At a town hall-style gathering in Downtown Pittsburgh on Wednesday, Congresswoman Summer Lee and Mayor Ed Gainey acknowledged that Democrats and anyone opposed to the Trump administration’s agenda face a difficult road ahead, but maintained the only option is to keep fighting.
Speaking to a gathering of dozens of area labor advocates hosted by SEIU 32BJ, Lee and Gainey spoke about the work their respective offices have been doing in recent months to counter a range of Trump administration moves. They responded to audience members’ concerns about the impact of federal policies, and what lies ahead.
Lee emphasized there are still things that Democrats can do even if they don’t have majorities in Congress.
“I am a legislator who believes in the power of the outside. I believe in organizing,” she said. “I believe that when we have legislative power, we will do it and we should use it, but I also know that whether it's the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, or any other big piece of legislation, the abolition of slavery, it did not come from a president or a congressperson.
“It came from organized people on the outside and organized power.”
Gainey reiterated his position not to have his administration or the city’s police force cooperate with ICE, a decision he noted he’d taken heat for.
“They asked me about ICE. I said, we will not at all deal with ICE,” he stated.
“We will reject it. The next day, my emails looked like a ride at Kennywood.
“There had to be about a hundred emails,” Gainey said. “But it was important.”
He sees the current moment as a test of the kind of city Pittsburgh wants to be.
“It's really not about what they’ll do. It's about what we will allow them to do,” he said. “It's not about how much trauma and terror they wanna impact on… immigration, it's about how we stand up to tell them that we are a nation of immigrants.”
Gainey also pointed to his recent appearances at rallies like the one in support of keeping East Liberty’s Social Security office open.
He shared that the city’s lawyers are looking into whether they can be of help in pressing UPMC to reinstate the providing of gender-affirming care to those under 19 years old. The healthcare giant has halted that care in response to a Trump executive order currently being challenged.
“My administration will do everything in our power to make sure that we always stand up for the people,” Gainey said.
Both Gainey and Lee encouraged those in attendance to strengthen their connections with their neighbors, and foster education about what is happening in Washington.
“We need unprecedented unity right now,” urged Gainey.
“This is the time where if you don't know other communities, get to know them. Don't judge them, know them.
“We need the type of unity where we got each other's back. And it starts right on your block.
“Do you know your neighbor?”
Lee admitted that these are difficult times for many, especially for the countless organizations, institutions, businesses and individuals affected by the Trump administration’s proposed cuts.
“It's going to be a belt tightening era that we are in right now,” she said. “Western Pennsylvania is going to be harmed because of Donald Trump.”
Striking a similar note as she did in another recent town hall in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, Lee said Democrat politicians will need to work with community level groups and come up with new strategies.
“Every day is guerrilla warfare. It's a battle, right?
“And there are a lot of Democrats and Republicans who don't know how to do guerrilla warfare,” she said.
“We're governing in a time that we have never experienced before. And we have to try things that we've never done before.”
She called not knowing what the future holds “frightening,” while adding “the country as we know it may never exist the way that it had.”
But, Lee argued, continuing to fight means having a hand in “what comes next.”
“We should be fighting harder than they are to be the author of what is next, to be builders of what is next. Because if we are not the ones who build it, then they are building it, but it's getting built one way or another,” she said.
“If you don’t want it to be what they want it to be, then it has to be you.”
“I'm not depressed by that, I am encouraged by that. We were built for such a time as this.
“This is the moment.”
