About 100 people marched Sunday night from Millennium Park to Trump Tower to protest the president-elect and denounce his “hateful” speech and policy proposals.
“The threat of deporting 3 million people who are working in the U.S., raising children in the U.S., serving their communities … to me, that’s an already an act of hate. He’s threatening their livelihoods,” said Carmen Simon, 30, a Lincoln Park resident.
Simon said protesting is a way to show the community’s unhappiness with President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s policy proposals and urge the administration to denounce racist attacks on immigrants, people of color and other marginalized groups.
“Vulnerable communities are under attack. They’re afraid,” Simon said. “The incoming president and the GOP are responsible, I feel, for the thoughts and feelings of people on the streets.”
Rebecca Benton, 60, said it was “silly” for the president-elect to tweet that someone has been paying professional protesters to organize demonstrations against him. She emphasized that it is her constitutional right to protest, especially in a nonviolent way.
“I don’t hate Republicans,” Benton said. “If it had been (John) Kasich or Jeb Bush, I would have been OK. They seem like good men. But he’s not a good man.”
