Roman Kavanagh
Opinions Editor
On Feb. 5, 2024 hundreds of Rhode Islanders gathered at the Capitol Building in Providence to partake in the nationwide movement “50501,” shorthand for “50 protests, 50 states, one day.” The protests were in response to the over 50 executive orders that President Trump has issued in his first few weeks in office.
This week, I interviewed Kelly and Ollie, two first-year RIC students, as well as Jake, an art student attending MassArt in Boston, MA. Their experiences were overwhelmingly positive, and highlight the importance of using our voice for change as young Americans.
Question 1: What moved you to participate in this week’s protest?
“I’m really passionate about rejecting Project 2025,” Kelly said. “It’s really scary what’s going on right now.” As a queer woman living in America, Kelly has been keeping vigilant tabs on President Trump’s executive work. Trump has attacked the queer community from all angles in the past few weeks. He has declared “two official sexes” to be recognized on all federal documentation, including passports, dismantled government DEI programs, and overall inspired an anti-queer notion nationwide.
Ollie and Jake shared similar viewpoints. “I have been very scared for my safety as a person,” Ollie said. In the past few years, with a rise in anti-queer rhetoric among right-wing politicians and voters, the queer community among many other minority groups in America have felt a sort of stagnation and fear. “There wasn’t a lot going on in terms of organization,” Jake noted, referring to the past few years. “That felt the most apparent recently,” he said, “when all of these things started happening, and it felt like there was nothing we could do about it.”
The overarching thing that the three found they could “do about it” was to engage in civic action. “I’ve been feeling so much hurt and despair [recently] that I really needed to turn that into something actionable,” Kelly said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to sit with [myself].”
“I thought it would be nice to be there and add to the numbers…it felt necessary,” Jake said. “To show that people do care about this, it’s not for nothing, people aren’t doing nothing.”
Ollie put it simply, saying: “There’s a lot of threatening laws coming into place. I feel like if we don’t do something about that, otherwise, we might just go down quietly.”
Question 2: What do you have to say about Trump’s current administration?
“I think that Trump’s administration is harmful for just about everyone,” Kelly said. “It’s not a left-versus-right issue, red-versus-blue, it’s 1% against the rest of us.” Donald Trump has been getting a lot of negative feedback following his appointment of billionaire Elon Musk to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a department created to accommodate Musk specifically. “[I’m] not a fan of the whole ‘putting a man in charge who isn’t even supposed to be in charge thing,’ such as Elon Musk,” said Ollie. This prioritization of personal bonds and boons in government has disquieted many Americans, with many saying America has entered a fascist or near-fascist era in some respects.
Another big problem that many have had with Trump’s current administration is the sheer volume of executive orders and bizarre claims he has flooded the country with. As of Feb. 5, 2024, Trump has issued 84 executive actions.
“[He’s] pushing absurd legislation that people are talking about so that people talk less about the things that matter,” Jake speculated. One example he gave was the “Gulf of America,” formerly the Gulf of Mexico, a bizarre change that swathed the headlines with scandal, while meanwhile the steady flow of anti-trans, anti-immigrant rhetoric flowed through the cabinet.
Question 3: What was the environment like?
“It was a lot more peaceful than I thought it was going to be,” Ollie said. This was their first ever protest, they told me. They had been fearful, having gone through the laundry list of protest-safety protocols and seen videos and news reports in the past about protests gone violent. “I was kind of worried that if my face mask slipped off then I was going to be arrested or something, but it actually was nothing like that,” Ollie said. The police were a minimal force, sticking to the sidelines as the protestors marched around the capitol, passing out hand-warmers to one another and some even pushing strollers along with them.
“I was very happy to see that the crowd was extremely peaceful,” Kelly said, “It was passionate but it was peaceful…[with] over a hundred people. An amazing turnout.”
Boston seemed to have an even bigger turnout, according to Jake. “People were marching, and in big numbers,” he said. “We caught them as they were going towards the statehouse.” Like the march in Providence, the crowd was very kind and supportive of one another. “One person was giving out hand warmers, and my hands were going to fall off, so that was so nice. I needed those.”
All three students admitted to feeling anxious before arriving. Jake commented on the transformative power of seeing a community of like-minded people off of the internet and gathered together. “They were loud, and there were a lot of them and it was a good feeling.” He went with a friend from class, unsure about whether they would be one of a few people, or one of hundreds there. “As soon as we saw that ‘there are people here, there are things going on’ that was nice…It felt very hopeful”
The power of community is so potent in civic gatherings like these. “It made me feel like I was doing something,” Kelly said. “and that something was going to work.”
Question 4: What would you say to someone who’s never been to a protest before?
“It’s more than feeling good about yourself after the fact,” Ollie said. “You feel like you’re doing something for your community…You recognize that ‘hey, I’m doing this thing for me, and this is important to me, and I’m very glad that I can exercise this right as a person.’”
“I had class before and after the protest,” Jake told me. “I made time for it even between those things because I thought it was important.” As students, we are in a unique position, many of us just beginning to enter the world as adults. It is the prime time that we begin getting civically involved, and this goes far beyond voting every four years. Civic action like this is “the reason why, as a woman,” Kelly said, “I have the right to have an education, to vote and to marry another woman.”
In the end, Kelly says, “There was nothing to be scared of.” Of course, protests are variable creatures, and there is always the need to be cautious. You should do your research on protest safety, stay with your group and keep yourself safe above all else. But if you allow fear to stagnate you, no change will ever be achieved.
“I think if I hadn’t gone,” Kelly told me, “I would’ve felt so much worse than I did in those few seconds before I joined those other people and started marching.”
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