These are some reasons why 60 to 70 people protested Trump at the foot of Newport Avenue in OB on Saturday.
First, OB is a great place to hold an anti-Trump protest. OB voters voted heavily against Trump in the presidential election.
For instance, according to election results, in Precinct#235000 – where the rally against Trump was held, 68.7% of the voters voted for Clinton and 21.4% for Trump, with the others at 9.9%. A total of 454 people voted. (All these figures are of the last count, while thousands of provisional ballots are still being counted.)
Across Abbott from where the rally was held and on the north side of Newport, in Precinct #235300, 75.2% of the ballots were for Hillary Clinton and only 17.0% for Trump, with other candidates getting 7.8%. 347 votes were cast.
Up Newport going east, in Precinct #235520, Clinton received 68.6% versus 24.5% for Trump, and others with 6.9%. This precinct had a whooping turnout with 580 voters. Northern OB including “the heart”, in Precinct #236600, it was 71.2% Clinton and 20.3% Trump, with 8.5% other. 472 ballots were in the box.
Even south OB went for Hillary; in Precinct #236000, of the 555 ballots cast, 69.7% Clinton with 22.2% Trump and 8.1% other.
And Point Loma, the usually-red neighborhoods of the Peninsula, also went for Clinton, roughly 55-60% against a rang e of 35 percent to low the 40’s .
Of course, this kind of electoral outcome from Ocean Beach voters is not unusual. In every election, OB votes blue, for gay marriage, for marijuana, for the most liberal candidates and propositions.
OB has a long tradition of being liberal, progressive, radical. OB was a center of anti-Vietnam war protests, as many of the protest leaders lived in OB. Easily it can be said, that OB staged the largest community-based protest against the war in San Diego.
Ocean Beach was also an early center of anti-Iraq war protests. The first demonstrations in OB against the Iraq war began in the Fall of 2002. Even a majority of the OB Planning Board voted against that war.
And naturally, OB also has a long tradition of grassroots activism and political protests, from stopping the jetty, to saving Collier Park, to creating the Planning Board, to stopping an X-rated theater from opening at the Strand, to keeping out corporate doughnuts, to lobbying for a clean-up of the toxic dump in Mission Bay, halting a board walk across the sand, keeping out Exxon, to supporting People’s Food Store, the Green Store for decades, …. the list goes on. (Not to mention the daily, weekly, monthly clean-ups and anti-graffiti efforts.)
These then, are all good reasons for OBceans to spark an anti-Trump demonstration.
OBceans have a tradition and attitude of tolerance, “live and let live”, standing up for the little guy and girl, a certain rebelliousness, an anti-establishment cultural stance. Today this translates into standing up for those who Trump threatens and maligns: Mexican immigrants, Muslims, people of color, women, gay and lesbians, journalists. Dozens of people took a stand on Saturday against racism, misogyny, against xenophobia, homophobia, Islamophobia.
We here at the OB Rag are journalists, citizen-journalists. Today, we can stand up in public and declare that “Donald Trump is a fascist!” But with the manner in which Trump and his lieutenants respond to criticism in social media or in theaters, and with their calls to install libel laws and incite their followers to scream at individual reporters, these press freedoms – and the others – are in danger.
On Saturday, OBceans stood with our fellow Americans, for across the country on Saturday, there were 35 other demonstrations planned, with over half a dozen in other California cities, from Chicago to Olympia WA to Plattsburg NY, to Roanoke Virginia, in Gainsville in Florida, in Topeka Kansas, St. Louis Missouri – and even in Sedona Arizona.
Twenty-plus more demonstrations were held Sunday.
It’s unclear whether there will be another anti-Trump event in OB or not, but the sign-up list to do something more had filled up more than 2 pages.
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