March on the RNC protesters gather for a demonstration on the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday.
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MILWAUKEE — As Republican delegates gathered Monday at Fiserv Forum for the first day of the RNC, progressive activists gathered outside. Carrying handmade signs denouncing “the Republican racist and reactionary agenda,” protesters took to the streets, trying to shout their message through the U.S. Secret Service barricades and fences surrounding official RNC grounds.
“It’s hot, but I’m glad we’re here,” said Lisa Taylor, who marched with other members of the Progressive Labor Party.
Organizers predicted that more than 5,000 people from across the United States would participate in the protest in solidarity with Donald Trump, The Republican presidential candidate. The crowd that gathered for the march in hot, humid downtown Milwaukee turned out to be far smaller than that, though a wide range of causes and issues were represented.
Nadine Seiler wears a “Stop Project 2025” t-shirt at the rally for the March on the RNC on the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday.
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“Trump is the reward for our lack of participation,” worried Nadine Seiler, who came from Waldorf, Maryland, to stand in the scorching sun with a colorful homemade banner and bright blue eyeliner.
Seiler said her biggest concern is Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s 900-page plan to reform the federal government. The conservative organization says Trump will embrace the plan on his first day back in the Oval Office if elected — though the former president has tried to distance himself from the initiative.
“I know they want to erase Black people and our contributions, I know they want to eliminate the Department of Education, I know they want to defund the FBI…and use the Justice Department to go after their ‘enemies,’ which is anyone who disagrees with their fascist policies,” she continued. “Oh yeah, I know enough about that.”
Renay Blanford, an Army veteran, is more concerned about a second term for Donald Trump as commander in chief. “He took an oath when he was president to defend the Constitution of the United States,” she said. “And he didn’t do that during the insurrection on January 6.”
According to organizers, more than 120 different progressive causes were represented at the march, including abortion, immigrant rights, LGBTQ+ rights and those opposed to Israel’s war on Gaza. But the overall message was anti-Trump, which New York City salesman Stan Sinberg was happy to convey in the form of buttons.
March on the RNC protesters gather for a demonstration on the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday.
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March on the RNC protesters gather for a demonstration on the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 15, 2024.
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“So I have ‘Non-Felon for President,’” he says, gesturing to rows of slogan-emblazoned props displayed on a handcart. “I have ‘Another Nasty Woman against Trump,’ which is another throwback,” Sinberg says, referring to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, when he began touring the world as a button salesman.
“If he died tomorrow, I’d be a little conflicted,” he said with a laugh, as a few potential clients looked at his offerings. “I’d be very happy he was gone, but my business would be immediately closed.”
The attempted assassination of Trump days earlier loomed over the rally, as protesters marched past lines of police on bicycles and horses in several states — a recent reminder of the tragedy in Pennsylvania. Participants quickly disavowed the act of political violence, though some joked that they wanted their chants to reach “earshot” of the former president.
March on the RNC protesters gather for a demonstration on the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 15, 2024.
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A guide waits for a police officer to clear the way for protesters at the March on the RNC during the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday.
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The RNC March Coalition fought hard over the final route of the march, to ensure that its chants would have at least a chance of being heard by RNC attendees, and sued the City of Milwaukee and the U.S. Secret Service over the security zone that would have pushed the march too far out for RNC attendees to hear.
Protest organizers lost that lawsuit, but reached a “tentative agreement” with the city to allow the march to move closer to the convention’s Fiserv Forum. But after all that, protesters say Republican delegates aren’t really the audience they need to reach.
“We’re not really here for the Republican Party, we’re really here to advocate for the people,” said Mennelli Escarez, who was there with other Filipino-American student activists from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
March on the RNC protesters gather for a demonstration on the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 15, 2024.
Grace Widyatmadja/NPR
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“We’re also here to denounce both parties because they’re two sides of the same coin,” she said, touching on a common theme in this crowd: dissatisfaction with President Biden as a candidate as well.
Escarez believes the real opportunity for protest will come next month in his college town of Chicago, where delegates may be more willing to listen at the Democratic National Convention.
“It just prepared us and got us in shape,” she said.
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