Local Democratic committees rally in support of Social Security Administration

A group of Democratic Party members from several localities, including Henrico, held a rally April 15 in front of the Social Security Administration office on West Cary Street in Richmond to express their concerns about how the Trump administration is handling the agency.

Although Trump has promised to maintain the Social Security program, his administration recently announced that it would lay off 7,000 employees who help administer it, prompting concern from some people that their Social Security benefits eventually could be impacted. Many members of the group held signs with the message “Hands Off My Social Security.”

Henrico Democratic Committee Chair Alsuin Preis, who helped organize the protest, said that people from all walks of life should be attentive to the fate of the SSA and the actions of the Trump administration.

“We’re grassroots organizations. We generally try and stay in our lane in terms of these kinds of actions, but the paradigm has completely shifted and now it’s up to us to save ourselves,” Preis said. “We’re not going to sit down and be quiet and hope that the wheels of justice turn and the institutions stay strong. We’re not waiting for a constitutional crisis, it’s already here. This is important for us – grassroots activism. They’re not going to save us, folks – we’re going to save ourselves.

“All of these causes, everybody’s causes are all of our causes, particularly for the people that are the most vulnerable, the most marginalized, the people that need the most help in our community, because we don’t have a healthy society unless we look after the least of these, the people who need the most help.”

Goochland Democratic Committee Chair Tina Winkler echoed Preis' thoughts.

“Honestly, we all have a dog in this fight,” Winkler said. “This isn’t just about me and my Social Security, this is about my mother in law’s Social Security, this is about your parents’ Social Security, it’s something that we’ve paid into and we deserve – it’s not an entitlement. It really bothers me that politicians in Washington refer to these things as an entitlement.”

Democratic committees from Hanover, Louisa, Cumberland and Chesterfield also were involved with the event. Several of the committees also helped organize a rally several weeks ago in front of the Tesla location on West Broad Street in Henrico, which attracted about 500 people.

Protests in front of Tesla locations nationally have become more frequent, as people push back against the company’s CEO, Elon Musk, the architect of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency office, which has been cutting federal government jobs and programs in an effort to save money but doing so in a way that some opponents consider to be haphazard, rushed and unnecessary.

During last week’s event, Preis said attendees were greeted mostly by enthusiasm from passers by, along with an occasional middle finger from others.