These dinosaurs may have pulled off the most hilarious protest of President Trump yet.
The list of groups lining up to protest the Trump administration's policy agenda just keeps growing.Women. Immigrants and their advocates. LGBTQ Americans and their allies. Yemeni deli owners. Disabled Medicaid recipients.
And now ... dinosaurs.
On Wednesday, a large group of T. rexes — seriously, not making this up — marched on Washington to demand Congress overrule the president and continue funding national service programs.
A press release described the protest as featuring a "record number of dinosaurs," a probably technically correct statement that, nonetheless, doesn't really do the actual event justice.
Take a look:
"While dinosaurs are fun — national service extinction is a serious matter," Shirley Sagawa, CEO of Service Year Alliance, the group that organized the dino-march, said in an emailed statement.
Trump's proposed fiscal year 2018 budget would dramatically cut funding to a variety of long-standing aid organizations. Under the proposal, AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, and Vista would be eliminated. The Peace Corps would also see its funding slashed.
Eliminating these programs could cause a lot of harm to human beings. The Peace Corps operates in over 60 countries on six continents. According to AmeriCorps, the program's volunteers assisted in over 21,000 sites last year, responding to natural disasters, providing free tax preparation assistance to senior citizens, and teaching anti-drug classes in schools where opioid abuse is rampant.
Despite their passionate embrace of the cause, it is unlikely dinosaurs would be affected by the cuts (though the humans inside the inflatable suits certainly might be).
Sagawa hopes the protest will convince the Senate to reduce or eliminate the cuts when they consider the budget this month.
Photo by Nicholas Kamm/Getty Images.
"We encourage them to listen to the folks who gathered outside the Capitol and expand national service instead of letting it go extinct," she said.
If dozens of hulking, bloodthirsty carnivores can't make the case, it's likely no one can.
Correction 9/1/2017: The article misstated the name of the group that organized the protest. It is Service Year Alliance, not National Service Alliance.