Hundreds mobilized at Harvey Milk Promenade Park, calling for the impeachment of President Donald Trump on Tuesday, Dec. 17. As of press time, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
As hundreds of participants rallied in Harvey Milk Promenade Park Tuesday for a nationwide event calling for the impeachment of President Donald Trump, the words “impeach, remove, impeach, remove,” echoed throughout downtown Long Beach.
“I just do this because I’m a resident here, and I’m an American and it’s important,” Jacqui Viale, a Long Beach resident who organized the rally, said.
A crowd marches through downtown Long Beach on Tuesday, Dec. 17, calling for the impeachment of President Donald Trump. The “Nobody Is Above the Law” rallies and marches happened nationwide, on the evening before the U.S. House of Representatives voted on the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump.
Viale signed up to organize the event through the moveon.org website.
According to its website, moveon.org is an organization that primarily focuses on nonpartisan education and advocacy on important national issues where “millions mobilize for a better society.”
Moveon.org states on its homepage that “hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in over 600 events in all 50 states to declare that ‘Nobody Is Above the Law.’”
“I sent out mass emails to get people involved,” said Viale as attendees continued to walk up and thank her for organizing the event. “We had a good turnout.”
Jacqui Viale, a Long Beach resident, organized the “Impeach & Remove” rally at Harvey Milk Promenade Park in downtown Long Beach on Tuesday, Dec. 17. Viale is also active in a politically grassroots organization of women in Long Beach known as the Resister Sisters.
Viale, a former teacher, who currently works in a Long Beach Public Library, is also active in a politically grassroots organization of women in Long Beach known as the Resister Sisters.
“We see a lot of problems happening right now, and we want to do something about it, whether it’s helping kids that need to have a reading with tutors or help people at the border who are being treated so poorly and to change immigration law or whatever it is,” Viale said. “We just try and get together and do something about it, and that’s why I did this because somebody had to do it.”
Arvella Battick, an attendee at the event, left her job in the valley early after finding out about the rally through Facebook.
“We need to impeach him and we need to push them [Senators] to remove him, and if they don’t remove him, then we need to take him out in November,” Battick said.
While Viale did not call for a march to proceed, many decided to do so on their own.
“Oh Lord, here they go, I can’t control the crowd anymore, they’ve gone wild,” Viale said as the marchers lapped around the Promenade again.
The local rally took place as countless others occurred nationwide on the eve of the U.S. House of Representatives vote for on two articles of impeachment against Trump. As of press time, the House voted on Wednesday to impeach Trump “for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress” as reported in the media. The articles of impeachment will now be in the hands of the Republican-dominated Senate for a trial.
