Pres. Trump ramping up to stop rallies

Donald Trump is ramping up his attack on free speech and the First Amendment.

At a recent rally in Montana he praised a Republican member of Congress who body-slammed a reporter last year, and said it helped him win the election.¹

But that's just part of Trump's widening war on free speech. His Interior Department is considering proposals to ban protests on the sidewalk in front of the White House and also charge organizers "event-management" fees for rallies on the National Mall that could run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.²

We know what this is about: Trump wants to shut down the next Women's March, March for Our Lives, or Battle for the Net rally.  Publicly addressing our grievances with our government is a fundamental right, and the Constitution prohibits the restriction of that right by any law or policy.³

But Trump's interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, says that protests impose a "heavy cost" on government that protesters need to cover—and his proposal will force protesters to pay for everything from barriers to law-enforcement salaries to repairing grass that is stepped on. These costs would make protesting prohibitive for most people—which is exactly what Trump wants.⁴

And this new policy would cover nearly every public space in Washington, D.C.—including the National Mall and the space in front of the White House—as well as other public spaces managed by the National Park Service, like the sidewalk in front of Trump Tower.⁴

If Trump's policy stands, it could be only a matter of time until states and municipalities follow suit, taking away our most public and effective means of protesting unfair and inhumane government practices. Demand Progress would have our legs cut out from under us—we could no longer stage game-changing actions like our Verizon Wireless protest last year.

It's clear that Trump is determined to silence free speech, whether from the media or from protesters. Trump consistently belittles the White House press corps and repeatedly threatens the media with violence. 

Robert Cruickshank, , Demand Progress

Sources:

1. CNN, "Trump jokes about congressman assaulting reporter: 'Any guy who can do a body slam ... he's my guy'," October 19, 2018
2. Department of the Interior, "Special Regulations, Areas of the National Park System, National Capital Region, Special Events and Demonstrations," August 7, 2018
3. Legal Information Institute, "First Amendment," accessed October 19, 2018
4. Department of the Interior, "Special Regulations, Areas of the National Park System, National Capital Region, Special Events and Demonstrations," August 7, 2018
5. The Washington Post, "The Trump administration wants to tax protests. What happened to free speech?" September 11, 2018