The call to disrupt President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration is growing with the help of documentary filmmaker and activist Michael Moore, who on Wednesday tweeted a grassroots group's plans for direct actions on January 20, 2017.
Although Trump won the Electoral College, his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton took the popular vote by more than 2 million--which means Trump will enter office with low ratings and no mandate. Grassroots activists organizing a mobilization known as #DisruptJ20 are hoping to call attention to this dynamic through a series of protests, direct actions, and other events on inauguration day.
"The Majority have spoken--by nearly 2.7 million votes & counting! Silence is not an option," Moore tweeted, adding a link to the group's website.
The organizers, known as the D.C. Counter-Inaugural Welcoming Committee, "call on all people of good conscience to join in disrupting the ceremonies. If Trump is to be inaugurated at all, let it happen behind closed doors, showing the true face of the security state Trump will preside over. It must be made clear to the whole world that the vast majority of people in the United States do not support his presidency or consent to his rule."
"Trump stands for tyranny, greed, and misogyny," they write. "He is the champion of neo-nazis and white nationalists, of the police who kill the black, brown, and poor on a daily basis, of racist border agents and sadistic prison guards, of the FBI and [National Security Agency] who tap your phone and read your email."
Moore, who in July predicted Trump would win, said on Late Night With Seth Meyers on Wednesday, "The majority of our fellow Americans do not want him in the White House. The irony is unbearable."
In addition to the #DisruptJ20 movement, the inauguration will be met with a women's march on Washington, with thousands of people expected to join from all over the country to protest Trump's history of misogyny, including bragging about sexually assaulting women.
The Guardianreported on Thursday that the National Park Service filed documents on behalf of the Presidential Inauguration Committee sealing off portions of the national mall and Pennsylvania Avenue--meaning the women's march will not be able to hold a rally at the Lincoln Memorial to echo historic civil rights and anti-war actions. The "massive omnibus blocking permit" extends for days and weeks before and after the inauguration itself.
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, said the blocking of access for days after the event was "extremely unique."
