About a hundred people gathered in the Old State Capitol on Saturday afternoon for the “Democracy Rising Rally” organized by Capital City Illinois Indivisible. The group is a local chapter of Indivisible, a national network formed in response to Donald Trump’s 20216 election.
Karen Broquet, one of the organizers of the rally, said the driving motive for the event is concerns the Trump administration may seek to overturn the November midterm elections.
“It’s not really a question of if there’s going to be efforts at federal interference into the election,” Broquet said. “It’s just a matter of how far they’re going to go.”
She said the event seeks to spur attendees to take a larger role to protect democracy and go from “activist to resister.”
“There are national plans to organize phone banks all across the nation to let people know that they’ve been purged and need to re-register,” Broquet said. “Before the vote and worst-case scenario – Who are you going to call if we have to hit the streets if there is an effort to actually overturn the results of an election, because that’s happened before?”
Attendees heading to Representative Hall for the event were directed to a table with a prompt: “Nominate Trump’s worst Monument project: Reflecting pool? Gilded horses? The Oval House? The Arch? The Ballroom?”
Ken Pacha, a well-known local activist, moderated the event. During the program, he asked the audience to share their reason for attending the rally. Members from the crowd shouted “Save our country!” and “Save our freedom!”
The program included renditions of the national anthem, the Black national anthem, sing-alongs including parodies poking fun of Trump’s reflecting pool paint job woes, speeches from Ken Page, president of the Springfield Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, and John Banks-Brooks, a former U.S. Congressional staffer.
Volunteers read excerpts of speeches from President Abraham Lincoln and President Barack Obama pertaining to the importance of protecting democracy.
Good. Easy to round the communists up!