MILWAUKEE — Former President Donald Trump’s brush with death on Saturday didn’t dissuade the storm of protesters assembled outside the Republican National Convention from tempering their rhetoric on him.
Politicians on both sides of the aisle have implored the country to bring down the political temperature since the shooting, but scores of protesters Monday weren’t keen on pulling their punches.
“Turn it up. Let’s do it,” Richard Danc, 20, from Waukesha told The Post. “I’m very sad — I’m very disappointed in both of the candidates. I’m going to hell. We’re already in hell. So just crank it up because clearly whatever we’re doing right now isn’t working.”
Danc stressed that he wants protests to remain peaceful – but also more ambitious. He was demonstrating in defense of democracy.
“If Trump were to be taken out on that day, it might not have been the worst thing,” he boldly told The Post. “I can’t say that it would have been good.”
Waving around signs reading “Lock him up” and “Stop Trump and Racist Republicans,” scores of protesters converged at the Red Arrow Park, just outside of the security perimeter Monday.
The Coalition to March on the RNC organized the Monday Milwaukee demonstration, backed by a slew of left-wing organizations.
Most of the political signs and t-shirts were directed at specific causes rather than Trump, such as the Israel-Hamas war, immigration, ending the blockade on Cuba, fighting for poor people, and abortion.
“What happened on Saturday has no impact on our plan at all,” one of the protest leaders stressed to reporters.
“I think Republicans are experts on political violence,” another leader said during the presser.
One protester, who would not provide his name, carried around a sign that said “Ballots not bullets,” switching from hiding the sign behind a garbage bag and flaunting it with pride.
He told The Post that he wants the animosity in the public discourse to cool down and fretted that political violence could spiral out of control.
Despite harboring bitter frustrations with Trump, many protesters expressed their sympathies for him weathering that attack.
“I really regret that the president was injured. I’m glad that he’s fine,” Peggy Haas, who was with the Wisconsin Cuba Coalition, told The Post. “But that doesn’t stop the fact that he’s not the right man for the job.”
She also said other friends and acquaintances of hers intended to join in the protests but opted against it “because they were afraid of gun violence especially after Saturday.”
“I’ve had so many texts saying ‘be safe, be safe,’” Haas added.
In one unique form of protest, the Democratic Messaging Project doled out condoms as part of its push for abortion rights.
“We believe that not only is abortion getting restricted and going away if we have Trump and MAGA Republicans in charges again,” Lisa Liddle, a project director at the group told The Post. “We believe that birth control is going away,”
“We are making sure that kids and people know by distributing these condoms on campuses,” she added, explaining that the group will distribute those out on campuses in battleground states.
Some of the condoms had messages such as “Protect your f—ing freedom” and “Protect yourself from Republicans” with a barcode that would direct user’s to the group’s website.
The ploy is partly aimed at rallying men in the abortion fight.
Liddle contended that the assassination attempt against Trump was “very unfortunate” but means the left needs to “fight even harder to make sure that he doesn’t get elected” again.
“That heinous act of violence was basically witnessed as a symptom of the politics of one man, and that’s Donald Trump,” she added.
Tony Srok, 62, from Milwaukee paraded around a sign that said “Lock him up,” turning a rallying cry at Trump rallies about Hillary Clinton against the GOP presidential nominee himself.
“He tried to overthrow the election on January 6th by having that protest, by having an insurrection. And I think he should be held accountable for the actions he took that day,” Srok told The Post.
Srok denounced the shooting against Trump over the weekend and expressed fears that Republicans may want to pursue “revenge” on Democrats over that attack.
“This isn’t what America looks like, it would’ve been a stain on America if we lost another president to an assassin,” Srok said.
Srok bemoaned that he believes the political discourse will return to “the same old, same old” after uproar over the assassination attempt settles down.
Some conservative protesters also crashed the Red Arrow Park. One of them was heard screaming profanities at a protester chanting against Trump.
Another demonstrator wore a shirt that said “Homo sex is sin” and flashed a sign that said “BLM are racist thugs.”
Activists purporting to be from the group, “Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising,” had signs pegging Trump as a “baby killer” for backing softer language on abortion in the planned changes for the new GOP platform.
As he march got underway, demonstrators were heard chanting “No Trump, No KKK, No fascist USA!”
Protests are expected to continue throughout the week during the convention. Top security officials previously suggested to reporters that they are not planning to drastically retool their plans.
“We are confident in the plans that we have and are moving forward with those plans,” Audrey Gibson-Cicchino, the Secret Service’s RNC convention coordinator, told reporters Sunday.
