"I have to get out there and do something.”

by Berry Craig  Feb 12, 2025   Reprinted with permission from Forward Kentucky

A half dozen Four Rivers Indivisible members might have won over a Trump voter during the group’s first “Mondays with Mitch” peaceful protest outside Sen. Mitch McConnell’s field office in Paducah’s 1937-vintage red brick Federal Building.

It wasn’t Kentucky’s senior senator. He was in Washington. Nor was it a local office staffer.

The possible convert was the driver of a pickup truck who spotted the group’s anti-Elon Musk signs, stopped and suggested that President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency head “go to Mars.”

He confessed that Trump got his ballot. “I thought he was going to do good for us,” the man said. “Now I’m seeing all kinds of crazy stuff going on.”

He said he’d had a stroke, has a hard time walking, and is afraid he’ll lose his Social Security. After taking a cell phone of the group for his Facebook page, he posed for a photo with everybody.

The previous Tuesday, more than two dozen Four Rivers members and supporters dropped by to leave McConnell a set of questions urging him to vote against Russell Vought, Trump’s nominee as Office of Management and Budget head.

All 53 Republican senators supported Vought. All 47 Democrats voted no.

Four Rivers is a local branch of the national Indivisible organization that is helping lead peaceful protests large and small across the country.

While five of her fellow Four Rivers members held up anti-Musk signs, Jane Muklewicz went inside and handed a McConnell staffer a flier denouncing Musk for trying to destroy the U.S. Agency for International Development. “Sen McConnell: Will you protect American interests and oppose these illegal actions?” the flier challenged.

“I have been against this man since 2016, and I couldn’t believe he was reelected, especially after knowing his record, and now it’s even worse, and he’s brought Musk into play,” said Muklewicz, who lives in Reidland, a city suburb. “I have a daughter who’s partially disabled and has school loans, and I have a disabled vet son who is going back to school, and now neither one of them know what position they’re in. If my daughter loses ACA, she’s in big trouble. If my son loses his vet benefits – school and medical – he’s in big trouble.

“I just can’t stand the thought of all these billionaires taking everything away from good people, not just my kids but everybody, so they can make a few more bucks — and that’s all it is — it’s just screw these people.”

She said Trump “took away the [Federal] Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Why doesn’t he want to protect consumers? It’s ridiculous, and it’s getting worse day after day. I figured if I sit back and let it overwhelm me, that’s nowhere. So I have to get out there and do something — try to get something done.”

Marshall countian Jerry Sykes wore his United Auto Workers cap and jacket. The UAW retiree said Musk is “rummaging through all of our personal information. He has no business there. He’s not an elected official.”

Sykes finds it odd that Trump “doesn’t even trust his own people in Congress to take care of the business that they’re supposed to take care of. He has to bring an outsider in. Doesn’t he trust his own people that he backed up during the election to do the work of the people?”

He vowed to “be out here as long as it takes so we can get the message across to everybody in this country that this is a government for the people, by the people. It has nothing to do with some individual that’s the richest man in the world, so they say, to come in and try to overthrow our government, and that’s exactly what I think is going on in our country.”

Retired Marine Tim Cook said he drove in from Fulton “because my oath to the constitution never expires, and we’re being attacked from within.” Added Cook, who spent 22 years in the Corps and ended up with master sergeant’s stripes on his sleeve: “I swore to protect and defend it from all enemies foreign and domestic.”

Sykes and Cook also showed up last Tuesday. So did Leah Eubanks, director of Missions and Outreach at Paducah’s First Christian Church. “Today, I wore my stole with the children on it, all the different colors,” she said. “I’m here today to speak for the children — the children who are suffering because USAID has been shut down all over the world, the children who are suffering because of the threats to the Department of Education, the children who are suffering because of the proposed shutdown of Medicaid. They are our future in this country, and I feel like it’s important that we protect our children and our future from Elon Musk, who is trying to dismantle all of those programs that serve the people.”

Her husband, First Christian Pastor Jamie Eubanks, joined Monday’s protest. “I’m out here because I think this is the time for the church not to be silent. We are called to stand up when we see people being taken advantage of. The church needs to stand up for ‘the least of these’ and that’s who’s being attacked right now.”

Jennifer Smith of Paducah coordinated Monday’s event. She didn’t mince words about why she was with the group. “I feel like we are where Nazi Germany was in the 1930s. We already are in dire straits because too many people are just rolling over and letting this happen. I don’t understand why all the people in the government buildings are just throwing up the white flag and letting in Musk and his little band – probably for their jobs. I can get it up to a point.”

Smith said because she is 67 and near retirement, “maybe I can use my voice when some other people cannot. But we’re all in this together, and if we don’t put a stop to it now, I don’t know how long it will take to get our country back. It’s terrifying.”

The group spent about 30 minutes on the sunny sidewalk. Their printed black-and-white-signs declared “No one voted for Elon Musk” and asked “It’s Musk or Us – Which side are you on?"

Like last Tuesday, several passing motorists honked their horns, waved and gave the group the thumbs up sign. One driver pulled over to congratulate the group.

Smith said the message for McConnell will change each Monday.

“It takes a village,” said Smith, a Kentucky delegate to last year’s Democratic National Convention. “It’s going to take all of us,” she added, not just her party.

In addition to holding “Mondays with Mitch” from 12:30 to 1 p.m., Four Rivers is planning similar protests at the same time on Thursdays outside Republican Congressman James Comer’s Paducah field office.