Santa Barbara’s political activists are participating in another national protest this Saturday, this time “fighting the Trump takeover” and his gerrymandering of Texas and other red states to favor Republican control.
Emphasizing that they are committed to nonviolent protest and community safety, protest organizers with Indivisible Santa Barbara said they will gather on both sides of State Street between Hitchcock Way and Hope Avenue (in front of Whole Foods) from 10 a.m. to noon for the Fight the Trump Takeover event.
“Participants are encouraged to bring protest signs demanding the preservation of our sacred right to vote — including the right to vote out kleptocrats that violate our trust and ignore our human rights,” their announcement read.
While California Governor Gavin Newsom has been making fun of President Donald Trump (or Donnie J., he calls him in one tweet) and Texas’s redrawing of electoral district boundaries, people across the country are organizing against this “election rigging” and “attacks on the voting rights of communities of color, young people, and the working class,” the organizers said.
Trump’s order to gerrymander red states is “anti-democratic” and “designed to give Republicans additional seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and avert an electoral disaster for Trump in 2026,” they added.
“This is not a partisan political fight,” said Ian Paige, a member of Indivisible Santa Barbara. “It is a pressure test of our democracy.”
“Trump’s policies are deeply unpopular — from the persecution of our immigrant friends and neighbors to the invasion by American soldiers of cities like Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles,” he continued. “But rather than face backlash from angry voters, Trump has ordered Republicans in Texas and elsewhere to deliver him additional seats in Congress. We urge all friends of democracy — Democrats, Independents, and Republicans — to stand up against this naked, dictatorial power grab.”
