Speech at the US Capitol Protest
We would like to thank everyone who participated in the second National Day of Protest. Our founder delivered the following speech at the US Capitol on February 17, 2025, and we wanted to share it with you:
“My name is Carlos Álvarez-Aranyos, and I’m the founder of American Opposition.
I want to first thank 50501. Having borne direct witness to their work, I can safely say that there has never been a more successful national organizing effort, particularly when you consider how quickly they’ve pulled everything together. What they’ve achieved is testimony to the greatness of our nation.
We built American Opposition to do what our representatives have failed to do: To serve as a hub for the opposition movement and ensure that we can leverage the power of the American people to stop Donald Trump from destroying American democracy.
That work has already begun, and it will continue for as long as it takes. We will never quit on this nation, nor will we surrender on our Constitution.
While some see our Constitution as a declaration, it is actually a contract between the American people and their government — a contract that sets out how our representatives wield *our* power.
Wielding that power responsibly requires character, decency, morality, maturity, discipline, wisdom, and expertise. Perhaps to a greater degree than any living human being, Donald Trump lacks all of those things.
For the ten years of tax returns we’ve seen, he lost more money than any other American, making him literally the biggest loser in our history.
In his first term, his incompetence caused over 400,000 unnecessary deaths. The only person in history to be responsible for more American deaths than Donald Trump is Adolf Hitler.
Trump also told over 30,000 lies in his first four years in office, and he hasn’t stopped since. He lied about an election he lost and then pardoned the thousands of violent criminals who stood where we are, beat our brave police officers, and desecrated this Capitol.
He is a serial liar and adulterer, a sexual abuser, an insurrectionist, and — perhaps worst of all — a proud, heartless, and stubborn idiot, incapable of ever saying he’s sorry or admitting he’s wrong.
The result of this election is that we’re now living under fascism. And for those who question why we call it fascism; the answer is simple: It became fascism the moment he fired the civil servants who had investigated him. It continued when he began shutting down government agencies without congressional approval. And it has reached a fever pitch as he’s empowered Elon Musk – a private citizen with no expertise in this area – to steal our data and destroy our government like he destroyed Twitter.
The Constitution is a contract between the American people and their government, and this government is in breach of that contract.
Our system of checks and balances has failed to do its job and correct the imbalance. His supporters in Congress have accepted him as their god. The Supreme Court essentially declared him their king.
It is time for us — the American people — to remind all Republicans that the constitutional contract isn’t between the three branches of government.
It’s between us – the people – and our government.
We will not submit to the same fascism our grandparents defeated. We will not allow corruption or incompetence to destroy our institutions. And we will remind Elon Musk and the tech oligarchs who stood behind Trump at his inauguration that our power and the permission to use it will never be for sale.
The powers channeled by the Constitution are ours — not theirs. The power of this nation is us — not them.
After all, we are more powerful than Elon Musk.
We are more powerful than Congress.
And we are more powerful than Donald Trump.
In fact, the power of the American people is the most powerful force on Earth.
It’s time to remind the people in our government of a very simple truth: They work for us. They wield our power with our consent.
So here’s my message to Donald Trump and every other fascist in this nation: You’re pitting yourselves against the collective power of the American people, and — make no mistake about it: You don’t stand a chance.
We, the people of the United States of America, are drawing from our history to stand up for our future and our values.
We’re engaging in “good trouble” in memory of John Lewis. We’re engaging in solemn protest in memory of Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez. And we will deliver on the dream he proclaimed on the far side of this National Mall in honor of the great Martin Luther King.
This is our nation. And that is future.
Don’t you dare try to steal it from us. We will not allow it.
Thank you very much.”
