One day after Congress passed President Donald Trump’s huge reconciliation bill, a group of about 40 protesters gathered in downtown Bloomington to peacefully protest on Independence Day.
The reconciliation bill is nearly 900 pages long and details tax cuts, spending cuts to health care and social services, and increases to immigration enforcement and national defense.
The protest, titled “Speak Out, Defend Your Freedom! 4th of July Day of Community,” was organized by followers of the Bloomington-Normal 50501 movement affiliation, an effort intended to protest the second Trump Administration.
Attendees held banners with political messages in front of the Bloomington Center for Performing Arts.
“We just want folks to know that we’re upset with that’s happening and we want the politicians to know where we stand. For those that support democracy, we want them to know that we also have their backs so that we’re here for them, as they are here for us,” said Thomas Willmitch, a protest organizer.
Willmitch explained the symbolism behind scheduling the rally for the Independence Day holiday.
“Being the Fourth of July, this is a day in history when we said to King George [III, of Great Britain], ‘Enough is enough. We’re not going to bow to any king — any autocratic ruler of any kind’ — that stands today as much as it stood in 1776,” Willmitch said.
Willmitch said he doesn’t want those who are being negatively affected by the current political climate to feel alone.
“Your belief in American democracy is shared by others—by your neighbors and newly-discovered friends. It’s all about democracy and together we can make a change,” he said.
Willmitch gave credit to Bloomington-Normal 50501 and Voices of Reason, another grassroots organization affiliated with Indivisible, for working to make a difference in the community.
Artist Rachel Reyes attended the protest with a sign displaying a cartoon representation of President Trump’s face.
“[I’m] fighting against fascism and fighting for my daughter to have a better America that she deserves,” Reyes said. “I’ve been to numerous [protests], obviously lately with the ugly [reconciliation] bill passing unfortunately and Alligator [Alcatraz]. It’s a timeline I can’t believe that I live in and that I have a daughter in.”
“I read about these things as a child — it happening [during] other areas in history and in the world — and cried to know that my daughter lives in that same timeline now in America,” Reyes continued. "Everything about this administration seems to just run on cruelty and I just want something different than that; we’re better than that as Americans and just as humans in general,” Reyes said.
Reyes said she truly wonders how the current issues at hand are able to exist when so many people in the U.S. are frustrated.
“Let’s be better,” said Reyes’s young daughter Mari.
Protester George Wiman held up a sign reading, ‘Get this monstrosity out of my swamp, humans!’ with a cartoon alligator drawn beneath it.
“A lot of these issues should have been resolved a long time ago,” Wiman said. “We marched back in the ‘60s and ‘70s and solved problems … and now [they’re] coming back again. It isn’t right.”
Wiman cited Alligator Alcatraz, a migrant detention facility in Florida which he referred to as “Alligator Auschwitz” as the issue most prevalent in his mind.
“If America is about freedom, then America is about freedom to be who you really are,” Wiman said. “Our [LGBTQ] citizens [and] people who are here from other countries, statistically, are less likely to commit crimes than people who are citizens. They’re here working, they’re paying taxes and not getting benefits.”
“People of different religions, who constitutionally have the right to practice those religions … they’re facing discrimination," Wiman continued.
Retired librarian Diane Mather said she attended the protest because she’s concerned about treatment toward marginalized and less-fortunate people.
Mather said middle and lower class tax payers "will hardly notice" tax breaks included in the GOP megabill.
“But the wealthy are getting tax breaks of hundreds of thousands, and that increases our deficit $3.74 trillion," she said. "And who pays for that ultimately? It’s the middle class and the poor that pay for it with the reduction of services — a reduction of healthcare services, education, people who want college loans [and] scholarships — their opportunities are less and more expensive,."
“For people who say this is a Christian nation, isn’t that one of the basic concepts of Christianity that we feed the poor,” Mather continued.
Mather’s sentiment was echoed in the banner she held, which read, "Do unto others as you want done to you," referring to a Bible verse.
Mather said she fears democracy will not prevail.
“When the Supreme Court said that a president is immune to anything related to their official duties, that gave him [Trump] complete immunity. That made him a king, and our Founding Fathers said, ‘No. No one is above the law,’” Mather said.
Normal resident and retired teacher Kevin Vernon said the reconciliation bill was the main reason she came to the protest.
“This is just one step closer to authoritarianism, and it just can’t happen on my watch,” Vernon said.
Vernon said she wants legislators to have the courage to do what is right versus what their party tells them to do.
“We don’t have to agree on everything. We just need to agree on the central idea that our constitution is important, we are part of it and the rest we can work out,” Vernon said.
Bloomington-Normal 50501 will hold two more protests. One will begin at 1:30 p.m. July 12 in Uptown Normal. The second, titled “Good Trouble Lives On,” will occur from 12-1 p.m. July 19 outside the BCPA.
“So many of us feel down in this time with so much happening: seeing the way immigrants are being treated, seeing the rule of law being degraded the way it is, and so when you look around and see other people who feel the way you do, it gives you a sense of community,” Willmitch said.
