SANTA CRUZ — Thousands of activists geared up in plazas and on street corners around California and across the country Tuesday to support the impeachment of President Donald Trump.
By Tuesday afternoon, more than 360 people had registered to attend a rally at the Santa Cruz Town Clock organized by Santa Cruz Indivisible.
More than 210 people were registered to attend a separate rally in Watsonville City Plaza.
Carson Kelly, Santa Cruz Indivisible’s executive director, said for him the rallies are about sending a message that presidents must respect the rule of law — regardless of political party.
“This is about the Constitution,” Kelly said. “It’s about the fact that we have checks and balances in our government. It’s about rooting out corruption in our government. It just so happens that this particular president has made some pretty blatant moves on self interest and leveraging foreign policy to his advantage for personal gain.”
Shortly after the rally’s official start time of 5:30 p.m. more than 300 people had gathered at the clock tower.
Chants of “Hey hey, ho ho, Donald Trump has got to go,” where heard as others waved signs including a nearly 20 foot banner that read “Impeach” and a 12 foot tall American flag that had flown above the U.S. Capitol building.
“I as a citizen demand his removal,” said Daniel Cooper, 73, a Santa Cruz resident who served in the Vietnam War. “In fact, I would do a citizen’s arrest if I could.”
“Removal is not enough,” added Cooper, explaining that he wants not only to see the president impeached and removed from office, but prosecuted for what he believes are Trump’s crimes.
Protesters are hoping Trump will be held accountable for asking the Ukrainian president to investigate political rival Joe Biden and his son when the House of Representatives votes on articles of impeachment Wednesday evening. Many are also hoping to turn out in force to rebuke Trump’s recent suggestions that Americans don’t care about the issue, scoffing at low TV ratings during the impeachment hearings and ridiculing congressional efforts as “impeachment light.”
“We know Trump has a fragile ego and cares about numbers,” said Heather Valentine, 40, who is organizing the San Jose rally at the corner of Stevens Creek and Winchester boulevards where Santana Row and Valley Fair shopping centers meet. “It’s the height of Christmas shopping and at rush hour, so it should attract a lot of attention.”
Across the country, more than 600 demonstrations, organized in part by MoveOn.org, were planned for this evening, with more than 200,000 signed up by mid-morning. In the greater Bay Area, from Hollister to Napa, more than two dozen rallies were planned. In San Francisco alone, more than 3,000 people have registered for the event in front of the Federal Building on 7th Street.
Along with rallies in Berkeley, Emeryville, Lafayette and Livermore, more than 1,000 have signed up for a demonstration at the Grand Lake Theater intersection in Oakland. A list of local protests can be found at MoveOn.org.
“We’ve had rule of law in this country for centuries and if we don’t insist that the president is not above the law, I think our Republic is doomed,” Rosenblum, a 65-year-old retired chemist from Palo Alto, said. “That’s why people are turning out.”
The rallies come after a sharp decline in take-it-to-the-streets activism sparked by Trump’s first year in office. This news organization on Tuesday highlighted the drop off in Trump-inspired protests: A survey of news clips found the number of organized Trump protests that brought at least hundreds of people to the streets has plummeted from 32 in 2017 to six in 2018 to just two this year.
