Hundreds of people gathered across Southern California beaches on Saturday for a \u201cHold the Line\u201d demonstration, a movement protesting Donald Trump\u2019s presidency and promoting Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s Proposition 50, which calls for redrawing of California congressional districts to give Democrats more voting power.<\/p>\n
Early Saturday morning, protesters packed the sand from Santa Monica to Laguna Beach, with signs that read \u201cBring back democracy,\u201d \u201cAmerica is not a dictatorship,\u201d and \u201cTake the power back, say yes to 50.\u201d <\/p>\n
Beachgoers stopped to stare, and as the crowd later moved along Pacific Coast Highway in Long Beach, car horns blared in support.<\/p>\n
If passed, Proposition 50 would gerrymander the state\u2019s congressional districts to favor Democrats, an effort pushed by Newsom in response to a similar effort in Texas to create congressional districts that favor Republicans and help the GOP keep control of the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n
Speakers addressed the crowds, speaking out against the threat to 1st Amendment rights, coming only days after late night show \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!\u201d was temporarily pulled off the air over the host\u2019s comments on the slaying of Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk.<\/p>\n
Gail Kauffman, a speaker at the event held in Seal Beach, expressed worries about the future of free speech under the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust the hate that he spews, the lies that he\u2019s telling us, the restrictions that he\u2019s putting in place, the money he\u2019s making off of being our president, the corruption and the idiots that he has put in positions of leadership appall me, anger me, astonish me,\u201d Kauffman said. \u201cI never thought that I would live to see this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Organizations such as Democracy Action Network, Indivisible and 50501 were part of the effort to create a \u201chuman chain\u201d to demonstrate solidarity against unfair congressional district gerrymandering.<\/p>\n
Nathalie Wilson, an organizer for Indivisible CA 47, said the chain formed bonds between neighbors and fostered conversations around local politics.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday we were especially having a moment of unity at 11 [a.m.], when everybody became silent and linked arms and hands for a period to just reflect on the situation we\u2019re in that we find ourselves in in this country. So that was really meaningful, and I really enjoyed the spirit of that,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHold the Line\u201d took place across the state, and organizers say it reflects a wider growing distrust among California Democrats of the Trump administration and worries over government crackdowns against the rights of citizens to protest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds of people gathered across Southern California beaches on Saturday for a \u201cHold the Line\u201d demonstration, a movement…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":259610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,136204,4537,7033,4539,49745,136206,136205,2961,224,5337,136207,115315,37370,290,5174,277,4352,29689],"class_list":{"0":"post-259609","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-california-congressional-district","11":"tag-crowd","12":"tag-democrats","13":"tag-demonstrator","14":"tag-effort","15":"tag-human-chain","16":"tag-indivisible","17":"tag-la","18":"tag-los-angeles","19":"tag-losangeles","20":"tag-prop","21":"tag-proposition","22":"tag-speaker","23":"tag-state","24":"tag-support","25":"tag-trump","26":"tag-trump-administration","27":"tag-worry"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115278226729156417","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}