Pittsfield — About 60 people came out to the corners of South and Housatonic Streets last Saturday, March 29, holding signs protesting a wide range of President Donald Trump’s policies and expressing outrage and concern over the state of our democracy. This protest followed a March 1 rally at the corner of East and Elm Streets, which saw about 35 people turn out, also organized by Pittsfield resident Brian Whitman. Though he is involved with local groups like Indivisible Pittsfield and Greylock Together, Whitman is just a citizen who along with some friends, felt the need to do something, to just “get out there and be vocal and visible.”
Like everyone standing on the street corners on Saturday, Whitman was protesting “everything.” “It’s hard to have just one issue that you’re upset about, because there’s so many different things that are happening right now.” He described Trump’s tactics as “flood the zone,” then as policies go through the courts, “see what sticks and what doesn’t.” Judging by the number of drivers sounding their horns in support of the protesters (with a few vocal exceptions), many in Pittsfield shared Whitman’s outrage. “The local folks, the quiet Berkshires… we’re not so quiet anymore,” said Whitman. “This is a national movement over the past weeks.” He has been promoting the Hands Off protest that will take place Saturday, April 5, at Dottie’s Coffee Lounge at 1 p.m., as part of the nationwide day of protests.
“Hopefully we can turn things around with the midterm elections, but we need to do something actionable now,” one protester said.
Pittsfield residents Ellen Frank and Lisa Tisdale Wolf agreed that the grievances were too long to list. “It’s crisis time; we’re teetering on the end of democracy,” said Wolf. “It’s not about party at all.” She debated if it would be more impactful to go protest in Albany or Boston, but as Frank chimed in, it was important to come together in support of the local community, “to give us all some encouragement so you don’t feel so alone and overwhelmed.”
Some signs highlighted the dismantling of environmental regulations. One protester noted that Trump’s desire to acquire Greenland was likely tied to climate change and the opening up of arctic passages.
For Pittsfield resident Adrienne DeBlieux Speed, one issue that rose to the top was “them not understanding that Social Security is our money; we paid in since the day we were 16. It’s so unrealistic, saying, ‘Oh, a senior won’t notice if they don’t get that check.’”
Lynne O’Connell, who been member a member of Berkshire Brigades for quite a while, agreed: “So many people rely on it; that is their income. They’re going to put old people out on the streets because some of them have no other options.”
One policy Wilma Rifkin found especially concerning was “picking people up off the streets, rounding up a hundred people and shipping them off to El Salvador, taking away their human dignities. It makes people desensitized.” It reminded her of photos of Abu Ghraib during the Iraq War, as well as Martin Neimoller’s poem that begins, “First they came for the communists.” The list targeted by the current administration, she said, includes immigrants, women, even children who were “demonized” for protesting gun violence after the shooting in Florida. “And wanting to take over Greenland,” she continued. “The people in Greenland are terrified. [The Trump administration is] spreading terror.” And just that morning, she noted, Elon Musk was “buying off votes in Wisconsin, offering $1 million to everyone who votes for his candidate.”
“We’ve never lived under tyranny,” said Rifkin, whose parents came from Ukraine, her mother right after the Russian Revolution. “So she knows what it was like to live under Pogram.” Now, said Rifkin, “people are sacrificing their lives for fear of tyranny in Ukraine.”
Rifkin and her husband Stephen came down from North Adams. She was going to make the pancakes that she makes from scratch every Saturday morning, but said, “No, we can’t do that this morning.”
“You know it’s serious if we relinquish our pancakes,” affirmed Stephen.
A woman listening to Rifkin recounted that two or three days prior, two people in Great Barrington had gotten “picked up” by ICE after dropping off their children at Monument Mountain. “They said a black SUV was following them. They didn’t have their papers on them, but they had them, and they had their Social Security. And one is somewhere in Boston, the other one, they don’t even know.”
Both she and Rifkin were hopeful that grassroots movements such as this wave of protests could spark change. “There’s got to be somebody from the Democratic Party that can rise to the occasion,” said the former.
Rifkin added it was “scary” how the administration is “trying to shut down sources of legitimate news so people don’t know what’s true. And they have a lot of power.” She mentioned a study showing that most online sources of news were dominated by the right. “A lot of young people are beginning to lean either independent or to the right. These online influencers don’t even necessarily define themselves as political, but when you get into the content, it’s leaning to the right,” explained Rifkin. “People respond to what looks official.”
Steve Hawkins, of Fitchburg, Mass., was hopeful about what he had read that morning about the two special elections coming up in Florida. “Two months ago, they were guaranteed for Republicans. Now it’s a tight race.” (The Republican candidates, Jimmy Patronis and Randy Fine, have since won in both special elections in Florida, but with slimmer margins than the party would have hoped for.) Vicky Maxwell, whom Hawkins joined in Pittsfield, commented on the withdrawal of Elise Stefanik over fears that her district could flip in a special election.
Protester Rick Gregg, a university professor who teaches healthcare and served as interim CEO of CHP Berkshires, was especially concerned about the impacts of healthcare cuts. “If Medicaid funding is cut at the federal level, that will have an impact on Mass Health, which will ripple down through Berkshire County.” With reduced access to healthcare, he fears people will wait longer, until they are sicker, to seek care, which will then be more expensive. “In many cases, people will die. That’s what I’m concerned about.”
As for the rest of it, Gregg said, “Our governments could probably be more efficient, but to close down whole parts of the government that have taken years to build up, that are doing extremely valuable work, like the Consumer Protection Bureau. Look what they’re doing to USAID—for God’s sake, this is absolutely insane. So that we can have a continuation of these huge tax cuts that benefit primarily the wealthy who don’t need the money.”
Asked if he thought people would start to realize the administration’s intentions, he said, “We’re gonna find out on Tuesday,” referring to the two congressional races in Florida, one in Matt Gaetz’s district and the other in Mike Waltz’s. And there is the Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, said Gregg, “where Musk and Trump have made their presence known. Musk has spent millions on the conservative in that campaign. Tuesday is a big deal. We’ll see what happens,” said Gregg. (Democratic candidate Susan Crawford has since defeated Republican candidate Brad Schimel for a 10-year term on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.)
