyone desires or is suited for manufacturing work; and not everyone with a job works full-time, either.

Furthermore, when the administration that you head forces mass lay-offs on workers in important government institutions, with ripple effects to job sectors across the country, it is tone-deaf to sneer at the unemployed. It is tone-deaf to sneer at them even if these huge obstacles to employment weren’t deliberately being created by the Trump administration. A handful of pro-Trump supporters engaged in a mini counter-protest nearby. Did Vance’s snarky message about employment apply to them, as well?

Protests Are Inevitable in the Wake of Haphazard Governance

Investigating manufacturing declines in the United States may be worthwhile. However, data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, shows that currently the service sector, rather then manufacturing, is America’s strength. “America holds a global advantage in exports of services driven by business, travel, and intellectual property.”⁵ Business experts agree that it might take decades to create new supply chains, infrastructure, and regulatory entities to rebuild large-scale manufacturing in this country. Even if it did, many jobs would be automated to keep costs down. What is the Trump administration’s plan for jobless workers in the interim, even if a switch from a service economy to a manufacturing economy in our country is feasible? Nothing concrete on the economic front is being communicated to the American people.

Economic chaos is one of several crises created by a Trump administration that is completely out-of-touch with the plight of the non-white, non-male, and non-wealthy. In just a few months in office, Trump has made unprecedented decisions that have completely upended the lives of every American. Some alarming, authoritarian actions Trump and Vance have taken so far include:

*Authorizing the kidnapping and deportation of students and immigrants without due process.

*Declaring fake emergencies in order to bypass Congress and push through 124 executive orders so far (for context, President Biden signed 162 executive orders in his entire four-year term).

*Ignoring or openly defying judicial rulings.

*Dismantling government agencies that provide essential services to all Americans, particularly those that are most vulnerable, while awarding huge contracts to his billionaire cronies.

*Erasing historical records that don’t match his extremist ideology.

*Freezing federal funds including disaster relief to grant recipients such as non-profit groups and states without explanation.

*Alienating the United States from its closest allies, particularly Canada and Mexico.

*Imposing sweeping tariffs on goods from every country on the globe except Russia, triggering multiple crashes in the stock market and forcing U.S. businesses to raise their prices or risk bankruptcy.

Protesting Unpopular Policies Is a Constitutional Right

There is a shocking lack of transparency about how the federal government intends to handle the massive consequences of these actions except to tell the American people to willingly absorb the pain. “You have to cut the bone. You have to do what you have to do,”⁶ Trump said about his self-imposed trade wars. His vision of the United States increasingly is one of scarcity, retribution, and isolationism.

These are just a few reasons why protests against the Trump administration have become daily occurrences throughout the United States since Trump and Vance took office on January 20, 2025. Three fundamental rights guaranteed to all citizens that pertain to peaceful protests and expressions of dissent are covered by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. These include freedom of speech, freedom of peaceful assembly, and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances.

The U.S. Supreme Court considers freedom of speech, assembly and petition to be cognate rights, or rights that are related to one another. However the right to petition, may be lesser known and understood. In the 2011 case, Borough of Duryea v. Guarnieri, the Court explained the interrelatedness of these freedoms.⁷ The Court wrote, “Both speech and petition are integral to the democratic process, although not necessarily in the same way. The right to petition allows citizens to express their ideas, hopes and concerns to their government and their elected representatives, whereas the right to speak fosters the public exchange of ideas that is integral to deliberative democracy as well as to the whole realm of ideas and human affairs. Beyond the political sphere, both speech and petition advance personal expression, although the right to petition is generally concerned with expression directed to the government seeking redress of grievance.”⁸ Protests are a way of publicly airing grievances against the government, and these grievances all fall into the category of public concerns.

Protests Have Gained Momentum in Trump’s America

While, smaller, pop-up protests are occurring with regularity (many protest groups are rallying on a weekly basis), large-scale single-day anti-Trump events are being planned as often as possible. These bigger, more coordinated rallies are being arranged by nationally recognized pro-democracy groups such as Indivisible, MoveOn, the Women’s March, and the 50501 Movement, among others. On April 5, 2025, for example, approximately 5 million Americans rallied and marched in cities around the country to the theme of Hands Off! This meant hands off things dear to Americans such as civil liberties, libraries, universities, and social programs like Meals on Wheels, Social Security, and Medicaid. Protests organizers declared that there were 1300 official Hands Off! protests nationwide. This figure seems grossly undercounted, because there were at least ten protest locations in the greater North Seattle area on that day. This is without counting two gatherings in downtown Seattle led by high-profile politicians such as Representative Pramila Jayapal and former Washington state Governor Jay Inslee, that garnered tens of thousands of participants each.

There were two afternoon protests on April 5th in the seaside town of Edmonds, WA alone. Edmonds has a population of approximately 42 thousand people. The first protest was emceed by internationally famous travel host Rick Steves. Over 2000 people showed up to hear him speak at a noontime rally in the Civic Center Park. 3000 more people attended a protest in another Edmonds location later in the afternoon. Therefore, almost twelve percent of the population of Edmonds protested on April 5th.

When Steves addressed the crowd in Edmonds, he focused on three main issues: MAGA narratives, public wealth, and the importance of solidarity. Steves asked attendees to resist dark, punitive, and xenophobic MAGA narratives. He had just returned to the United States from Turkey, which also has a strong-arm leader in Recep Erdogan. Steves explained how the erosion of democratic norms in the United States by the Trump administration harms democracies around the world. He noted that, “since World War II people have looked to our country for leadership. Right now that is on the line. What empowers dictators [around the world]? America checking out. America building walls. America saying ‘America First.’”⁹

Steves insisted that the language of MAGA must be countered, corrected, and reclaimed. For example, he began his speech by professing that pro-democracy protests are “not America bashing. We don’t gather as Democrats or Republicans. This is more fundamental than that. We gather as patriots.”¹⁰ He asked attendees to be courageous, critical thinkers when confronted with MAGA doublespeak. “It’s not a deep state,” for instance, Steves declared. “That sounds demonic. You want to get rid of it if you’re not a very thoughtful voter. Nowadays climate activists are framed as climate extremists. When you hear somebody good framed into something bad, speak out. Don’t allow it.”¹¹

Steves further decried the actions of MAGA oligarchs who are stifling dissent and legitimate press. He insisted that, “when you shut down the scientist, when you shut down the professor, when you shut down the principled judge, the doctor, the military leader whose loyalty goes to the [U.S.] Constitution and not a dictator, when you shut down the people who care for the environment and not for my quarterly profit statement…when you shut down these things you shut down what makes America great.”¹²

Steves then pointed out the evil irony of a leader like Trump, elected by the working class, who penalizes the poor with tariffs and other regressive taxes while lowering taxes for the billionaire class. He denounced the short-sided greed of oligarchs who seek to privatize public institutions, viewing them as “low hanging fruit for profit.”¹³ Steves observed that the public institutions Trump and his allies are trying to destroy are collective entities, paid for by all Americans to make society sustainable for all Americans, and not just the wealthy. He urged the crowd to “think of public wealth, national parks, your retirement accounts, education, national medicine. Why do they target it? Not to make the United States a better place, but to make the filthy rich even richer. Public wealth is ours; it’s not for the oligarchs. Remember that.”¹⁴

The structural supports of our government are being dismantled in front of our eyes by the Trump administration, Steves asserted, because Trump wants complete power. He does not believe in the U.S. Constitution or the system of checks and balances that the Founding Fathers put in place to limit the reach of the executive branch. Steves said, “‘they [checks and balances] support the house of democracy. He knows it. His team knows it, they’re targeting it, and it could not be more anti-American.”¹⁵

Several times in his speech, Steves praised those that had gathered for their willingness to mobilize to ensure the continuance of all that is being threatened in our society by the Trump administration. He explained that “this is the biggest challenge in our lifetimes to the democracies that our children are going to be living with.”¹⁶ He urged people to set aside differences for the common goal of preserving democracy. “We gather in solidarity [not for just one issue] and solidarity is our only hope. Trump is counting on the fact that half of us don’t care about the environment, and half of us don’t care about LGBTQ plus, and half of us don’t care about education, and half of us don’t care about public television. But together we are invincible and all of those things are important.”¹⁷

Use it Or Lose It

Once Steves finished his speech, organizers played the Bob Marley tune “Get Up Stand Up” while crowds dispersed to march from the downtown Edmonds area towards Brackett’s Landing, an ocean-side park near the Edmonds ferry terminal. Marley’s anthem is a call to action to assert civil rights during times of oppression. Some protestors in Edmonds expressed their urgency to protest MAGA actions while First Amendment freedoms are still guaranteed.

Data from the International Center for Not-For-Profit Law shows that 45 of the 50 U.S. states have sponsored anti-protest bills since 2017. 50 out of 345 anti-protest bills proposed by state legislators have been enacted, while 40 are currently pending.¹⁸ These bills cover a range of topics from making it illegal to wear masks or obscure your identity during protests, criminalizing protests on campuses by blocking the visas and student loans of campus protestors, prohibiting small businesses from receiving funds from repairs near protest sites, and criminalizing protests in specific areas including residences and churches.

HB1323, a bi-partisan bill introduced in January 2025 in the Washington State House of Representatives, is currently in committee. It aims to limit the scope of mass protests by making it illegal to intentionally obstruct highways. The twelve bill drafters, three of whom are Democrats while the bulk are Republicans, “recognize the right to peacefully assemble,” but find that “endangering people’s lives, the traveling public, and law enforcement officers is not part of a civil society when there are plenty legal and safe times and locations for public discourse and assemble.”¹⁹If this bill is voted into law, obstructing highways during protest would be a C felony, subject to a steep fine and at least a month of imprisonment. Though this bill, which is framed as a safety measure, seems more tolerable in the wake of more blatant anti-protest bills advanced in other states, anti-protest bills like this can set a precedent for future limits on guaranteed freedoms.

Don’t Give Up the Fight

Despite propaganda to the contrary, non-wealthy citizens are suffering in Trump’s America. Tariffs, deportations, lawsuits, layoffs, service cuts, human rights abuses… the list of MAGA atrocities is long and overwhelming and no one will save us from this coup unless we continue to exercise the civic rights of freedom of speech, assembly, and petition against grievances. As of April 2025, protests remain tools of democracy that can bring change throughout the nation. Protests bring people together, providing community and showing others that they are not alone. When extensive enough, and over time, they exert public pressure on policy makers that cannot easily be ignored.

Works Cited:

Cui, Jasmine. “The White House is Using Tariffs to Restore Manufacturing. Data Suggests It Will Take Time.” NBC Universal Media. April 4, 2025, https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/trump-tariffs-manufacturing-us-business-jobs-economy-rcna199721.

International Center for Not-For-Profit-Law. “U.S. Protest Law Tracker.” Last accessed April 18, 2025, https://www.icnl.org/usprotestlawtracker/?location=&status=pending&issue=&date=&type=legislative#.

Justia. “Borough of Duryea, et al. v. Guarnieri, 564 U.S. 379 (2011).” https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/564/379/.

Stokols, Eli, and Adam Cancryn, Dasha Burns, Daniel Desrochers. “Trump Hits Pause on Trade War.” Politico. April 9, 2025, https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/09/trump-pauses-tariffs-00281494.

Wartman, Scott. “Protestors Outside His Cincinnati Home Angered Vance: What We Know.” Cincinnati Enquirer. Updated March 11, 2025, https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2025/03/10/what-we-know-about-the-confrontation-between-protesters-and-vance/82221437007/. 

WNEM Digital. “Protestors, Supporters Face Off During Vice Presidents Mid-Michigan Visit.” March 14, 2025, https://www.wnem.com/2025/03/14/protesters-supporters-face-off-during-vice-presidents-mid-michigan-visit.

Footnotes:

1. “JD Vance to Protestors: Don’t You All Have Jobs?” Daily Mail World, March 14, 2025. Video, 0:00:28, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3cqs4JcEks. ↩︎
2. Scott Wartman, “Protestors Outside His Cincinnati Home Angered Vance: What We Know,” Cincinnati Enquirer, updated March 11, 2025, https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2025/03/10/what-we-know-about-the-confrontation-between-protesters-and-vance/82221437007/. ↩︎
3. “Protestors Greet JD Vance Motorcade in Michigan,” MLive. March 14, 2025. Video, 00:01:33, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2RuoY63TOY&t=86s. ↩︎
4. “Protestors, Supporters Face Off During Vice Presidents Mid-Michigan Visit,” WNEM Digital, March 14, 2025, https://www.wnem.com/2025/03/14/protesters-supporters-face-off-during-vice-presidents-mid-michigan-visit. ↩︎
5. Jasmine Cui, “The White House is Using Tariffs to Restore Manufacturing. Data Suggests It Will Take Time,” NBC Universal Media, April 4, 2025, https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/trump-tariffs-manufacturing-us-business-jobs-economy-rcna199721. ↩︎
6. Eli Stokols, Adam Cancryn, Dasha Burns, and Daniel Desrochers, “Trump Hits Pause on Trade War,” Politico, April 9, 2025, https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/09/trump-pauses-tariffs-00281494. ↩︎
7. This case debated whether or not the right of petition applied to personal grievances or only to those of public concern. The ruling favored applying the right of petition for issues of public concern in this case of a personal grievance between two government employees. ↩︎
8. “Borough of Duryea, et al. v. Guarnieri, 564 U.S. 379 (2011),” Justia, https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/564/379/. ↩︎
9. “Rick Steves ‘Hands Off’ National Day of Protest, Edmonds, WA,” April 5, 2025. Video, 00:24:52, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86hnPrWozUo. ↩︎
10. Steves, 2025. ↩︎
11. Steves, 2025. ↩︎
12. Steves, 2025. ↩︎
13. Steves, 2025. ↩︎
14. Steves, 2025. ↩︎
15. Steves, 2025. ↩︎
16. Steves, 2025. ↩︎
17. Steves, 2025. ↩︎
18. “U.S. Protest Law Tracker,” International Center for Not-For-Profit-Law, last accessed April 18, 2025, https://www.icnl.org/usprotestlawtracker/?location=&status=pending&issue=&date=&type=legislative#. ↩︎
19. House Bill 1325, https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2025-26/Pdf/Bills/House%20Bills/1323.pdf?q=20250418131803. ↩︎