If you wandered past the Reno Federal Building on May Day with no particular aim, you might’ve thought the world was ending. Folks were red in the face, shouting into bullhorns like salvation depended on the volume and waving signs so fresh off the printer they still smelled like ink. Orchestrated by Indivisible Northern Nevada, which takes its name quite seriously— judging by the chatter, they’d sooner divide the nation six ways from Sunday if it meant a few more government programs and one less deportation officer.
It wasn’t the biggest crowd you ever saw—not unless you count the pigeons—but what they lacked in numbers, they made in theatrical outrage. If you’d taken a drink every time someone hollered “authoritarian,” you’d have been carried home in a wheelbarrow before noon. According to the speakers, Trump was the second coming of Mussolini, capitalism was the devil’s playground, and the weather would probably clear up if we just taxed the rich a little more.
A few sensible voices tried to speak on behalf of legal immigrant workers—folks who fill out forms, stand in lines, and try to follow the rules—but their message was like a flute solo at a brass band parade. Drowned out, that is, by demands that sounded like they’d fallen out of a Bernie Sanders diary during a fever dream. Amnesty for all, free health care, rent control, green jobs for everyone, and abolishing ICE—because clearly, nothing says national security like tearing down the fences and telling the guards to go home.
In Vegas, the spectacle had more sparkle but no less nonsense. The Culinary Union linked arms with the Nevada Immigrant Coalition and a buffet of other organizations so loaded with acronyms you’d need a glossary to keep up. They called it a “Day of Action,” which is protest-speak for “shut down the busiest streets in town and make life miserable for tourists.”
Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo Road, two arteries of commerce and chaos, were clogged tighter than a Nevada buffet line on lobster night. Megaphones barked, cabs honked, and above rang the refrain, “Immigrants are essential!” It’s a sentiment as vague as it was loud. Never mind that legal immigrants were likely the only ones present who had filled out the paperwork these very groups now insisted we should throw out.
Of course, the headliner was President Trump—blamed for mass deportations that, historically speaking, weren’t quite as “mass” as Obama’s—but again, facts at these things are as unwelcome as a cold caller at dinnertime. One union rep held up a sign declaring “No One Is Illegal,” conveniently ignoring that the legal immigration process hinges on the concept of legality.
To their credit, some attendees earnestly believed in what they were marching for. They want fairness, opportunity, and a better life for people who come here with good intentions and an honest work ethic. But like a well-meaning preacher at a poker table, they were drowned out by louder voices demanding free everything and accountability from no one.
See, the trouble with these May Day rallies isn’t just the disruption, the slogans, or the traffic snarls. It’s that they pretend to speak for the working man while ignoring the one place you could find him that day–at work. The folks flipping burgers, fixing roofs, or trying to make rent by the skin of their teeth—weren’t waving signs. They were paying the taxes to fund all the handouts demanded in their name.
We have a deep appreciation for liberty and a healthy suspicion of anyone who wants to run your life “for your own good,” in Nevada. We believe in a fair shot, not a fixed game. We want secure borders, honest government, and schools that teach more arithmetic than activism.
So go ahead, protest all you like. Print your signs, chant your chants, block your boulevards. But don’t be surprised when the silent majority—who skipped the megaphones for an honest day’s work—answers you the old-fashioned way. At the ballot box. Where the slogans stop, and the citizens start making the rules.
The Old Blog in the Desert 