Petra Prag Crutchfield had a special reason to join a group of progressive activists who on Tuesday morning delivered to Sen. Mitch McConnell’s Paducah office a list of eight questions challenging his support for President Donald Trump and calling on him to vote against Russell Vought, Trump’s nominee for Office of Management and Budget director.
“I'm from Germany,” the Paducah resident explained. “I did not live during the bad, the dark times, but people I know lived through it, and we cannot have that here. So I'm here protesting for our rights.”
The gathering was sponsored by Four Rivers Indivisible, a local branch of the national Indivisible organization, which urged local groups like Four Rivers to send members to their senators’ field offices in all 50 states this week.
“We are facing a crisis, and we need all Members of Congress to fight back,” said a message on the Four Rivers Indivisible Facebook page inviting Indivisible members and supporters to gather at 11 a.m. outside the 1937 red brick Federal Building at 501 Broadway downtown. “Join your friends and neighbors in telling Senator McConnell that we demand he vote No on Russell Vought’s nomination as OMB Director, and to stop the federal funding freezes as well as Elon Musk’s clearly illegal intrusion into our governmental systems of funding and sensitive personal data.”
Twenty-six people gathered on the building steps and sidewalk as a raw wind gusted off the nearby Ohio River, making the overcast, mid-40 degree day seem colder.
Neither McConnell nor his office staffer were in the building. Four Rivers co-leader Leslie McColgin, who lives in nearby Graves County, entered the building with the questions on a sheet of paper.
After slipping the paper under the door of McConnell’s basement office, she came back out and read the questions to the crowd.
While the main goal of the gathering was to coax McConnell into a “No” vote on Vought, question seven focused on Elon Musk, head of Trump’s controversial Department of Government Efficiency.
“We’ve got a lot of Musk signs, and I haven’t talked much about Musk,” McColgin said. “Yeah!” somebody yelled. “No one voted for Elon Musk!” another listener shouted.
So she read: “Why haven’t you stood up to Trump’s allowing Elon Musk to interfere without oversight while he meddles in Treasury and other agencies such as USAID?”
Said McColgin: “We’re not supposed to have anybody in there without oversight. There are many experts that fear they could actually break the payment system in the Treasury because they don’t know what they’re doing. They’re sending 19 to 24-year-olds that think they know something, but they don’t know” the complexity of the department’s computer systems.
Question eight asked, "Will you vote NO on Russell Vought's confirmation for OMB Director and do your job of proper oversight?” The query was followed by the group’s “demand that you oppose his confirmation” based on Vought’s “role in supporting this devastating funding freeze that has thrown the lives and jobs of so many Americans into chaos.”
After going over the questions, she urged everybody present to keep calling McConnell’s office in Washington and field offices in Paducah and other cities in Kentucky. “If you can’t get through on this one, call another one.”
She pleaded, “Call every day this week and stick to the issue of ‘say no on Vought, stop the Freeze, and send Elon Musk out of the country.’”
Nora Clifton of Marshall County echoed McColgin. She chided “Democrats, independents, and progressive people” for not phoning enough. “We have failed in our duty, and I know none of us want to fail in our duty. I’m asking you, please pick up the phone and call.”
Throughout the hour-long rally, motorists honked, yelled, and flashed thumbs-up signs of support.
Karen Seldstad of Murray supplied signs, some printed, others homemade. Their messages ranged from “ELON MUSK DOESN’T RUN THE COUNTRY – WE DO” and “NO ONE VOTED FOR ELON MUSK” to “TRUMP & MUSK WANT TO RAID THE TREASURY” and “VOUGHT NO!”
The meetup included a duo of Christian Church clerics. “I’m here to speak and advocate for the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed,” said Leah Eubanks, director of missions and outreach at Paducah First Christian.
“I am here in the spirit of Bishop Marian Budde,” said the Rev. Amanda Groves of Marshall County. But she also called out Musk for claiming DOGE is shutting off aid to Lutheran groups following conspiracy theorist Michael Flynn’s false claim that they were employing religion to launder money.
“We have always heard, ‘Oh, watch out, religious freedom is on the line,” Groves added. “Well it is on the line.”
Others in the crowd included longtime union activist Jerry Sykes of Marshall County. “What brings me out here this morning?” asked the United Auto Workers retiree. “It’s what’s going on in our country. There is no way to get out of this unless we stand up as Americans and do the right thing and protect our country.”
He went after Elon Musk, “a billionaire – a kazillionaire” who strolled into “Washington D.C. for only one reason and we know what it is – to make himself more powerful than he already is. He wants to take away all of our rights, destroy our education system, and now he’s even into our Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. I’m disgusted at what’s going on in our county.”
Mary Byrne of Paducah said she had been feeling helpless until she heard about the gathering and was glad to come when she “found out that there was at least somebody doing something.”
She joined in the massive Women’s March against Trump on Jan. 21, 2021 in Washington. So did Marcia Berenter, also from Paducah. But she said she heard on TV that “they are not recommending huge protests right now because Trump has threatened to put the military out and it’s not safe. It’s much more effective to do small group activities where you are talking to the people who vote in Congress.
Retired Marine Tim Cook of Fulton spoke out against “the implementation of Project 2025 and Elon Musk’s takeover of our government institutions.”
McColgin was pleased with the turnout. “We had to get this together pretty fast because the call was Sunday night. They said they wanted us to have five to 15 because it wasn’t supposed to be a protest. It was supposed to be a visit to your senator’s office to tell them your concerns.”
But Indivisible and MoveOn organized the big protest rally at the Treasury building on Tuesday that brought out several Democratic lawmakers.
Four Rivers has 200 members. “But I’m getting membership requests constantly.” McColgin said.
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