Boston Leftist Groups Mobilizing To Protest, Disrupt Trump Inauguration

Printed from: https://newbostonpost.com/2017/01/17/boston-leftist-groups-mobilizing-to-protest-disrupt-trump-inauguration/

BOSTON — Jamaica Plain resident Edward Wagner noticed a change in his neighborhood soon after Donald Trump upset Democrat Hillary Clinton.

“They’re all over the place,” Wagner said about the posters and placards that have popped up on lampposts and at bus stops, bills aimed at promoting a series of protests intended to accompany Trump’s inauguration. “I tried to tear down as many of them as I could.”

There was one poster in particular, taped to the inside of a bus shelter, that caught his eye:

“As far as I know all they are doing is funneling people down to DC,” Wagner, a member of the Boston Republican City Committee, told New Boston Post on Tuesday. “But this isn’t for the January 21 peaceful women’s demonstration — this appears to be intended to disrupt the inauguration.”

A visit to the BostonInauguration.org website featured on one of the posters directs viewers to several links regarding Washington-bound buses, scheduled to depart from the Ruggles MBTA station, at 10 p.m. on Thursday — the night before the inauguration. A bus sponsored by the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) appears to have sold out.

Seats on buses sponsored by Team Solidarity, an organization that describes itself as a “rank-and-file organization of school bus union workers,” also appear to have sold out, at $70 a pop.

“On January 20th, let’s shut down DC with a historic mobilization of the people, united against Trump’s assault on the people,” Team Solidarity’s bus sign-up page declares.

During a stroll through Jamaica Plain’s central business district on Tuesday afternoon, additional fliers promoting a local protest on Boston Common had been taped to lampposts. A resident who declined to speak for attribution said the fliers were posted this week.

As for potential disruptions in Washington D.C., all anti-Trump organizations appear to have coalesced into a movement dubbed DisruptJ20. According to the coalition’s website, the groups are “planning a series of massive direct actions that will shut down the inauguration ceremonies and any related celebrations — the inaugural parade, the inaugural balls, you name it.”

“DC will not be hospitable to the Trump administration,” organizers declared. “Every corporation must openly declare whether they side with him or with the people who will suffer at his hands. Thousands will converge and demonstrate resistance to the Trump regime.”

This week the DisruptJ20 website added a new page to address a series of new videos created by Project Veritas, the undercover guerrilla journalism outfit launched by James O’Keefe. According to a team of Project Veritas journalists who managed to infiltrate DisruptJ20 meetings, the anti-Trump coalition planned to “chain DC subway trains” and “release a noxious gas into the ventilation system at the National Press Club,” which will host Thursday night’s “Deplore-a-Ball” gala. 

DisruptJ20 organizers claim they managed to identify the Project Veritas journalists and purposely fed them false information “in order to protect ourselves.” 

“It is laughable that Project Veritas believes that organizers would discuss secret ‘stink bomb’ plans with an unknown individual in a public venue,” the DisruptJ20 site claims. “Project Veritas’ lack of judgement portrays the poor quality of their work.”

US News & World Report reported on Tuesday, however, that O’Keefe’s videos have prompted DisruptJ20 to “dramatically” scale back traffic disruption plans. 

While reports of massive protests planned for July’s Republican National Convention ultimately fizzled, it remains to be seen whether protesters manage to successfully disrupt Friday’s inauguration.