A single protest doesn’t cause social or political change, but a sustained protest effort can. That is what motivated nearly 100 people to show up at Veterans Park and to continue the protests against the actions being taken by President Donald Trump’s Administration, Saturday afternoon. For this follow up to the No Kings protest on October 18, protesters said they wanted to catch out of towners on their way out of the University of Michigan football game, in order to make sure they aren’t, in the words of co-organizer Corky Wattles, “preaching to the choir.”
“The very main thing is the deployment of military forces against U.S. citizens. As I say that sentence, it is rage inducing,” said Jarad Guerrero-Salinas, a protester who retired after serving as a meteorologist in the Air Force for 20 years. He was at the last No Kings. “That’s not what I fought for, for 20 years of my life, to try and clean up this mess that we took care of after World War Two. Fuck no. I’m not going to stay on my couch. Fuck Trump! Fuck ICE!”
Indeed, the tactics of Immigration and Customs Enforcement have received widespread criticism for its heightened aggressiveness under the Trump Administration, a lack of due process, citizens being deported to foreign countries, agents wearing masks without any sort of identification and its rampant racial profiling recently approved of in a Supreme Court ruling. The government shutdown currently underway also came up, Saturday.
The federal government impasse is over Senate Democrats refusing to go along with the plan recently passed by the Republicans who control Congress because it would take away the subsidies that make Obamacare work. Prices are already going to go up in those marketplaces by 26% next year according to KFF. Republicans insist that they will negotiate on that issue after the Democrats pass their version of the bill, but Democrats say that extending those subsidies is the price for them doing that.
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payments stopped on November 1 are yet to restart. But remember that if you are on SNAP: you can still use unspent SNAP benefits if you still have any.
“SNAP is gone. It might be gone for a short time, or a long time. I live in Lima Township and support them; I also see that it’s much more than SNAP,” Filipiak said. When asked about her motivations, Filipiak said “We need regular people stepping up, so I said I would do it” and she found several people from her social group showing up with her. She takes issue with federal funding that the Trump Administration through its One Big Beautiful Bill Act and budget impoundment actions have taken away to social assistance programs “that allowed them to buy in bulk to get stuff.”
Prices in general were brought up frequently in the crowd. Susan Filipiak was gathering food for Food Gatherers, which has seen increased demand as food prices have gone up 2.8% since January and 18.20% since 2022 according to CBS News. Even President Trump himself has acknowledged that inflation was a big part of why he beat President Joe Biden, and then Vice-President Kamala Harris, in his reelection campaign. Filipiak also helps Faith In Action. The Trump Administration has stopped payments for the 41 million Americans living off food stamps during the shutdown, despite having a $5 billion contingency fund available to it. To put that in perspective—that means that one in eight Americans has at least temporarily lost their primary way of being able to feed themselves.
Numerous states are attempting to use their own budgets to fill the gap. The Democratic Party-controlled Michigan State Senate voted 27-4 to pass a package of $71 million in emergency funding the day before Halloween to keep all 1.4 million of Michigan’s SNAP recipients fed. Speaker Matt Hall of the Republican-controlled State House called the effort “fake”, “performative” and “political” according to MLive, Michigan Public and Michigan Advance.
Two federal judges ordered the Trump Administration to resume SNAP payments on Friday. The Trump Administration announced on Monday that they will only release partial SNAP payments. The Trump Administration is attempting to appeal the court order.
Republican politicians and some talking heads have taken the position that food stamp and other assistance beneficiaries are simply lazy and won’t work. But the Department of Agriculture found in 2023 that 34.30% of SNAP payments go to households with kids, 33% go to the elderly, 17.60% to disabled people, and only 16.80% went to childless households made up of people 18 to 49. And even in those households, many people usually are employed.
SNAP costs the federal government $8 billion a month to run. That is $96 billion per year out of a $1.8 trillion budget.
In addition to the food gathered on Saturday, a link was provided to allow further food or monetary donations. Food Gatherers remains the port of first call for households and individuals experiencing food insecurity.
Food Gatherers was not available to comment when Current reached out.
RELATED: No Kings Protests Swell Across Washtenaw County on October 18
“I think when the Administration started sending the National Guard to all of the cities, I just thought ‘that’s it’ I’ve got to start speaking up. To have our own military against our own citizens is beyond me from a democracy standpoint “ Lisa Tomey, a protester, said. “Whatever they’re doing with the immigrants, the inhumane conditions… If we’re not going to fight for immigrants, the next level is that they’re going to start going after citizens. My family was immigrants 100 years ago, and that’s what our nation was made out of. And third, I am very, very concerned about what is happening in Congress. We don’t seem to be able to make through. This Administration is lawless. And we are not following the rule of law. They’re not above the law.”
The previous No Kings was orders of magnitude larger. An estimated seven million people protested nationwide on October 18. Within Washtenaw County, thousands of people protested in places as politically, demographically, and culturally different as Ypsilanti and Whitmore Lake. The Trump Administration has been dismissive of these protests, and the Republican line has been that the No Kings protests are “hate America” rallies. More protests are in the works in the near future; including possibly staging another No Kings protest during the U of M’s final at-home game of the season against Ohio State on November 29.
“I’m disappointed. People need to understand … we need to keep the momentum going. No King’s national is only launching them every couple of months. That’s not enough. It’s up to local organizers to keep the momentum going,” Wattles said. “One big problem is that everyone’s default for finding events is Mobilize, and Mobilize is not user-friendly enough to facilitate events like this, that are not organized by a national call to action.” Although she added that she had been at this for a week on social media and “for a week, this is not a bad turn out.”
Most of the horns that blared periodically as traffic moved up and down Maple was supportive, although there were a few aggressive passers by who tried to use their cars revving engines to intimidate protesters, they were few and far between. Wattles said she thought that the response from traffic was a bit more aggressive this time.
Tomey said she “never felt the rule of law threatened the way I feel now” and added “I’m doing this for my daughter. I’m doing this for my grandkids. I want to live in a democracy, and I really feel like we’re under threat internally.”
Before agreeing to be recorded for an interview, Tomey said that before the current Administration took office, she would have never have thought twice about speaking to a journalist, but had to speak about it now. When asked about it, Tomey said “I’m concerned about free speech … And it doesn’t matter that I’m a Democrat. I’d be thrilled to have George Bush in. I’d be thrilled to even have Cheney in. But why am I afraid? Why do I have to think about it a little bit? The implications. It’s gotten so negative. We’re here protesting. We’ve got my granddaughter here. I’m looking at what’s going on in every single car, what’s going on in there, because people are getting crazy. So yeah, I had to think about it. But the longer I thought about it, I just thought … we have to have our voice out there.”
Drew Saunders is a freelance business and environmental journalist who grew up just outside of Ann Arbor. He covers local business developments, embraces his foodie side with reviews restaurants, obsesses over Michigan's environmental state, loves movies, and feels spoiled by the music he gets to review for Ann Arbor!
