Demonstrator: The president? ‘I don’t like him’
By Morgan Rothborne, Ashland.news
A teacher stood behind a huddle of 9-year-old girls all holding signs at the edge of the Ashland Plaza Monday afternoon. Emily Bland, a teacher at Willow Wind Elementary School, said she was taking a Presidents Day protest as an opportunity for her daughter and friends to believe they have a voice — and use it.
Asked how they felt about being part of the protest, all four girls swayed shyly with their signs and said it was pretty cool. When asked what they think of the president, all four straightened their backs.
“I don’t like him,” one girl said before turning back to the street, holding her sign up to cars honking in encouragement.
Ashland’s rally was one of many going on nationwide Monday, Presidents Day, according to a report from National Public Radio. The demonstrations were organized by the 50501 Movement, which stands for “50 protests. 50 states. 1 movement,” NPR said, in a response to what organizers describe as “the anti-democratic and illegal actions of the Trump administration.”
Medford also saw a demonstration, with a group of more than 150 protesters holding signs and chanting downtown on Monday, lambasting President Donald Trump and his administration’s policies and staff, according to the Rogue Valley Times.
Estimates of the crowd size on Ashland Plaza ranged from 150 to 400. Sprinkled among rally attendees were the occasional pink pussyhat, signs with messages like “it’s time to care” and advocating taxes for the very wealthy.
Leaning against bike racks a little back from the front lines, a retired teacher expressed concern for the future. Asked what specifically she was concerned about, 77 year-old Linda Barnett was broad at first.
“Well, facism,” she said.
As a former special education teacher, she wondered about cuts to the federal Department of Education. If the department would go, she said, pointing both thumbs down, it would leave lower income families of children with special needs high and dry. It was difficult to hear her voice over the cacophony of passing cars expressing support.
“We feel very strongly about what is happening to our government,” she said.
Brian Fink, holding a sign and wearing a camo jacket with his name on one side and a U.S army patch on the other, said he felt the need to bring awareness for veterans like himself. Mentioning his service in the first Gulf War only when asked, the former army specialist said he’s now only a citizen.
“The title now is ‘dude,’” he said.
Wide swatches of laid off federal employees will affect veterans; so will rollbacks to disability benefits, he said. Many veterans are disabled and, as someone who has worked in processing claims, “it’s not charity,” he said.
Bonnie Johnson, 77, said as a retired librarian she was deeply concerned about cuts to agencies and what that would mean for evidence-based decision making and the continuation of scientific research.
Cutting the budgets of various agencies and pulling funding away from research could be compounded by decisions such as confirming Robert Kennedy Jr. for the position of secretary of Health and Human Services.
“We have been world leaders, we led the way in research. We are heading toward becoming a second-world country. … They’re a bunch of know-nothings, they think they can run a country like a business. A country is not a business,” she said.
Former Ashland mayor Julie Akins said she hoped she was looking at Ashland’s facet of a larger national effort, even as she mused about what federal cuts to Medicaid or new emphasis on cryptocurrency could mean, and if protests would soon be discouraged by federal order.
“If this is the last protest, I’m glad I came,” she said.
In studies of historical events, the margin of necessary resistance for large-scale social change is about 3.5% of the population, Akins said. More may rise up and join the now slender margin of organized resistance once federal changes affect their own lives, she said. Groups like farmers could be beginning to feel remorse for their votes already.
But what if it takes too long for a sufficient amount of people to push against the powers that be? Is there enough momentum at the start, the writer and journalist mused, these smaller demonstrations keep up morale, they give those passing by the knowledge that they’re not alone and maybe the courage to pick up their own mantle of resistance in their lives.
But any real change will require more than showing up one day to one protest, Akins said. Change requires long-term sustained, consistent effort. Broad social change means reaching a tipping point to carry that momentum together.
“We’re about to find out if we’ve got it,” she said.
Email Ashland.news reporter Morgan Rothborne at [email protected]. Ashland.news editor Bert Etling contributed to this report.
Feb. 18: Added higher crowd size estimate.
