They are betting we will be too distracted to notice the walls closing in.
They are wrong.
On August 2, I joined hundreds in Denver for the 50501 "Rage Against the Regime" protest, one of 50 held nationwide. The mood was not just resistance. It was reckoning.
Trump's "big, beautiful bill" passed weeks ago. What once read like political fiction is now law, stripping away rights in plain sight while his allies flood the news with distractions. One of the latest was "Alligator Alcatraz," a media stunt that buried questions about Trump's ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Even in the last few days, he ordered Texas to redraw voting maps to lock in Republican power.
Meanwhile, ICE has detained U.S. citizens in raids, public broadcasting has been gutted, environmental protections shredded, and detention centers expanded. The White House is being turned into a golden palace for one man.
What we are raging against
This bill and the long list of executive orders behind it are built from Project 2025, a plan to dismantle democracy from within. It gives Trump sweeping powers to remake government in his image, and we're already seeing the results: the DOJ purged and replaced with loyalists, the FBI placed under direct presidential control, protesters surveilled and prosecuted, national abortion restrictions, LGBTQ+ protections rolled back, the Muslim ban expanded to 14 countries, censorship of educators and journalists, mass deportations including U.S. citizens, environmental rollbacks, homelessness criminalized, the civil service gutted, insurrectionists pardoned and reinstated, deep funding cuts to NPR, PBS, and cultural programs, and Texas ordered to gerrymander its voting maps.
This is not theoretical. It is happening now. In Denver, we said: we see you, and we reject you.
Why I keep showing up with my camera
Photography is not neutral. I photograph protests to preserve proof that people stood up, spoke out, and refused to normalize tyranny. These images will outlast headlines and speak for those who are silenced.
The movement is not over
Yes, the bill passed. Yes, damage is unfolding. But the resistance is organized, visible, and growing. We will fight in courts, communities, and streets, because silence is what they want, and we will not give it.
They want us to look away. Our eyes are wide open.
The images from the Denver protest are shared below, echoing what we stand against and what we stand for.
