Barb Caffrey's Blog

I am proud of my fellow Wisconsinites today.

Why? Well, there were 50501 protests (50501 means fifty states, fifty protests, one message, I think), also called “Hands Off” protests, all over the nation yesterday protesting Donald Trump, his cabinet, Elon Musk and Musk’s overinvolvement with said cabinet and the entirety of the federal workforce via his entity DOGE, and I approve of peaceful protest.

Right now, Americans are suffering. The prices of everything are already too high. We’re told to stock up during sales of whatever nonperishables we can get, because the chaos in Washington, plus the Trump tariffs, have made everything worse.

In case you’re not aware of this, tariffs are taxes. They’re not taxes on the other country so much as on your own people, to make it harder for them to buy whatever it is. So, the current and very strange tariffs on our longtime ally, Canada, mean that maple syrup is priced too high for most people to buy it. That means it hurts the seller of the syrup in Canada, but it mostly hurts the consumer to have fewer choices at much higher prices.

There’s a reason why countries try for both free and fair trade. The current Trump tariffs are neither, in my opinion.

Anyway, I was very glad to see the protests in Racine. There were around six hundred people in downtown Racine with signs such as “No One Elected Elon” to “Hands Off Our Social Security” and people with rainbow flags, asserting solidarity with the LGBTQIA+ community.

In addition, there were protests in Kenosha, Union Grove, Burlington, and apparently there also were a few people out in Waterford (a very small community) with signs. Good for them.

Throughout the nation yesterday, there were hundreds of protests in every state in the union because people are really concerned. The Stock Market fell off a cliff this past week, and no one understands why this is happening with our government. The Republicans in Congress mostly are doing whatever the President wants, which is in direct conflict with their office as Constitutional officers (there is still such a thing as checks and balances, and the Congress was designed as one of the checks and balances for the Executive branch), and they don’t appear to be listening to their constituents. Worse yet, some of them seemingly believed that the previous protests were only by paid protesters.

That was obviously a lie, which yesterday’s protests clearly called out.

I don’t know about you, but Butte, Montana, which had a good-sized protest, is not a Democratic stronghold. Neither is Couer d’Alene, Idaho. Neither is Ames, Iowa. Nor is Lincoln, Nebraska…but I could go on and on, and I think you get the point.

In Wisconsin, Union Grove, Burlington, and Waterford are all smallish towns (Burlington being the biggest of the three) out in Racine County. The City of Racine mostly votes heavily Democratic. The county of Racine mostly votes heavily Republican. We are possibly the most purple county, and most contested county, in the entirety of the state of Wisconsin.

So, if you see people protesting out in the county, you know they’re not paid protestors. (I mean, really.) They are folks worried about their Social Security. They’re worried about paying more for things that were already expensive due to the Trump tariffs. They’re worried about the Republicans in Congress doing almost nothing to push back against anything the executive branch does. They’re worried about Signalgate. They’re worried about our troops overseas, considering the recent contretemps where four men in a training accident in Lithuania came home in pine boxes only to be snubbed by the current President, who was out golfing instead.

I am not in good health. I am, if not old, no longer young. But my attitude toward all of this is summed up by a sign I saw online (which I wish I could find again): “Must Our Decline and Fall Be So Very Stupid?”

I don’t want to see the United States of America become an authoritarian country run by a dictator. I also don’t like seeing unnecessary chaos for the sake of chaos alone, and furthermore, I don’t like it when people my Mom’s age and up are worried that they won’t get their retirement — which pretty much consists only of Social Security and nothing else.

I’ve thought long and hard about this, ever since I saw the Turkish doctoral student rounded up off the street by masked ICE agents. She wasn’t doing anything wrong. She was a teaching assistant. She’d protested quietly, and apparently that was too much for the current President’s staff. Her visa was revoked, she was not told, then she was grabbed off the street by six ICE agents, all masked. Now, she sits in a Louisiana deportation facility.

This is not someone who took up arms against the US. This is not someone who did anything wrong whatsoever under our laws. She was granted no due process and she was grabbed off the street as if she were a piece of refuse.

Worse yet, another man, in Maryland, was accidentally deported to Ecuador to a notorious prison there. The US has said they can’t get him back. That makes no sense. A judge, a federal district judge at that, has said they’d better get him back. He’s here legally. His rights of due process were not followed. Plus, they didn’t even mean to deport him!

But they can’t get him back?

These things have to be fought, you know? No matter what political persuasion you are, these things must be discussed and known. We still have the right of free speech and also of free assembly in this country and we must raise our voices now, whether online or off, whether in protests online or off…we must, must, do these things.

As I said, my health is bad. I worry that if our country gets worse that I’d be a sitting duck. I am obviously disabled, I can’t run from anyone, and in a situation like that poor Turkish doctoral student, I’d be less able to react than she was (and she couldn’t do anything at all). My main value, if you call it such, is that I care about others, I am creative, I help others, and I do whatever I can to make the world a better place.

The current Powers that Be in Washington, DC, mostly do not care about such things. But I do.

That’s why I’m finally, finally raising my voice in protest despite the obvious risks. I hope you all will do the same.

P.S. For those who blame Joe Biden’s creeping overuse of Executive powers to have led to the current POTUS’s overuse of same, you may have a point. But Biden’s people did not threaten Social Security, they did not create so much chaos for what appears to be no reason other than fear, and they did not take inoffensive female Turkish grad students off the streets.