As President Donald Trump attempts to slash the federal government, implement mass deportations and rid the country of so-called “DEI thinking,” the protests are starting.
We haven’t seen anything on the scale of the 2017 Women’s March, complete with pink hats and hundreds of thousands of people descending on the Capitol the day after President Trump took office eight years ago. But we are starting to see opposition to the Trump administration take to the streets.
Here in Phoenix on President’s Day, we saw around a thousand people at the Arizona Capitol protesting a lot of things.
Stephen Richer says that is a problem for their own message. He is a former Republican politician who served as Maricopa County Recorder until this year. Now, among other things, he is a contributing columnist to the Arizona Republic.
Richer joined The Show along with editorial page editor Elvia Díaz to talk more about his take on protests in the new Trump era.
Full conversation
LAUREN GILGER: So, Stephen, let’s begin with you here. You say you and these protesters probably have something pretty important in common here to begin with it. You’re also not a fan of President Trump, but you have some critiques of their messaging, beginning with just this big idea here that they should pick one message to focus on, right?
STEPHEN RICHER: That’s right. And this was really born out of a text message I received from a friend who is also sympathetic to maybe some of the stuff that the protesters are reaching to achieve. And he said, “Why is the left incapable of demonstrating in ways that aren’t so self-destructive? Every demonstration today is some medley of every left-wing cause under the sun.”
And so I wanted to unpack that, and I did some research and I wrote the subsequent article.
GILGER: So tell me about that. You wrote this directed to protesters, saying, “I agree with you, but you should do this better.” I want to ask you about the reaction you got from that.
RICHER: Oh, it was — I think some people thought it was reasonable, and some people said, ‘Shut up. You shouldn’t tell us how to protest.” And then that’s perfectly acceptable. And of course, protesters can protest in any way that they want.
I was writing from an outsider’s perspective, offering insight into how they might make themselves more approachable, how they might make their message a little clearer because the social science suggests that those are important things for a long and effective movement.
GILGER: You also argue things in the column like they should wave the American flag instead of the Mexican one. We’ve heard a lot of talk about that. Avoid waving Palestinian flags, which we saw. And also you talk about making sure there’s no violence, avoid being a nuisance in general.
But then you get into this idea that, you know, laying down in traffic isn’t a good idea. Don’t wear “creepy masks,” things like that, you say. When you say approachable. Is that the goal of a protest?
RICHER: Well, I think you want to eventually win over the silent majority, the median American. You want to appear reasonable to the median American so that they won’t offhandedly dismiss you as just a bunch of wackos who are upset about everything under the sun.
GILGER: Let me turn to you, Elvia, and get your take here. What’s your impression of what we’ve seen so far from protests against this administration? I think the Democrats in general in Washington have still sort of been figuring out how they’re going to respond. But what do you make of the response on the streets?
ELVIA DÍAZ: Well, in theory, I agree with him and with his column. In practice, no, absolutely not. Because things are pretty confusing right now. And honestly, the protesters right now are doing a lot more than I feel I’m doing myself personally to protest what’s happening with the Trump administration to begin with. There has been an incredible lack of leadership — and I don’t want to say on the left, I will say on the human side, on the humanistic side.
The initial protests that I saw were immigrants, I believe in California, and then spread across the country. And I kept asking myself, who’s organizing this? And really, no one. So people just incredibly emotional, just taking to the streets because they have had enough, because they’re scared, because they have nothing else to do.
So when we’re writing about, “Don’t wave the Mexican flag, don’t wear this, don’t do that, don’t be disruptive, don’t do that.” That’s appealing to the protesters who at this point have almost nothing to lose in that sense, right? So they’re just protesting with their emotions.
GILGER: I wonder this though, Elvia — because as I mentioned, we have seen sort of scattered protests here and there, sometimes they’re relatively big, sometimes not. But the big mass response to Trump we saw in 2017 when he first took office, we have not largely seen. Why not?
DÍAZ: Because there’s so much going on. People are confused. They are now, as Stephen was writing here in the column, Trump is hitting everyone everywhere. So the protests that we began to see were immigrants protesting and then were the left. But then where is everyone else?
So people are waking up barely because it’s just too much. And then us, sitting here very cozy behind a desk, thinking, “Oh, wow, gee, why are they doing that? Why are they protesting that?”
So I think that’s why. It’s just too much: women’s rights, immigrants’ rights, federal workers, laying off everyone. Then you have international issues coming up. So it’s just too much. So that’s why I think it’s very difficult to protest.
GILGER: Yeah, that’s exactly what I wanted to ask you, Stephen. Do you think this is partly due to the fact that this is kind of the Trump administration’s strategy, it seems? To sort of overwhelm the media, overwhelm the public, overwhelm the other side, whoever that may be. Because there’s so much to protest. There’s so many things happening, no one knows what to focus on.
RICHER: Absolutely. And I think that is part of the answer to your question about why are we not seeing the same level of protests that we saw in 2017? I think because, in part, everyone is overwhelmed. In part, a lot of people are numb, and people are tired, and people have been hearing this about Donald Trump for a long time.
And I think that there’s also a little bit of a perception of, “Let’s give the guy a chance.” Now, obviously that’s not how I feel about the situation or feel about the president. But I do think from a messaging standpoint, you have to be careful not to cast your group as just “Anything that Donald Trump touches is bad and therefore it just should all go away.”
I don’t think that will resonate with the median American, who is the type of person you eventually want to speak to, because you presumably want to turn the country in a different direction.
GILGER: Last question for you both, then, which is to broaden that out a little for me. Do you think the same applies to the broader Democratic or opposing response to the Trump administration? We’ve seen a scattered approach from the Democrats in Washington and Democratic attorneys general across the country sort of filing lawsuits left and right.
What do you think this says about how our position against this administration should look, might look in the future?
RICHER: I think there’s two schools of thought here. One is that the Democrats are doing nearly enough and that they need to be facing this down every single day. And then there’s another school of thought that the Democrats need to pick their battles.
And they also need to stand for something positive, not just the negative of “We don’t like Trump,” but “This is our vision for the country.” I don’t think that’s yet clearly defined for most Americans.
DÍAZ: And I think it’s right. I have seen a lack of leadership in that regard, but I think it’s because the word Stevie was saying earlier applies to the Democrats as well. They’re overwhelmed. They are flustered. They don’t know where to begin.
But it’s also true that sooner or later, people are going to get tired of Donald Trump. Or when he hits them, when they start hurting, they’re going to look for leadership.
And not just, “I hate Donald Trump.” But also, “What are you going to do for me? How is this going to look differently? Bring some normalcy here.” I think that’s what they’re going to look for, and I’m not seeing that yet.
