Photos: Protesters Converge Downtown Despite No Trump Visit
By aaroncynic in News on Dec 2, 2016 5:20PM
More than a hundred protesters gathered downtown Thursday evening to protest President-elect Donald Trump, even though news of his possible appearance in Chicago turned out to just be speculation.
On Wednesday, unnamed sources told the Chicago Tribune that the Chicago Police Department was preparing for a visit from the President elect, who at the time was allegedly potentially staying at Trump Tower along the river in between visits on his victory “thank you” tour, which began Thursday night in Cincinnati.
“We are here to stand together in solidarity to celebrate the victory of Donald Trump not stepping another foot in this city,” activist Lamon Reccord told protesters. “We do not need a president who promotes sexism and racism. We do not need a president who promotes violence that thinks it’s gonna make America great again.”
While Trump representatives never confirmed he would be in Chicago, the group gathered and marched around the loop to call out his racist and xenophobic platform.
“He’s a coward, and he’s afraid of Chicago,” said Greg Lucero. “If you ain’t white bread, Donald Trump doesn’t like you. We are the ones through this system who are forced in the hardest, dangerous, most demeaning jobs. We clean your toilets, cut your lawns, shovel your rocks, take care of your kids. We’re the ones that the backbone of this economy is based on and he wants to deport us.”
Prior to celebrating himself in Ohio, Trump visited Carrier manufacturing, where he took credit for saving 1,000 jobs the company planned to move to Mexico.
“We have to bring our jobs back,” said Trump. “And when they expand — one of the things that made me so happy is when Greg said that they have over 10,000 jobs that they’re going to be producing in the very near future, and now he’s looking to the United States instead of outside of the United States, where almost all of those jobs would have gone.”
But while Trump is taking credit for saving the entire American economy, the company is still moving 1,300 jobs to Mexico, according to a report from Bloomberg. In addition, the company is getting $7 million in tax incentives from the state of Indiana.