The Emergency Rally to End Musk's Government Takeover and Demand Our Senators Step Up
The event, which was organized in partnership with Indivisible
Rhode Island, Climate Action Rhode Island, Rhode Island
Working Families Party, Black Lives Matter Rhode Island PAC, and Common
Cause Rhode Island, featured members of the public, community leaders, and
State and local elected officials who called on Rhode Island Senators, as well
as all other Rhode Island and Federal elected officials, to take all actions
possible in the face of this unprecedented constitutional crisis.
You can watch the video here: 800
Rhode Islanders rally outside Senator Reed’s office, demanding he fight against
Musk's takeover
“Elon Musk now controls our nation’s finances, is overruling
laws and the entire legislative branch of government, and has tried to fire all
federal employees,” said Aseem Rastogi, an organizer with
Indivisible RI. “Rhode Islanders do not want unelected billionaires in charge
of our government – and we expect our leaders in Washington to be leading the
resistance to these brazen violations of the Constitution.”
Specifically, protestors listed three concrete ways they
believed Rhode Island’s federal delegation should be leading the resistance to
Musk’s actions.
- Placing
a blanket hold on all Trump nominees moving forward until the crisis at
Treasury is resolved.
- Denying
unanimous consent to grind Senate business to a crawl until the crisis is
resolved.
- Using
quorum calls to disrupt the flow of GOP business in the Senate until the
crisis is resolved.
“These tactics aren’t solutions, but they can force the GOP
to fight for every single destructive step they want to take,” said Aaron
Regunberg, senior policy counsel with Public Citizen, which has
filed several lawsuits challenging DOGE’s illegal actions. “And we’re here to
make clear to our senators: We think that matters. Because the slower we can
make them go, the less they can destroy – and the more we can demonstrate the
depravity of their agenda and Musk’s coup attempt to the public. Like every
would-be tyrant in history, they want us to think that we’re powerless to stop
them. But we’re not powerless, and our Democratic leaders are not powerless. We
need them to start acting like it.”
“Elon Musk is NOT a man who ought to be in charge of government - one, because his policies, quite frankly, suck, but two and more importantly, because we did NOT vote to put him there,” said Rhode Island State Senator Meghan Kallman. “It was just MLK day a few weeks ago. Dr. King has a famous quote about the moral arc of the universe being long but bending towards justice. It’s a beautiful sentiment. But it does not happen by itself: the only reason it bends towards justice is because PEOPLE bend it - because we take action to make the world we want to see. You are here today, taking action. Some of us are in the State House, taking action. All the organizers here are taking action. We need action from our national leaders, State leaders, and community.”
“Due to huge tax cuts for the wealthy passed by President
Trump, our state and our country are being told we need to end access to
healthcare, close down programs that keep us safe, and cut Social Security,”
said Rhode Island State Senator Tiara Mack. “We don’t need more tax
cuts for Billionaires like Musk; we need increased taxes on the wealthy, both
here in Rhode Island and D.C., so we can afford to help Rhode Islanders that
are struggling.”
“Musk has already ignored Congress and the Courts and
continues stealing your data and shutting down millions of dollars in grants
and loans already awarded to Rhode Island,” said Caitlin Sanford,
Co-president of Climate Action Rhode Island. “Now he and his billionaire
buddies are coming for your hard-earned Social Security and key infrastructure
like the Federal Aviation Administration. He’s a virus in our government, and
we need our elected leaders here to turn up the heat and get him out—now.”
The rally featured speakers from across the political
spectrum. “I’m not here because I’m a progressive or a Democrat – I’m not
either of those things,” said small business owner Fred Unger. “I
have always registered independent. There are many moderates, conservatives,
and traditional Republicans who are as shocked as all of us are by the illegal
and unconstitutional coup that Donald Trump and Elon Musk are undertaking. I
want to thank Senator Reed for his decades-long defense of our nation from
foreign adversaries. I call on him today to rally his colleagues in the Senate
to more aggressively defend against the domestic enemies now trying to
overthrow our democracy.”
“It is time to take care of each other. It is time to lead
with empathy,” said Harrison Tuttle of the Black Lives Matter
RI PAC. “It is time to tax the rich… These efforts have real consequences
because … our governor, through his latest budget, is trying to defund public
transportation. He’s trying to make it harder for the people we are advocating
to get around, go to their jobs, or make a living. And that requires us to
fight back.”
Steve Ahlquist is a reader-supported publication. To
receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid
subscriber.
