Demonstrators took aim at the Trump administration’s domestic and foreign policy agendas, among others

By Art Van Kraft for Ashland.news

About 100 people descended on Ashland Plaza Saturday, July 26, for a rally and food drive in opposition to President Donald Trump’s federal tax and spending bill and other policies.

Organized by the grassroots group Oregon District 2 Indivisible (ORD2), the group is speaking out against the newly signed legislation, which delivers the largest tax cut in U.S. history, according to the federal Ways and Means Committee. 

Along with the federal tax and spending bill, demonstrators also took aim at the Trump Administration’s handling of foreign policy and immigration, among others.  

Demonstrators like Michelle Bradley, an Ashland resident, said she came out to speak out on the federal tax and spending bill’s cuts to benefits like SNAP, along with the administration’s immigration policies and support of “genocide in Gaza.”

Trump’s immigration policies, she said, have been personal for her.

Bradley said her best friend’s mother — an undocumented immigrant — who has lived in the U.S. for years now fears leaving her home due to Trump’s immigration policies.

“You see people screaming at ICE agents that ‘I am a United States citizen I have my I.D.’ Are they listening to those people? No,” Bradley said.

Terrie Martin, a rally organizer, said the theme of Saturday’s event was “families first.” According to an ORD2 press release, the recently passed tax and spending bill threatens to strip families of Medicaid and SNAP benefits by changing eligibility requirements, leaving families without food. Martin said on Sunday, July 27, that people donated 300 pounds of food.

Martin said ORD2 has opposed Trump for two terms. She said the group has worked to educate people on knowing who their representatives are in Congress and how to contact them.

She said Trump’s policies will take away graduate school loans, SNAP benefits, Medicaid, the federal-state program that ensures health coverage for the most needy and those with disabilities, and tax credits to offset premiums for health insurance.

“We think the future is going to be very hard and we want to inform people on how they can fight back and make a difference,” Martin said. 

Martin said the organization Indivisible, formed in 2016 as a reaction to Trump’s first term, put out a guide that, in part, urged people to call their representative in Congress 100 times a day. The staffers in those congressional offices tally each call on a sheet and when they reach 100, the staff have to make a report, which carry an “enormous weight,” Martin said. she said. When

Caren Burgess, another organizer with the group, said the event was about more than protesting. Burgess said the group collected food for struggling families and those who were impacted by the latest “purges of services.”

Martin said on Sunday that the group collected dozens of stories from those in attendance about how the tax and spending bill will impact them and other people in Southern Oregon. Those anecdotes, she said, will be sent to Oregon’s lone Republican congressman, Cliff Bentz, who voted for the bill.

She said the group also collected 300 pounds of food for the Ashland Food Bank.

Another demonstrator, Denise Krause, a member of the Rogue Valley Transportation District board of directors, said on Saturday that there is so much happening and it is important to “keep up the pressure” by speaking out.

Protests in Ashland tend to draw older crowds, she said. However, she said she saw younger people at a demonstration in Medford. Young people, like her son, are beginning to see that they “need to speak up.”

Foreign policy grievances

Payam Sadri, an Ashland resident, had grievances about the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Sadri said he was collecting signatures for a petition to bring to the board of directors of the Ashland Food Co-op asking members to “divest” from any company complicit in human rights violations. Sadri is asking other Ashland businesses to follow suit until the U.S. and Israeli government end the conflict and “illegal occupation of Palestine,” he said.

“I think the Trump administration has been very supportive of Israel’s campaign in Gaza and without the administration’s support the genocide would not be possible. There’s an easy correlation being made of the money we spend overseas and the lack of resources that are being provided domestically. I think it would be very wise for our country to focus on the domestic needs of our people and less about military operations with foreign nations,” Sadri said.

Saturday’s event was peaceful and well-received, with cars honking in apparent support.

Art Van Kraft is an artist living in Ashland and a former broadcast journalist and news director of a Los Angeles-area National Public Radio affiliate. Email him at artukraft@msn.com.