Marching several miles through Midtown Atlanta to protest the Trump administration — as tens of thousands have done in recent months — was out of the question for many of the seniors living in a Stone Mountain retirement community.
Mary Beth Thomas, 84, requires a wheelchair, while others use the assistance of a walker. Some have auditory or visual impairments, like Fowler Bush, 84, who is nearly blind.
“It‘s just a chore getting outside, and it‘s dangerous,” Bush said. “A lot of folks here have things like peripheral neuropathy or can barely stand up.”
So they took matters into their own hands.
Every other Saturday, several dozen seniors gear up in sun hats and sit in a shady patch along a nearby sidewalk, holding up handmade signs that read, “Down with this reign of cruelty” and “No kings in America.”
Credit: Mary Beth Thomas
Credit: Mary Beth Thomas
It‘s a mighty operation just to get everyone half a mile down the road from the retirement community, loading wheelchairs into cars and making sure no one slips and falls in the process. But for the small group, which has since expanded to about 50 seniors from around metro Atlanta, it’s well worth the risk.
They form a tenuous but defiant line of wheelchairs, walkers and lawn chairs opposing an administration they believe has destabilized the nation and unraveled its democratic values.
Trump’s first 100 days back in office has been a sweeping display of power, dismantling the federal workforce with the help of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, unnerving the global economy with historic tariffs as high as 145% on China and deporting 139,000 people the administration said were in the country without proper legal authority.
Many retirees are concerned about the cuts to the Social Security Administration, as well as the risk of inflation because of the tariffs. But more unnerving than the threat to their retirement funds, several seniors said, is the threat to U.S. democracy they once believed to be infallible.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
America’s oldest generation born between the 1920s and 1940s saw the U.S. become a beacon of the free world post-World War II, victorious against fascism in Nazi Germany and defiant against communism in the Soviet Union. It was a shining period of U.S. democracy that many retirees remember — and now must grieve, 84-year-old Peggy Smith said.
“I totally trusted our government growing up in the 1950s and ’60s, even when I maybe shouldn’t have, but I don’t think anyone does now,” she said.
Thomas similarly pointed to a “togetherness” of the mid-20th century that has since been fractured by division and political polarization.
“We were here when schools were desegregated, and the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, fight for racial equality, women’s rights, people securing the opportunity to marry who they chose,” Thomas said. “We lived through that history, and the threat to it is just almost overwhelming.”
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Several seniors described today’s political climate as one of paranoia, division and, above all, a failure of the checks and balances that were meant to hold leaders responsible.
Susan Thomas, 81, of Decatur recalled the betrayal of the Watergate scandal in the 1970s but never doubted that then-President Richard Nixon would eventually be held accountable.
“It was a nightmare, but there was always hope … (that) eventually Nixon would be caught,” she said. “But this time, it seems to be totally overwhelming and so many people have so little hope.”
The Trump administration continues to refuse an order by the Supreme Court to seek the release of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia who was wrongfully sent to El Salvador. A federal judge in Maryland ordered the White House last week to seek the return of another man who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador as part of the same deportation operation.
“There’s always an ‘other,’ and I don’t like that,” Smith said. “This is not the country that I thought I was growing up in and it certainly is not the one I want to leave for my grandchildren.”
Roughly 55% of Georgians worry the nation is headed down the “wrong track” with Trump back in office, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll of 1,000 registered Georgia voters. That figure is up from 45% at the start of his term.
But despite Trump’s low standing for a president this early in a term, Georgia voters remain sharply divided over Trump’s second term. Trump’s Republican base remains loyal, with about 85% of Republicans and 90% of those who voted for him in November approving of his performance.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Retirees approaching their twilight years are now contemplating what kind of America they are leaving for their grandchildren, a generation of young people dealing with their own set of crises. Countless studies outline young people’s struggles with financial security, loneliness and happiness as they navigate a slew of issues from the economy, political polarization to social isolation.
“It must be horrible to have gone through high school and college during COVID and now this,” Susan Thomas said. “No jobs. No hope. Never getting out of your parents’ basements.”
Smith noticed the bleak job market as her four grandchildren prepare for life after college.
“What kind of world did we put them into?” she said. “My era, when we graduated from college, there was not a doubt in the world that we’d find a job. It didn’t cross my mind that there wasn’t something out there for me that would pay my rent and my food. And that‘s something younger folks can’t imagine now.”
Bush said all he can do now for his 9-year-old and 10-year-old grandchildren is “yell and scream.”
“We got to be loud enough,” Bush said. “We got to complain enough. We got to be massive enough in terms of the protests, so that we can hang on until the midterms.”
It’s a modest but meaningful last stand for this senior community.
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