Thousands Say "Hands Off" in SF Civic Center Protest

Photos: Leon Kunstenaar

(San Francisco, April 5) - From food banks that provide food in areas where people are "food insecure" to a program that assists with heating fuel to those who need to chose between being hungry or cold, to Social Security that seventy million need to survive and paid into throughout their working years, the Trump administration is dismantling the services by firing the workers. This under the claim of "inefficiency."

As he monetizes the Presidency (five million dollars for dinner with the president and sells Trump branded merchandise ($55 for a MAGA cap), Trump is implementing a $1.5 trillion tax increase disguised as tariffs. The tax is regressive; that extra couple of hundred dollars for a washing washing machine that you will pay won't matter if you are wealthy, but if you are of low income, it will matter very much.

The money has to be raised because, simply put, the country is going broke. This is due to the huge "defense" expenditures, greater than the next ten nations combined, and the minuscule taxes levied on the wealthy. Furthermore, It costs about $700 billion a year to just service, not pay off, this debt. For perspective, national healthcare for all would cost about $20 billion per year.

Trump is imposing this additional tax on working people tax to ease the debt and to allow additional tax cuts for the wealthy.

As he arrests ever more people who have broken no laws but disagree with him politically, the word "fascist" is increasingly heard. It was on many posters at the demonstration, one of thousands throughout the country demanding "Hands OFF." Many feel that, as one sign said, "never again is now."

Many demonstrators noted Trump's amusing (sort of) many incompetences. One showed an angry penguin, presumably an inhabitant of one of the penguins-only islands on which he has imposed a stiff tariff, protesting fascism. Note that the tariff will not be paid by the penguins but by consumers in the US who purchase whatever it is that the penguins produce.

Many attacked Elon Musk, there was a mock-up of a Cybertruck in flames. They lamented Trumps attack on democracy, Social Security, the environment, the education department, universities, installing his unelected Rasputin, working people, the press, LGBT+ people, government employees, women's rights, the rule of law, Medicaid, climate science, Greenland, Canada, working people, and non-white persons.

See all high resolution photos here.