() While Republican National Convention planners continue to push to move Milwaukee’s planned protest zone, protesters are angrily pushing back.
The Coalition to March on the RNC recently demanded the Secret Service leave the convention protest zone in Pere Marquette Park.
“The Republicans explicitly named the Coalition to March on the RNC, and extensively quoted the Coalition, as a significant security risk,” Coalition leaders said in a statement.
“The Coalition is called ‘disturbing,’ and the RNC obliquely claims it is inciting violence,” the group continued. “This is a disingenuous, cowardly position to take, and the Coalition condemns any and all attempts to paint us as violent or to infringe on our right to take the streets.”
RNC planners have written at least two letters and have had in-person meetings with the Secret Service about the protest zone and its proximity to the convention in July.
RNC planners worry the protest zone, a quarter mile from the convention, is too close to the convention. They also worry RNC delegates and visitors will have to walk past the protest zone to get into and out of the convention.
The Coalition angrily demanded the protest zone be left alone and blamed Republican leaders for any fear or potential violence.
“The Coalition has stated from the beginning that we intend to run a family friendly march in July, and our points of unity include ‘peace, justice, and equity for all,’” Coalition organizers claimed.
“Meanwhile, the Republicans are cheerleaders for murderers like Kyle Rittenhouse and regularly make cartoonishly racist and reactionary statements,” said the group, hinting that its leftist sentiments may favor the Antifa terrorists whom the teenage Rittenhouse shot in self-defense during the 2020 riots in Kenosha, Wisc.
“‘Hypocritical’ and ‘disingenuous’ are not sufficient to describe what is happening here,” it continued.
The Coalition proceeded to paint a false equivalence between the actions of radical leftist protests—which often have resulted in violence, vandalism, arson and other serious crimes—with the handful of examples when right-wing groups have responded in kind.
“The RNC wants to support violent, anti-democratic events like the January 6th insurrection, but trembles at the thought of thousands of people and families marching for peace, justice, and equity,” it claimed. “This is cowardly.”
The Secret Service, overseen by Janet Yellen’s Treasury Department, has said it doesn’t believe there needs to be a change in the security protocol.
Milwaukee will welcome the RNC on July 15-18.
