Different views of the same Greenwich protest

This past Saturday April 5, anti-Trump Hands Off protests were held nationwide. In Greenwich it was held in front of the Board of Education's Havemeyer Building to a crowd of about 400. Speakers at the event included Greenwich Indivisible founder Joanna Swomley, CT Congressman Jim Himes (D), CT Attorney General William Tong (D) and Greenwich environmental activist Svetlana Wasserman.

Our local papers covered this protest in a rosy way. See the Greenwich Free Press Story here. They noted the many "handmade" protest signs with messages involving Hands Off our free speech, schools, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, public lands, personal data, the courts, the media, libraries and personal data to name a few. The story noted that it was organized by Indivisible.org, Move On, 5051, the League of Women Voters, and Women's March. Congressman Himes talked about autocracy and bending the knee to Trump. Attorney General Tong celebrated his many lawsuits against Trump.

Nerlyn Pierson, a co-founder of Indivisible Greenwich, was interviewed. She said we will not let our democracy be hijacked. There were many interesting pictures of smiling protestors in the story, including one with Selectperson Janet Stone McGuigan (D) holding a sign that said "Down with the TURD REICH."

If you read the Greenwich Patriots story here, you will get another angle. This story says that the backers of Hands Off include the Communist Party and George Soros who are pushing a color revolution. According to the story, Congressman Himes scared the senior-heavy crowd by telling them that billionaires would be stealing their Medicaid, even though Trump has promised repeatedly he would not cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid; and, in fact, Trump has promised to repeal the tax on Social Security. Attorney General Tong fearmongered saying that senior citizens and immigrants have a target on their backs.

Wasserman gave a shout out to BET members at the rally - Matt Des Champs (D) and David Weisbrod (D) - who fought to keep Greenwich taxes high to provide full funding for school budget requests, while demonizing Republicans wanting to keep taxes low for everyone in Greenwich. She also gave a shout out to our CT assemblymen in attendance - Hector Arzeno (D) and Steve Meskers (D). Board of Ed member Sophie Koven (D) was there. According to the story, it was a crowd of mostly middle-aged white liberals and seniors, and many were part of the Tesla anti-Musk rally last month.

Between the Lines - Protests of this type are typically not organic. They are staged political performance to make you think a certain point of view is popular. We are fortunate to have many press outlets that provide different perspectives.

Story here