Yesterday I attended my third No Kings protest. While the above photo is of the main rally in Chicago's Loop, I went to the one in my neighborhood. I wanted to be there for my minister, who made the opening remarks. She was followed by a performance by a group of senior women who sang an original composition for President Trump ("Now You've Pissed Granny Off") and "Amazing Grace." Then we marched from the WWI memorial, past the post office and my church (along with two other churches) and through the business district, past the card shop where I work.
Sounds pretty Norman Rockwell, doesn't it? Well, according to Speaker Mike Johnson, I'm a pro-Hamas, America-hating member of Antifa. That's what this Administration does when you disagree with it – they demonize you. MAGA supporters choose to believe it because, well, they accept whatever fits their narrow worldview.
I have not posted about what life has been like during Operation Midwest Blitz because it's too depressing. Armed men who refused to wear masks to protect their fellow man during the Covid-19 pandemic now wear them to scare us as they pick up our neighbors and "disappear" them into the facility in Broadview. I am not kidding.
These are not "the worst of the worst" that Kristi Noem and Tom Homan brag about bringing to justice. These are Uber drivers and Home Depot day laborers. My friend Kevin no longer buys tamales at lunch because the lady who sold them off the cart in front of his office building is now gone. My friend Jamie was standing feet away from a protester named Levi who was pulled into the Broadview facility and detained for hours. ICE agents have been spotted waiting in the parking lot outside the children's museum. Yes, you read that right. They want to arrest parents in front of their children. They intend to separate families.
ICE is legally prohibited from entering businesses or residences in my neighborhood, so we have a protocol in place at the card shop where I work. They can stalk sidewalks and parking lots. If I feel "unsafe," I am to go into the office in the back, lock the door, and call the local police. Yes, I am supposed to wait for my beat cop to come protect me from my federal government. Mike Johnson doesn't talk about that, does he?
I dressed for Saturday's protest with care. I wore an Anthony Rizzo foundation t-shirt because it champions pediatric cancer research, and this administration has drastically cut funding to universities that do this work. I put on a necklace I got in Key West, because my darling friend Henry worried so about being "a gay brown man in Trump's America." I used to think he was paranoid. I know now he wasn't. I miss Henry ever day, but I am glad he isn't living through this. A Puerto Rican, he was born an American citizen. I can't bear to think of him being required to prove it, just because of his skin and his accent.
It's ruefully amusing that Donald Trump so obviously lusts after a Nobel Peace Prize. He may be trying to stop wars internationally, but he is using force against us here in Chicagoland. I don't know what award they give for that, but it ain't the Nobel Peace Prize.
PS While Chicago is safer today than it was during Trump's first Administration, there is still a serious problem with violence. It's not because of illegal immigrants, though. The cause is – wait for it – illegal guns that come in through the porous borders with our neighboring states. Indiana and Kentucky both have far more lax gun laws and it's just lucrative to sell guns here. If Donald Trump was really interested in saving lives, he would send the ATF here, not ICE. But I'm not stupid. I understand that gun fetishists vote MAGA. He doesn't want to make me safer. He wants to pander to his base to solidify his own power. And so I march and work the campaigns of progressive candidates.
I'm a fan of Madisonian Democracy. NO KINGS!
