By The Signal Editorial Board
An open letter to the protesters:
Just what, exactly, could you possibly be protesting? Or perhaps more pertinently, what, exactly, are you calling for?
We’re inferring a bit here, admittedly, but here are the optics as we see them:
You are protesting in favor of the status quo that existed prior to Jan. 20, 2025. You favor unsupervised, unscrutinized government spending. How dare our duly elected president create something so sinister as the Department of Government Efficiency. The name itself invokes fear – if you’re someone used to slurping from the trough of public tax dollars.
Efficiency? It’s anathema.
You favor foreign aid geared toward promoting identity politics and not letting taxpayers know where their hard-earned paychecks are actually being spent. Hey, so long as it fits the progressive agenda of promoting transgender or racial identity, or diversity, equity and inclusion, it’s money well spent!
You favor letting men play in women’s sports. And, boys in girls’ sports. So long as they “identify” as a girl or a woman, let them play! Never mind that they have an unfair edge against actual female athletes. Never mind that they take scholarships and trophies that would otherwise go to actual girls and actual women. Feel like a woman? You ARE one then!
We know, we know. You like to parse the language and die on the hill of the difference between “female” and “woman,” a word you’re loathe to define. Regardless, it’s hard to see the left as a force in favor of “women’s rights” anymore. That went out the window when Lia Thomas was celebrated for stealing Riley Gaines’ NCAA swimming trophy.
Speaking of men playing women’s sports: Why is it that we never hear anything about women demanding to play men’s sports?
If “transgender women” don’t have any advantage in sports against, well, women, then why is there no groundswell in favor of “transgender men” – who were born female – trying to compete in men’s sports? Could it be that they would face a physical disadvantage regardless of their best medical and surgical efforts?
Crickets. That’s what we thought.
Speaking of DEI: You favor racial and gender discrimination. That is, so long as the racial and gender discrimination favors the groups you want it to favor.
Weird. We thought discriminating against someone based on their gender or skin color was a bad thing. Silly, right?
Back to DOGE.
You object to government employees being asked to answer the question, “What have you done at work lately?”
Oh, did the left (and the government employees) scream bloody murder! How DARE anyone ask, “Hey. What have you been up to at work?” The invasiveness of it all!
For those of you in the private sector, try that with the boss at your business. “What have I been doing at work? None of your business!”
You’ll be fired like a shot. But somehow, the protesters object to government employees being asked that simple question. As White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt pointed out, it’s an exercise that ought to take just minutes: Name five things you did at work this week. Geez. Sounds pretty simple. It’s just one step beyond holding a mirror in front of an employee’s face to see if it fogs up.
If you can’t name five things you did in a week, you SHOULD be fired. Yet, you protest.
You also seem to favor dead people being paid government salaries and affirmative benefits like Social Security. Hey, it’s only money, right?
You are protesting in favor of more open borders, so that more violent criminals and unvetted terrorists can infiltrate our nation and endanger us all.
You are protesting in favor of human trafficking across the border, and all of the disastrous casualties that come with it: Children sold into sex trades, families sold into slavery. Untold numbers of needless deaths.
You favor continuing to house unvetted illegal immigrants at taxpayer expense, while three-quarters of a million Americans are homeless.
You also favor an unobstructed flow of dangerous drugs, like fentanyl, across our borders. What’s a few thousand American lives every month matter?
You favor an ongoing blank check for Ukraine, in both lives to be lost and weapons to be gifted, at U.S. taxpayer expense. At what point is it reasonable to expect Ukraine to cut its losses, human, financial and territorial? Yes, it sucks. But there comes a point where a realistic look at the options is necessary.
We’d love to hear you admit that all of this protesting boils down to, “Damn, we really just hate that guy in the Oval Office. And his billionaire friend, too. It’s personal.”
Absent that, we can only conclude that you favor unabated government waste of tax dollars; wide-open borders that victimize Americans and endanger national security; a diminishing of women’s rights to fair athletic competition; racial and gender discrimination; continued and potentially escalating war in Europe; and allowing government employees to be an exclusively protected class that never has to justify whether the salaries being paid are worth the effort being delivered.
Or, maybe, there’s more to your protesting. A financial interest, perhaps?
