With chants of “No Kings” and support from others honking their horns as they drove past the Shawano County Courthouse the morning of June 14, the Shawano-Menominee Counties Democratic Party joined millions of other protesters around the nation opposed to President Trump, his actions and proposed policies.
Several local residents offered brief speeches mixed in with songs as about 250 people held up poster and signs in opposition to the president.
“In the beginning, they said they were going to deport the undocumented criminals out of America,” Jack Young said. “Then it became just the undocumented. Then it became the documented, but they said the wrong thing about the wrong people at the wrong time. Then all of a sudden they start taking U.S. citizens and taking them out of the country to foreign prisons in El Salvador without so much as a court hearing.
“I don’t know about you, but I looked it up in the Constitution, and that ain’t legal. When you think, ‘Oh, that’s just some undocumented person,’ what if it’s you next? What if they take you and don’t give you a trial, and send you to jail or prison, and you never have a chance to communicate with your family? This is the risk that we have right now.”
Some demonstrators carried American flags upside down, while others had posters comparing Trump to Hitler.
An SUV with a handful of counterprotesters appeared across the street from the No Kings rally. One man with a bullhorn shouted “White power” and “I’m proud to be a racist” while offering up a Nazi salute.
From the steps of the courthouse, protesters were urged to ignore the man and stay peaceful. Many lined up along Main Street with the signs, but other than boos and chants of “Shame!” there was no other confrontation between the sides.
A lone city police officer stood watch from the edges of the protest.
Dr. Heather Nennig told the gathering of her medical training days in California.
“We saw patients who died from preventable cancers like cervical cancer. We saw patients who had limbs removed because of diabetic ulcers, because of people who had cuts on their feet and didn’t come in until it was too late,” she said. “We saw moms who didn’t come in for prenatal care, because they didn’t have care or were afraid to come in and get their care.”
She said medical care is a human right for everyone.
“They didn’t get care because they were undocumented workers. They were migrant farm workers. They were poor that couldn’t afford Medicaid or didn’t know how to get Medicaid,” Nennig said. “They waited, because they didn’t have the insurance that we all take for granted when we have that insurance.”
Nennig said the current bill in front of Congress would results in cuts of more than $8 billion from Medicaid in the next 10 years, as well as reducing subsidies for the Affordable Care Act.
It’s been reported that 15 million Americans will lose their health care due to this bill, and 15,000 people will die due to this bill every year.
“We are going to start seeing this kind of care everywhere, not just at places like county hospitals,” she said. “The hospital just down the street, we’re going to start seeing people who don’t have care, and they’re going to wait, and they’re going to wait until it’s too late. When they come in, they might have to lose a limb. They might not make it. They might die, because they didn’t get the care they needed in a timely fashion.”
Nennig said the change will affect everyone, even those with private insurance.
When people without proper insurance don’t seek medical help until it’s too late, the costs of that care is more than the preventive care. Those higher costs get passed along to insurance companies, who pass it along to the consumers through higher premiums, copays and other fees.
Demonstrations like Shawano’s were held in large and small cities across the nation. Trump was in Washington for a military parade marking the Army’s 250th anniversary that coincided with the president’s 79th birthday.
kpasson@newmedia-wi.com
‘No Kings’ movement draws large crowd in Shawano
