As former President Trump’s motorcade wound through Beverly Hills, Newport Beach and San Francisco last week, groups of MAGA fans wearing hats and waving flags lined the elegant streets and coastal highways and cheered.
Yet when Vice President Kamala Harris, who was raised among community activists in Berkeley, headed to a fundraiser in San Francisco the same week, a crowd of more than 100 pro-Palestinian protesters chanted, “Shame on you! ”
The disparate treatment — at least through street protests — has been growing for months, amid a spring dominated by protests on college campuses. But the snapshot of love for Trump and anger for Harris and President Biden has become more striking as protests head into the campaign, especially in deep-blue California, where the vast majority of voters agree with Harris and Biden who Trump represents a threat to democracy.
Activists and political leaders in California and across the country point to a number of reasons to protest Biden, their supposed ally, more than Trump, whom they consider a would-be dictator.
Biden is shouldering the burden of office he did not face four years ago, facing a tough-love approach from some left-wing activists who believe they can still push him further to the left. And although some protesters do not favor either candidate, the majority reject Trump, whom they consider irredeemable.
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Support for the president in California remains high – Biden has a 20-point lead over Trump in the state, according to polls FiveThirtyEight aggregator. But Democrats nationally are worried that the optics of the anti-Biden protests could hurt the president, as many polls show him trailing or tied to Trump.
“What concerns us, of course, is that, when the time comes for politics, will people be able to reconcile that, although the political choices for the Middle East may not have been exactly right on Biden’s part, he will still be the best political choice?” said Faiz Shakir, chief political adviser to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent progressive. “And the jury is still out on that.”
Protests do not equal votes, of course. But anti-Trump The fervor in California has been a powerful and persistent force on the left since 2016, provoking clashes with counter-protesters that turned violent sometimes, attracting police presence, huge crowds and headlines. Anti-Trump sentiment carried into Trump’s presidency and the 2020 election, even amid pandemic-era social distancing rules, helping fuel a coalition that defeated him.
“Donald Trump is being rejected by large sections of his own party… They are rejecting his failed leadership, his divisive rhetoric and his threats of political violence against protesters or anyone who dares to disagree with the dictator Trump,” said the spokeswoman for Biden campaign, Sarafina Chitika. in a statement to The Times. “Meanwhile, President Biden is able to bring people together, even when they don’t always agree.”
Some activists say, privately, that the violence at these events has deterred some activists from taking to the streets. And although many left-wing protesters say they fear Trump’s return to office, many do not consider themselves aligned with the Democratic Party. Its main objective is to change policy, not to elect a president.
Still, many say a Trump presidency could put all of his goals at extreme risk, starting with the right to protest.
The Biden administration’s position on the war between Israel and Hamas, which fuels much of the anger among activists, is much closer to the protesters than Trump’s, who supported Israeli control of contested lands and urged Israel to “get the job done” in Gaza.
“At some point, you have it bubbling up. I don’t believe the protesters are saying, ‘We’re protesting Biden because we want Trump.’ They already know what Trump is,” said the Rev. William Barber II, one of the country’s leading civil rights and anti-poverty activists who directs the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale University.
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When Trump arrived in Newport Beach on June 8, Orange County Democrats were too busy getting out the vote in down-ballot races to worry about the top of the ticket, said Ada Briceño, chairwoman of the county party. Volunteers went door to door, promoting Dave Min for Congress and attending an ice cream social for Tammy Kim’s mayoral campaign in Irvine.
Susan Hildreth, president of Rossmoor Democrats in the Bay Area, said her volunteers also kept busy writing postcards and knocking on doors for Central Valley congressional candidates like Rudy Salas. Her group is mostly made up of people over 55 who are less inclined to participate in protests, she said.
“We are ardently anti-Trump,” said Hildreth, 72. The lack of Trump critics taking to the streets “may have more to do with the general age of this group than anything else. I’m not bothered!
Still, California Democrats haven’t totally neglected Trump. Some antagonists pushed their way into the Newport Beach MAGA crowd along the motorcade, shouting “Happy Pride!” and provoking some complaints. An “Orange County votes for Biden/Harris 2024” banner was behind a plane.
In San Francisco, an inflatable chicken that looks like Trump decked out in black and white prison stripes, it was transported across the bay on a boat called the “Alcatraz Prison Transport.”
Armand Domalewski, a 34-year-old data analyst, gathered a group of about 50 people to stand across a San Francisco street from hordes of Trump supporters, who he said occasionally crossed over to insult his side. .
“There is a strange asymmetry between the parties,” Domalewski said, noting that Democrats, like Republicans, have been railing against Democrats. This reality “makes everything very difficult, because both sides are protesting against us.”
Although he has participated in many protests, last week was the first time Domalewski coordinated one — because no one else had, he said. Trump supporters were evidently more organized. Vocals too. Some, anticipating Trump’s birthday, sang “Happy Birthday.” (He turned 78 on Friday.)
Even in 2020, Biden was never a movement candidate like Sanders or Trump, who held large, inspirational rallies and raised small donations from die-hard fans; Biden has also done some campaigning virtually to protect against COVID-19. And unlike Trump, who regularly uses violent language and rousing images at his rallies, Biden has campaigned as a calming unifier.
“We haven’t seen a struggling Joe Biden,” Shakir said.
Although Biden has governed as a progressive, “he is not a populist by nature that gives you the kind of emotional satisfaction of a cause and a movement and a mission,” Shakir said. His argument is competence and common sense, he added, which doesn’t work so well in the arena.
Trump has been the galvanizing force in politics for both his supporters and detractors. One of the biggest protests against him occurred in 2017, the day after his inauguration, when thousands of women gathered in Washington and across the country to denounce him and defend gender equality.
But the political group that formed in the wake of that protest, the Women’s March, has so far supported candidates only in local and state elections and is rethinking its approach to confronting Trump. Street protests may not be the best strategy.
Trump “promised to be a dictator from day one, so we know he wouldn’t take the protests seriously. He would not take global human rights concerns seriously,” said Tamika Middleton, the group’s managing director.
But the Women’s March may maintain its focus on reproductive rights and women’s equality to avoid giving Trump a platform, noting that he has raised money and gained attention in adverse situations, including his own. 34 criminal convictions.
Trump “kind of revels in the kind of attention of a head-to-head women’s march,” she said.
Biden is set to return to California for a swanky fundraiser in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, featuring Hollywood elites like George Clooney and Julia Roberts, as well as former President Obama.
Jewish Voice for Peace has already announced that it will greet his arrival with a protest.
Bierman reported from Washington and Pinho from Los Angeles.
This story originally appeared on Los Angeles Times.
