Brace yourselves, Americans! Tomorrow we will see widespread leftist protests show their “resistance,” gathering in what they are calling a “No Kings Nationwide Day of Defiance” in cities across the land.
Are they protesting high inflation? No, the rate of inflation is the lowest in four years.
Are they objecting to rising unemployment? No, unemployment is holding steady at low levels.
Are they squawking about people flooding across our border illegally and driving wages lower? Not at all; President Trump has drastically reduced illegal immigration. Thanks to solid hiring, wages are growing faster than inflation, so real income is up.
Are they protesting the failures of so many of our schools to educate our children – and especially minority children? Hardly; Randi Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers, is one of the organizers of the protests. She will not draw attention to schools that are graduating illiterate students.
Since those are among the principal concerns of most Americans, what is it they are protesting?
First, they are protesting the Trump administration’s efforts to deport criminals who are in the U.S. illegally, even though, according to Pew, the vast majority of the country is in favor of booting convicted murderers and child rapists — exactly what Immigration and Customs Enforcement was doing in Los Angeles. It is curious that these groups were mostly mute when Barack Obama, aka the “Deporter in Chief,” tossed 3 million people out of the country.
Second, they are angry that Trump is cutting wasteful and fraudulent federal spending. The country’s debt exploded under Joe Biden, but Democrats are objecting to the efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency to root out waste and fraud — even though Biden’s own administration estimated the total lost to scams and ineptitude at up to half a trillion dollars every year.
They hate DOGE for cutting liberal spending, like the money being squandered on a regular basis at USAID. Sure, there were some worthwhile programs being funded by that department, but there were also too many examples of money being shipped to Democrat-aligned groups that almost certainly ended up in leftist campaign coffers. Elon Musk called such NGOs the “biggest scam” going, and accused such groups of money-laundering.
Third, the protesters are determined to distract from a military parade planned for tomorrow in our nation’s capital. They claim the festivities are meant to celebrate Trump — what one of the groups describes as “Herr Trump’s birthday” — but the parade was organized to commemorate the 250th birthday of the U.S. Army. Planning for the celebration has been underway for two years — since before Trump was reelected. The parade portion has only recently been added. Despite this fact, that same group said outright: “A major goal here is to upstage Trump’s self-coronation event by grabbing more of the attention.”
Are the furious hordes unhappy with Trump’s foreign policy? Many progressives have aligned with Hamas against the administration’s support of Israel. In addition, Trump is trying to peacefully force Iran to give up its nuclear arms effort. Biden not only failed to make progress on that front, he gave the mullahs access to tens of billions of dollars, allowing them to beef up terror groups like Hamas and the Houthis. This indirectly helped to fund the heinous attacks on Israel and on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and the U.S. Navy, respectively.
Groups putting together this “No Kings Day” claim they are fighting the Trump administration’s “authoritarianism,” by which they really mean reversal of unpopular policies that have brought the Democratic Party to all-time low favorability ratings.
DEI, biological men in women’s sports, taxpayer funding of biased news organizations, antisemitism on college campuses, cancel culture, mandates as to what kind of car you can drive or how much water your dishwasher can use — Americans are fed up with what should be called “progressive authoritarianism.” They elected a president who vowed to change the country’s course. He is doing it, and they hate it.
Trump is a strong leader and not easily cowed by the liberal media; that does not constitute a threat to democracy.
In reality, the left is having a hissy fit that they can no longer run roughshod over the will of U.S. voters, a majority of whom elected Trump.
“We have the idea that the power of the government derives from the people, not from one man and not from one party” says Weingarten.
Yes, that’s the point of elections. Get over it.
Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim and Company.