What's at stake?
Protests against the Trump Administration and Elon Musk’s planned budget cuts to public services and programs have begun to make themselves apparent in Fresno, with two protests occurring this past week and more still to come.
As protests spark across the nation against President Donald Trump’s plans to gut programs like Medicaid and the United States Postal Service, local residents have taken to the streets of Fresno to call for action.
Protesters gathered across the street from the Tesla showroom last week on Palmdon Drive to speak against healthcare budget cuts, while a separate demonstration on Sunday drew over 100 people on the corners of Blackstone and Minarets Avenue to rally against the privatization of the USPS.
While the protests in Fresno weren’t connected, the sentiment was the same: something’s got to give.
“We’re out here [to] let our elected officials know that we’re not going to stand for them voting with billionaires [and] mega corporations who are using our budget process as a way for them to get tax breaks and corporate handouts,” said Alicia Olivarez, executive vice president for Power California.
Thursday’s protest was one of multiple occurring in Fresno and across the state coordinated by We Are California, a movement made up of multiple organizations, as part of a series of demonstrations against cuts to Medicaid.
Protesters voiced their disdain not only for the Republican Party’s planned cuts, but also for the lack of initiative from the Democratic Party to fight back against the budget cuts.
“We did not vote for Republican-lites, we need representatives to fight on our behalf and they are utterly failing us in this deep time of corruption; they don’t have a spine, they folded,” said Peter Chan, a local resident, during Thursday’s protest.
The planned cuts to healthcare would affect Fresno County residents significantly, with more than half of residents being insured by Medi-Cal.
Sunday’s rally reverberated much of the same feelings and frustrations.
Hosted by the National Association of Letter Carriers Local Branch 231, the rally was held to oppose the privatization of the USPS, something Elon Musk says should be done along with the privatization of Amtrak.
Eric Ellis, who represents Fresno and District 4 for the California State Association of Letter Carriers, explained that privatization would negatively affect the delivery of all mail to residents.
“Fresno has a population of roughly 550,000 people; if the Postal Service were privatized, it would be considered rural delivery, which means that Fresno would be lucky to get mail four days a week,” Ellis said.
Currently, there are plans to cut 10,000 jobs and billions of dollars from the USPS, with Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announcing that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will assist in making the cuts.
Ellis urged people to call and write their congressional representatives to support House Resolution 70, which calls on congress to ensure the USPS is not privatized.
Dillon Savory, the executive director of the Central Labor Council and a self-described lifelong Democrat, voiced his dissatisfaction with the party’s compromises with the GOP.
“The Democrats, for the past eight years, have just said ‘Trump’s ideas are bad, let’s do something different,’ and then you go behind the curtain and there’s nothing different,” said Savory.
“The Democratic Party is a bygone institution that needs to be jump started or completely burned down, in my opinion,” he added.
Also present at the rally was Lois Henderson, a retired teacher who urged people not to trust Musk and questioned his proposed changes.
“I think that we need to stop trusting what he’s saying and start paying attention to what he’s doing because he’s hurting and killing a lot of innocent people and that’s not the way you’re supposed to make things better,” said Henderson.
More protests and rallies are planned to take place in the coming week, including a worldwide campaign against Musk on March 29. A march for immigrants is set to take place in Fresno State’s Peace Garden on March 25, with another protest slated for April 5 on the corner of Shaw and Fresno near Fashion Fair Mall to address “unjust and unconstitutional federal actions.”
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