‘Hands Off’ protesters don’t know what they’re protesting

In cities big and small all over the country last week, people opposed to the policies of the Trump administration decided to participate in nationally coordinated, so-called Hands Off protests. Wielding signs with slogans like “Stop destroying America,” “Hands off our Social Security,” “Resist Fascism,” “Tariffs are taxes” and “Honk if you love democracy,” these protesters came armed with plenty of outrage but very little actual information.

I’d like to ask the participants, “What are you protesting?” But plenty of independent journalists actually did, and the answers they received provided little insight. It’s hard to know what’s more inscrutable: the number of protesters who, when asked, have no idea what they are out there opposing, or those with deep convictions who cannot point to any real evidence for their beliefs.

President Donald Trump’s unprecedented multi-partisan coalitions (voters and members of his administration) and the policy positions he’s advancing have not only rendered the conventional wisdom about American political divisions obsolete; they have exposed the absurdity and hypocrisy among his opponents on the left and right.

One of the most obvious – and ridiculous – examples is leftists’ newfound hatred for Tesla and electric cars. They were unquestioning devotees (“We have to save the planet!”) until Tesla founder Elon Musk threw his lot in with Trump, at which point all hell broke loose: Dozens of utterly unhinged people have been caught on camera keying, urinating on, defecating on, vomiting on and otherwise vandalizing the Teslas of complete strangers – at times with their owners in the vehicles. Tesla dealerships have suffered violent attacks, including firebombing. Proud progs like Bette Midler have even unloaded their Teslas in protest. (Midler announced on social media that she had sold hers. Looks like oil’s back on the menu, boys!)

It isn’t just hypocrisy about electric vehicles that the Trump administration has revealed; causes Democrats have claimed for decades – poverty, peace, public health, prosperity, education, employment, equal opportunity – seem no longer to matter if anyone in the Trump administration is pursuing them. Ditto for “Never Trump” Republicans, for whom “cutting spending” and “reducing the size of government” have somehow lost their luster.

Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency has exposed the waste of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars within the U.S. Agency for International Development and other nongovernmental organizations, multiple federal departments including the Department of Defense and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and, most recently, within the federal government’s real estate holdings. Trump has effectively closed the border former President Joe Biden left wide open, is deporting dangerous illegal aliens back to their home countries and is sending foreign gang members who have committed violent crimes to prison in El Salvador via an agreement with that country’s president, Nayib Bukele. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s secretary of Health and Human Services, is going after Big Pharma, working to eliminate unnecessary and unhealthful additives from foods and obtain transparency about vaccines and other medical treatments.

How is this not beneficial for Americans?

And while there can be legitimate disagreements about Trump’s trade policies (I am reserving judgment at this point), it is nevertheless a wakeup call to find out how many countries impose tariffs on our products. Just as it is frustrating to see the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars our government has shelled out to fund foreign wars or to support Europe’s defense. (As he did in his first term, Trump is insisting that Europe pony up much more for NATO and their own defense, giving some foreign policy wonks apoplectic fits.)

For decades – and particularly in recent years – Americans have been gaslit, lied to and stolen from, personally and professionally bankrupted, persecuted by law enforcement, subjected to unspeakable crimes, poisoned and even killed as a result of the policies of previous administrations, Democrat and Republican alike.

And yet last week’s protesters are infuriated not at the liars, cheaters and thieves; the grifters, manipulators and facilitators of fraud; the warmongers and wasters, and those profiteering from illness and misery, but at those who have exposed the theft, the waste, the gross misconduct, the breach of public trust?

I would like to ask the protesters: Does it not occur to you that if taxpayer dollars are not sent to foreign countries, our debt and deficit can be reduced? That if “charitable” organizations are prevented from becoming political slush funds, those most in need of that charity will be the better for it? That if the administrative bloat of social welfare programs like Social Security is reduced, there will be more resources available for Americans most in need of those programs? That if competency at the Veterans Affairs Department is demanded, it is America’s veterans who will benefit? That if the unaccountable monolith that is the federal Department of Education is dismantled, it will be states and local governments, school boards, teachers and parents – those closest to children affected – who will have the most say in their education and well-being? That if manufacturing returns to the U.S., American workers and the middle class will have greater employment opportunities? That if our border is secured and foreign gang members are deported, fewer Americans will die of fentanyl poisoning, in accidents with un- or under-insured foreign drivers, or at the hands of violent criminals who fled here to escape punishment for crimes in their own countries?

What are you all protesting? That the same status quo you’ve been complaining about for decades is finally being challenged? In other words, now that an administration is taking its campaign promises seriously, you’ve decided you don’t really want hope and change?

It makes no sense whatsoever.

Oh, and by the way, I won’t “honk for democracy.” We are a constitutional republic; I’ll honk for that.