WASHINGTON — After President Donald Trump’s inauguration came the protest rallies and marches, which show no sign of abating. Now his supporters say it’s time to show the nation that Trump and his agenda have loads of support.
They plan to demonstrate just that during “Spirit of America” rallies across the country Feb. 27 and March 4. Cleveland’s rally is March 4.
“It’s to demonstrate support for Donald Trump and the patriots of America,” said Mark Skoda, a Cleveland native who’s a leader in the Tennessee Tea Party movement, in a telephone interview.
“These rallies are inclusive, non-partisan, and open to anyone supporting President Trump in his efforts to bring back manufacturing jobs to America, put the security of our nation ahead of political correctness, improve our infrastructure, revitalize the inner cities and secure our nation’s borders,” said a statement from Debbie Dooley, a national co-founder of the Tea Party movement and an organizer of the Spirit of America rallies.
First came the anti-Trump marches
Breitbart News, a conservative website with ties to the Trump administration, first reported on the pro-Trump rallies. The primary group behind the rallies is Main Street Patriots, whose co-founder, Bedford resident Ralph King, was a Trump elector from Ohio. King also co-founded the Cleveland Tea Party.
Main Street Patriots list a 12:30 p.m. rally on March 4 in Voinovich Bicentennial Park in Cleveland. Others are listed in Cincinnati, Mansfield, Springfield, Jackson and Bridgeport.
Plans for many of the rallies are still shaping up. But organizers in Tennessee have announced a program and agenda for their Nashville rally March 4, including an appearance by an Ohio Tea Party leader, Tom Zawistowski of Portage County, according to the Tennessee Star. Cleveland.com has put in calls and emails in an attempt to get more information from Zawistowski.
Tom Zawistowki has found support where he didn’t expect it
The goals at some rallies will go beyond showing support for Trump’s agenda, which includes cutting federal interference with state and local affairs, building a wall on the Mexican border and preventing terrorism by restricting entry to the United States from seven majority-Muslim countries.
Promoters of the Tennessee rally, for example, are pushing for impeachment of the federal district judges in Washington state and Virginia who issued temporary court orders to halt Trump’s visa ban. Skoda told cleveland.com that supporters “recognize that impeachment is a long haul.”
Skoda told the Tennessee Star that the judges “expose an allegiance not to the Constitution to which they swore an oath to uphold, but instead to a Leftist ideology that is, in fact, anti-Constitutional.”
EXCLUSIVE: Spirit of America Rally in Nashville March 4: Support Trump, Call for Impeachment of Fed Judges https://t.co/CS09GNwuMO pic.twitter.com/EADdPBEJ48
— Tennessee Star (@TheTNStar) February 20, 2017
The Ninth U.S Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the temporary halt. That decision, too, was more about politics than law, Skoda told cleveland.com.
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