Raskin, Others Ignite Crowd to Fight for Progressive Values
Bob Jones of Annapolis was part of the crowd. | Photos by Douglas Tallman
Nearly a dozen politicians stood before the Silver Spring crowd Sunday, but none riled them up like Rep. Jamie Raskin.
“We are not going to lie down and let a malignant, obsessive narcissist and compulsive liar, and his hand-picked Harvard Business School prepped-out alt-right Goldman Sachs executives extreme rightwing nationalists in that cabinet of billionaires and bullies and bigot to destroy what our forebears built. We’re not going to let that happen,” he said.
An estimated 600 people crowded in the Great Hall at the Silver Spring Civic Building to hear speech after speech, part of the Takoma Park Mobilization to invigorate local Democrats in the conflicts ahead with President Donald Trump and the Republican majorities in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.
More heard speeches outside the building, designed to motivate an audience to organize opposition to such as deportation orders by the White House and the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
More than 2,400 free tickets were distributed, said Seth Grimes, one of the organizers. Sunday night he estimated the total attendance at around 2,000.
Ann Labriola of Bethesda was at the event with her husband, retired attorney Bruce Coolidge. Labriola said she was a retired physician who worked with veterans who had seen her daughter benefit from the Affordable Care Act.
Grace Kim of Baltimore said she attended the rally to support Sen. Ben Cardin’s investigation of the Russian interference in American elections.
Bob Jones, wearing the pink hat famous from the Women’s March on Washington and a black “Resist” T-shirt, said: “We let the Republicans in, and this is what they do.”
In his speech, Raskin described how threats to liberal democracies appeared in France and other countries.
“We’ve to wake up every day and fight like hell for liberal democracy, not just in Maryland, not just in the United States, but all over the world,” Raskin said.
“The women’s march should have taught themselves something by now,” he said. “If they think that we are going to stand by and watch them repeal all the progress that we’ve made for America and humanity over the 20th century, then they must not know who we are.”
Ann Labiola of Bethesda.
Pamela Levine of Bethesda.
Cheryl Marken of Bethesda.
Grace Kim of Baltimore.
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