Public Square gathering part of national pro-democracy movement

“We are standing here because nobody in Washington is standing up,” said Cindy Tyler, who was waving the largest of the flags among the group. “We’re standing here because this is our First Amendment right. We’re here to make sure that people know we are not going to sit down. The north country is not a bunch of pushovers. We deserve to be heard just as much as everybody else in this country. So, we are standing here and proving that the American right to protest is still strong.”

Opponents of Donald Trump have been highly critical of his moves following his return for a second presidential term last month. His strategy has been described as “flooding the zone” which has left those opponents dazed, angry and confounded. The president’s actions have ranged from pardoning and commuting the sentences of more than 1,500 people charged with crimes in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol to signing a blizzard of executive orders ranging from immigration to health and medical research. As of Wednesday afternoon, his latest action, as listed on the official White House website: “Withdrawing the United States From and Ending Funding to Certain United Nations Organizations and Reviewing United States Support to All International Organizations.”

There was also criticism of Elon Musk at the rally who the Trump administration considers a “special government employee.” His Department of Government Efficiency has triggered legal objections, with officials in at least a half-dozen federal agencies and departments raising alarms about whether the billionaire’s assault on government is breaking the law.

Christopher McLaughlin of Watertown was carrying a sign at the rally that read, “Take Back Our Country From the Billionaires.”

“I worried that it would be this bad,” McLaughlin said of the results of November’s presidential election. “But I think things are a little worse than I thought they might be.”

McLaughlin said there are several things that he is most worried about. “One of my friends is a physician with the VA. He can’t access any information from the CDC or from the National Institutes of Health. Those computer systems have been completely blacked out.”

Bloomberg reported Sunday that, “Key information and datasets have vanished from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s websites, alarming epidemiologists, other scientists and concerned American citizens.”

“We can’t access information about RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), norovirus, covid, seasonal flu, bird flu. These are things our federal government has been doing for over 40 years. This is unprecedented. Why have they been blacked out? I can’t think of a good reason for that. A lot of these executive orders are illegal and they need to be done through Congress, not through the president.”

McLaughlin is also concerned about the elimination of funding for various programs, specifically one that was created by George W. Bush in 2003 — the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief to combat global HIV/AIDS. It has supported antroretroviral treatment for millions of people and has enabled millions of babies to be born HIV-free to mothers living with HIV. It has also helped to prevent HIV infection around the world.

“The doctors and nurses who treat these people all of a sudden lost funding,” McLaughlin said. “They can’t get access to computer systems which tell then who needs what treatment and when. This is very dangerous. People are going to die.”

But Musk worries McLaughlin more than Trump.

“I accepted Trump,” he said. “He was elected and even won the popular vote. Elon Musk is not elected. He’s from South Africa, can’t be president and needs to stay the hell out of our government. I think Musk is even more reckless than Trump. He’s irresponsible when it comes to government. He’s incompetent.”

Wednesday’s rally was part of a national grass-roots effort that originally called for “50 states, 50 protests in one day” aka, the 50501 Movement.

“This is in solidarity with the national movement,” rally organizer Janice E. O’Connell said.

She then read from a prepared statement.

“We are here today to stand in support of Democracy and to stand with Americans across the country. We demand transparency and accountability from our government. We demand illegal executive orders be repealed.”

Other demands/rejections:

“The jobs of career civil servants loyal to the Constitution are safe and that citizens are treated with dignity and respect.”

“We reject attempts to bypass Congress and deny citizens of their rights.”

“We reject our government run by oligarchs.”

O’Connell ended with an observation.

“Our democracy is ours if we can keep it and we are here today because we believe we have to.”