‘We’re not intimidated’: Chicago protesters head to Milwaukee for RNC

CHICAGO — As the Republican National Convention kicked off Monday in Milwaukee, with former President Donald Trump formally clinching the presidential nomination and announcing Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate, hundreds of protesters in Chicago crossed the Illinois-Wisconsin state line to raise their voices for liberal causes.

They joined the thousands of protesters in Milwaukee who planned to march on five pillars: to fight the Republican Party; to defend women’s, LGBTQ and reproductive rights; to advocate for immigrants; to promote peace, justice and equity; and to support the Palestinian people.

By 10 a.m., Red Arrow Park, just east of the main convention site, was no longer a regular park. It had transformed into a demonstration area with a temporary platform and organizations situated in its various corners.

Signs that read “Peace, Justice and Equity for All”, “We Can No Longer Afford the Rich” and “Stand With Palestine” were placed in the grass and picked up by arriving protesters. The park rang with speeches against Trump and calls to end the “racist ideology” of the Republicans.

David Phelps, an abortion rights advocate from the Chicago area who works in tech, said he boarded an early morning train to Milwaukee because he felt the upcoming presidential election in November could be “very depressing” for the future of reproductive rights in the United States.

Weeks after the second anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, the Supreme Court has become a central issue in the election. Though there are no open vacancies on the court, the president may make appointments in the next election — which Phelps said could have a ripple effect on women seeking safe abortions in Illinois and elsewhere.

“My way of dealing with it is doing something about it,” Phelps said.

In one corner of the park, a group of middle-aged white men from the Official Street Preachers organization wearing T-shirts with anti-gay messaging held up placards calling abortion domestic violence. They condemned queer people and Islam in the name of Jesus Christ, and were seen arguing with protesters.

David Grisham, from the preachers’ group, differentiated himself and his group from the other protesters at the park.

“They’re protesting, we are proselytizing. One is purely political and the other is purely religious,” Grisham said.

Jeff Fleming, director of communications and public engagement for Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, said law enforcement officials were “well-equipped to manage the issues the city is responsible for” just days after Trump was the target of an apparent assassination attempt Saturday at a Pennsylvania rally.

The gunman who shot at Trump grazed his ear. One spectator was killed and two others were critically wounded. The gunman, who was not inside the rally but on a nearby roof, was killed after the event.

Despite the shooting, the Milwaukee Police Department said it will suspend a city rule that requires the release of body-camera footage within 15 days after police shootings or in-custody deaths.

Though no weapons of any kind will be allowed within the inner perimeter — a metal fence surrounding the buildings housing the RNC events — people are allowed to carry guns openly within blocks of the convention under Wisconsin state law.

Protesters worried about potential clashes with police.

“(We’re) coming with our battery packs fully charged and our cameras on to document anything that the city or the cops might do that violates peoples’ rights,” said Andy Thayer, a Chicago activist, who arrived in Milwaukee Monday.

Thayer said the attack had brought increased scrutiny to Milwaukee from politicians on all sides.

“The local authorities have very typically tried to raise the specter of chaos and violence to try and scare people away from exercising their First Amendment rights,” said Thayer, who planned to champion abortion and LGBTQ rights and has protested at both Republican and Democratic political conventions in the past.

Large protests were expected at the RNC long before the assassination attempt.

The city of Milwaukee secured a $25 million increase on a federal security grant to help host the presidential nominating convention, according to Fleming. Chicago received the same amount for the Democratic National Convention, which will be held next month, from Aug. 19-22. Approximately 80 officers from Chicago joined dozens of police departments from across the country in Milwaukee to help manage protests. Fleming said the Pennsylvania attack hadn’t changed any logistical plans regarding personnel and equipment to control outside protesters. “There’s a formal process of reaching agreements with the individual law enforcement agencies that are represented here, so that wasn’t something we could change in 12 hours,” Fleming said.

The convention is being held in the Fiserv Forum, home of the Milwaukee Bucks, from Monday to Thursday, with 2,500 attending delegates expected to formally nominate Trump.

Omar Flores, co-chair of the Coalition to March on the RNC, said at a news conference Sunday that protesters in and outside Milwaukee had spent nearly two years planning with the city, engaging in similar legal battles to Chicago groups who have fought for months to get permits to march within “sight and sound” of the Democratic convention in August.“We’ve always prepared for the worst and we’re expecting the best,” Flores said.

Several other organizations were present at the park including CodePink, Freedom Road Socialist Organization and several groups supporting Palestine.

Brigid Miller, of Chicago, stood at Red Arrow Park with fellow members of CodePink.

“I think the reason we’re here is to show that the power doesn’t sit with the politicians, it’s with the people, with us,” Miller said.

Lapis Marigolv, also from Chicago, stressed that it was just as important to show up at the RNC as the DNC.

“We’re here to say no fascist trump, no genocide Joe, that the whole system is about to go. They both don’t represent the masses of the people,” Marigolv said.

Palestinian-American Kevin Aldwaik traveled from Minneapolis with a group of his friends to protest the RNC. He stood off to the side, silently watching the crowd, holding a large Palestinian flag.

“I don’t think anything better can happen for Palestine if Trump is elected and I don’t mind if our government supports foreign governments, but this is breaking U.S. law,” he said.

Faayani Aboma, a member of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, which has an affiliate group in Milwaukee, said at least two dozen protesters from the group in Chicago were carpooling to the convention Monday morning. “We’re not intimidated. We’re strong as a big unit,” Aboma said.Protesters said that after they wrap up in Wisconsin, they plan to move south to Chicago to do the same in August for the DNC.

“I’ve been a life-long advocate for human rights and I cannot allow genocide to happen without saying something about it,” said Ellie Feyans-McCool, of the Women Against Military Madness group in Minneapolis. “I haven’t bought my ticket to Chicago yet, but I plan to be there.”

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