Saqib Ali, a former member of the Maryland House of Delegates from reliably liberal Montgomery County, canceled a planned Wednesday evening protest against President-elect Donald Trump for lack of interest.
“JUST IN: Tonight’s Rockville march/protest against @realDonaldTrump has been canceled “due to insufficient RSVPs.” @ABC7News,” WJLA-TV reporter Kevin Lewis tweeted on Wednesday morning. Attached to the tweet was a screen capture from a news release announcing the cancellation of the “March Against Racist Misogynist President-Elect Trump.”
Mr. Ali apparently began organizing the event on Sunday, asking followers on his Facebook page, “Some people are thinking about a flash-mob style Anti-Trump demonstration on Wednesday or Thursday evening in Rockville Town Center. Who’s interested?”
Responding to a critic who asked what he “intended to accomplish” with the march, Mr. Ali wrote on his Facebook page on Monday, “We want to make sure that the behavior of this vulgar man is not normalized and accepted. He should be denounced and opposed.”
Elected in 2006, Mr. Ali served one term in the House of Delegates from January 2007 to January 2011. A Democrat in a solidly Democratic district, he lost a bitter primary election battle in 2010, having unsuccessfully challenged incumbent State Sen. Nancy King.
The canceled protest comes on the heels of a Wednesday morning student demonstration in Rockville that turned violent when a 15-year-old boy wearing a “Make America Great Again” head was “viciously beaten” in the words of a correspondent for WTOP Radio, a Washington, D.C., news radio station.
SEE ALSO: Trump-supporting teen beaten at high-school protest in suburban Maryland: Report
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