Without any push from national or state campaigns, about 300 people showed up at the corner of Paradise Drive and Main Street Saturday to protest President Trump’s first 100 days in office.
Every other person in an older crowd was carrying a homemade sign in opposition to his tariff wars, to his slashing, disorganized cuts to federal agencies and to his power moves against the courts, law firms, news organizations, veterans, universities and immigrants of all stripes.
The Saturday rally was about half the crowd size that showed up at West Bend’s initial protest two weeks ago at the same location. Both were promoted by the Washington County Democratic Party and several members of Indivisible, a national anti-Trump organization.
Two of the prevalent themes of the homemade signs were:
- “No kings”
- “Protect Due Process”
Not so coincidentally, the Saturday’s protest came 250 years after the ride of Paul Revere and the first battles of the Revolutionary War in Concord and Lexington. The Patriot warriors wanted “No King” from far-away Britain.
Remarkably as well, the sparks that lit the war against Britain were “taxes without representation.” Britain had imposed the Stamp Act, a tax on printed materials, and a later a tax on products like tea.
Some of the signs Saturday protested Trump’s unilateral imposition of high and broad tariffs on foreign imports — a form of taxes on American consumers — and the resulting retaliatory tariffs by other countries on our exports.
Almost everyone understands that economic reality, except our president who is obsessed with the idea (not the reality) of tariffs.
Investors, as demonstrated in the stock markets, understand the harm being done by the erratic and unpredictable Trump tariffs. The markets have plunged by 15% or more since he took office.
Fifty percent of U.S. workers now own 401K retirement accounts that rely on the well-being of the markets. Many of those workers don’t want to look at their portfolios because of the losses. The damage of Trump’s first three months has caused genuine fear.
Their fear is appropriate and rational. Trump is just getting rolling and could do a lot more damage to the U.S. economy.
As a screaming example, he wants to fire Jerome Powell, whom he appointed to head the Federal Reserve in his first term. It is a deeply held American tenet that the Fed has to be independent of political whims if we are to have a stable economy for all citizens. Do we want a flawed business person, who went bankrupt six times, running our economy?
Would Trump, for instance, default on U.S. Treasury debt that makes the dollar the pillar of the world’s economy? He has defaulted on debt in his business life.
Leading economic thinkers now collectively worry out loud that this president is capable of even more chaos.
What’s the remedy? No one really knows.
But the West Bend uprisings stand as examples of the growing resistance to Trump’s failures in his first 100 days. As writer Dana Milbank has just summarized, Trump has failed to pass any major legislation, to keep the economy on an even keel, to be smart about foreign policy – with two brutal wars raging on and our alliances shattered — and to protect the constitution.
He is also failing in public opinion with a 42% approval rating versus a 52% disapproval. That combination adds to a 16-point reduction in how Americans view his performance.
How low can he go?
