Trump’s events aren’t drawing big protests this year. Instead, Biden is facing public ire

 

NEW YORK (AP) — When Donald Trump first ran for the White House eight years ago, protesters filled the streets.

His inflammatory rhetoric and often dehumanizing descriptions of immigrants spurred thousands to demonstrate outside his rallies. By this time in 2016, protesters regularly interrupted his speeches, sparking clashes and foreshadowing Trump’s habit of encouraging violence against those he casts as his enemies.

“Knock the crap out of them, would you?” Trump once said as he egged on the crowd to go after protestors on their own — even promising to pay their legal bills.

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No longer.

As he runs again with an agenda that is arguably more extreme than his two previous campaigns, mass protests at Trump rallies and appearances are a thing of the past. When Trump returned to New York last week for a hearing in one of his criminal cases, just a smattering of detractors turned up outside the courthouse. During a Midwestern swing Tuesday, Trump was interrupted briefly by a protest in Green Bay, but otherwise encountered minimal opposition.

In a twist, it’s now President Joe Biden who is facing a sustained protest movement, largely by those furious over the administration’s support for Israel in its war against Hamas. During his first major rally of the year, Biden’s 22-minute speech was interrupted no less than a dozen times by detractors calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Protesters repeatedly disrupted his celebrity fundraiser last week with former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, as hundreds more demonstrated outside.

Nearly a decade after Trump launched his first campaign, organizers and others who participated in past protests describe a change in tactics as they focus their efforts on other issues or turning out voters in November. Some described a “Trump fatigue” after nearly a decade of outrage. Others say it’s Biden’s policy toward Israel that has them the most agitated and have turned their attention to protesting him.

“All the people that would be protesting Trump, a lot of these people, a lot of that energy are now focused on protesting a genocide in Gaza,” said Thomas Kennedy, an immigrant from Argentina who participated in more than a dozen anti-Trump protests and rallies in 2016.

Kennedy still describes the former president as a “horrible threat.” But for “a lot of people like me who would have been out there protesting Trump, it’s just demoralizing and dispiriting. It’s not worth my effort and my energy.”

Warning sign

That’s a potential warning sign for Biden, whose campaign aims to energize its base by casting Trump as a threat and framing the election as a historic test of the nation’s commitment to democracy.

“President Biden believes in the constitutional right of making your voice heard and treats protestors with respect and empathy — unlike Donald Trump,” said Biden campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa.

Biden campaign officials note that protest intensity hasn’t correlated with recent election outcomes. Trump won in 2016 despite the fierce resistance, and President Obama won despite demonstrations in 2012. They also point to Democratic wins in recent elections, including the 2022 midterms.

Some who organized protests against Trump in the past say the more muted approach this year is part of a deliberate effort to not elevate his comments and ideas.

Strongmen ”need an audience and they need gas and wind in their sails,” said Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of Women’s March, a group that began as a worldwide demonstration against Trump’s inauguration in 2017. “The best thing that people can do to combat Trump in many ways is not to give him a platform and gas.”

It’s a perspective, she said, that took hold during the 2020 campaign at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when many activist groups opposing Trump decided to “stand down.” Instead, demonstrations turned to broader demands for racial justice following George Floyd’s killing by police.

Annette Magnus, the former executive director of Battle Born Progress, a Nevada group that helped organize anti-Trump protests during the 2016 election, also described a strategic change.

 

 

 

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