SEATTLE — Angry protesters spent part of Wednesday at Cal Anderson Park demonstrating against the 2024 Presidential Election results. Organized by Freedom Road Socialist Organization, University of Washington Students for a Democratic Society, and other progressive groups, those there said they didn't see a major difference between Republicans and Democrats.
"We're here to protest a rotten system that gave us two rotten choices and we're not happy with the rotten outcome," Gemini Gnull with FRSO said.
She believes the two parties are out of touch.
"Not the Democrats, not the Republicans, neither represent the interest of the working class," she said.
However, experts have come to the conclusion President-Elect Donald Trump tapped into the working class frustrations, something first seen when he was elected in 2016.
"You can't tell the Trump Economy story without also talking about the massive role immigration plays in the story he tells," Patrick Schoettmer, a political science professor at Seattle University, said.
According to Schoettmer, Trump stoking fears over immigrants taking jobs resonated with his base, white-working class men and women. That rhetoric also brought in more people typically associated with the Democratic Party, Latino and Black Men.
"He was able to hold onto that working class and expand it to a more multiracial direction," he said.
Schoettmer said we can learn a lot from history. The last time a president was elected to a non-consecutive term was back in the late 19th Century, Grover Cleveland. Top issues for people at that time were the economy and immigration, just like now.
Gnull said she's angry Trump's rhetoric worked.
"He's blaming the people that build and maintain this country for the negative outcomes that the Democrats and Republicans created," she said.
Gnull conceded and said a Trump presidency would target minority and marginalized groups compared to a Harris Presidency.
She stood firm, however, on her belief that neither candidate would have changed foreign policy. She and others at the rally honed in on Israel's absolute decimation of Gaza, killing more than 43,000 Palestinians for a Hamas attack that killed 1,200 Jewish people.
For change to happen, Gnull said the two-party system must come to an end. She said people can do that by organizing.
"Any kind of right that we have wasn't given to us out of the kindness of whichever Democrat or Republican was in power. They were fought for and won," she said.