EDITORIAL: We protest!

We liked Press reader Ted Poull’s letter to the editor in last week’s Opinion section. 

The Town of Saukville resident is one of many Americans who have been regularly protesting actions by the Trump administration they see as authoritarian affronts to the principles of democracy. Their slogan is “No Kings.”

Ted wrote, “Let’s not forget the first American protest against a king and a dictator. It was called the Boston Tea Party. It’s what started our country working toward a democracy.”

He’s right, of course. The American democracy owes its existence to protest. The 1773 Tea Party protest against governance by the king of England set the stage for the American Revolution. 

His letter was a well-aimed riposte to critics who expressed their opposition to contemporary No Kings protests in letters to the editor and in what Poull described as the “one finger salute” given by a few motorists when they pass the demonstrations.

That’s the thing about protests. They’re sure to tick off someone besides the protests’ targets, which is not surprising since disagreement is essentially what protests are about.

In that vein, let’s recall that the Tea Party came back to life in the 21st century as the name of a conservative alliance that evolved into the MAGA movement that now sustains the Trump presidency. Could it be that a few folks of progressive bent who today support the No Kings movement gave those Tea Party protestors a one-fingered salute when passing one of their demonstrations?

Anti-Trump protestors who gathered on an I-43 overpass just outside of Port Washington on July 17 encountered a different sort of obscene gesture. A group recruited by a right-wing organization invaded the demonstration waving signs and drowning out speakers. By all accounts, it was thoroughly obnoxious behavior. The anti-Trump group called the Sheriff’s Office for help, but nothing came of that, obnoxious behavior as a form of free expression being a constitutional right.

Ozaukee Press has published news stories telling readers about the protests in Ozaukee County and where and when they were to be held and we’ve published photographs of the demonstrations.

A photograph of the July 17 event showed protestors holding “dump Trump” and “Ozaukee outrage” signs flanked by a number of anti-protestors holding signs saying “honk for the unborn.” The caption under the photo read in part, “Those attending let their feelings be known about the state of the nation, choosing signs that reflected their opinions on a variety of issues.”

Over the years, the Press has taken heat more than a few times for words it has printed. It’s pretty much expected in this line of work, but that mild and obviously accurate sentence hardly seemed like something that would stir readers’ ire. Yet it did.

Letters to the editor from two anti-Trump protestors chastised the Press for “sugarcoating the news” and printing an erroneous picture caption.

We didn’t send a reporter to cover the protest (not a high priority in the week’s news mix), had no information about the disruption and were not informed of it by protest organizers, so it shouldn’t be surprising that it wasn’t mentioned in the caption. What is a bit surprising is the fuss made about it. 

Political protesting is confrontational by nature. It’s not for the faint of heart or the thin of skin. 

The overpass protest was part of a national observance in honor of Congressman John Lewis, the legendary disciple of Martin Luther King, the man who accomplished more through protest on behalf of human rights, and thus democracy, than any American. It is hard to imagine Lewis or King, considering the abuse they routinely faced in their epic fight for racial equality, being piqued by a few obnoxious protest intruders or—perish the thought—a newspaper photo caption that didn’t mention it.

The moral force of King’s protests, most famously including his 1963 March on Washington attended by 250,000 people, was empowered by their peaceful nature. 

Protests that turn violent usually fail. That, thank goodness, was the fate of one of the most violent American protests—violent not in just human terms but in the violence it would have done to the American democracy. That was the Jan. 6, 2021, protest over the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

The mob that tried and failed to overturn the election attacked and injured police officers, broke into and vandalized the U.S. Capitol, threatened to kill members of Congress and hang the vice president.

More than 1,500 of the rioters were charged with felonies, 1,000 of them pleaded guilty, others were convicted by juries and sent to prison. Shortly after taking office for his second term as president, Donald Trump pardoned all of them.

Does anyone wonder why there are anti-Trump protests?