By: Dana DiFilippo
Protesters took to the streets Thursday to air their grievances with the Trump administration in a nationwide day of rallies timed to coincide with May Day, a day meant to honor the labor movement and workers’ rights.
In Trenton, one of at least a dozen protests around New Jersey, the protest signs bobbing in the blue skies addressed everything from tariffs to climate change and immigration to national parks. With less than six weeks until New Jersey’s primaries, though, it didn’t take long for protesters to coalesce around one message — vote.
Activist Michelle Marcella-Morales led the crowd in a chant of “June 10th!” to remind protesters when to go cast their primary votes.
“We are the many, they are the few. And since we’re all pretty pissed and we outnumber them, we need to replace them! Make midterms the new mandate!” she shouted. “We have one major stab at this. They want smaller government. We want stable government. New Jersey, we have to save the Constitution, our democracy, and sickly enough, it falls squarely on our shoulders to save the world.”
Rally speakers included labor leaders, a state senator and activists, and drew a crowd that packed the plaza across from the Statehouse.
Lisa Saladino of Parsippany showed up dressed in a Ruth Bader Ginsberg collar and robe. She lamented the Trump administration’s recent attacks on judges, as well as President Donald Trump’s right-leaning judicial appointees.
“She was someone who fought for our rights, and we need more people like her in the Supreme Court,” Saladino said of the late, liberal U.S. Supreme Court justice. “We need the Supreme Court to remember they’re here for us and to uphold the Constitution. We are all going to lose our rights, and I just can’t sit back and watch it happen.”
State Sen. Andrew Zwicker (D-Middlesex) stopped by the protest after the Senate’s budget and appropriations committee, on which he serves, heard testimony about higher education funding in New Jersey. He warned the crowd that Trump and Elon Musk, Trump’s billionaire friend who’s overseeing federal cost-cutting, “are doing everything they can to dismantle higher education.”
“Why? Because if you want to go after democracy, what do you do? You go after education, you go after freedom of speech, you go after freedom of expression, you go after the ability to come together and protest,” Zwicker said. “We will not stand for that, not today, not tomorrow, and not ever.”
Several more May Day protests are planned in New Jersey through the weekend.
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