Cowboys for Trump ditches horses for motorized ‘caravan’

Jun. 21--If you want to see a bunch of cowboys on horses in one place this weekend, you'll have to go to the annual Rodeo de Santa Fe. Another horseback event, one with a decidedly more political bent that had been scheduled for Friday, has been canceled.

Cowboys for Trump, a national conservative group that started in Otero County, still plans an 11 a.m. rally at the state Capitol on Friday, but a planned horseback procession from the rodeo grounds to the Roundhouse won't happen, local organizers said Thursday.

Instead, it will be a procession of vehicles with signs and lights traveling from the rodeo grounds to the Roundhouse.

"So instead of caravan of illegals we're going to be a caravan of American patriots," organizer William Barnard wrote in an email Thursday.

"Caravan" has become something of a charged word in today's political lexicon. During last year's midterm election, President Donald Trump tried to make an issue of a caravan of Central American asylum-seekers headed toward the U.S.

Barnard and fellow local organizer Audrey Trujillo gave two reasons for the cancellation.

First, they said, members of Cowboys for Trump were called for a gathering in Washington, D.C., organized by the Republican National Committee.

Second, they said, they couldn't afford the $600 in fees the city was going to charge for a parade of mounted Trump supporters.

Santa Fe city government spokeswoman Lilia Chacon said Thursday the city charges a standard $600 fee for a parade permit, police security and $1 million in liability insurance.

"This is a fee the city charges to anyone wanting to have a parade," Chacon said. "We're not trying to interfere with anyone's First Amendment rights."

She said the city won't charge a fee for the planned vehicle "caravan."

Earlier this week, Trujillo said about 250 people from around the state had responded to invitations to take part in a parade and rally in Santa Fe. She said at the time she hoped to get 300 to 500 people and about 100 horses in the parade.

Although many members of his group will be going to Washington, D.C., the Cowboys for Trump founder, Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin, will speak at the rally, Barnard and Trujillo said. Trujillo said Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Gavin Clarkson, as well as several county sheriffs from around the state, also will be at the rally.

Reaction to a story in The New Mexican about the planned horse parade earlier this week was predictable in a heavily Democratic city that in 2016 voted for Hillary Clinton over Trump, 71 percent to 20 percent.

One man wrote in a letter to the editor that the cowboys would be in town "to celebrate a lying, racist, misogynist, willfully ignorant man. ... if ever a travesty disguised as an event needed to be totally ignored, it is this one."

Another Santa Fe man wrote on Facebook, "I hope someone from their group picks up the manure they leave behind both literally and figuratively."

Griffin created Cowboys for Trump early this year because of his opposition to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's policies regarding immigrants, gun control and abortion rights.

The group's website says, "We believe that the liberal progressive agenda is drastically moving us away from the identifying principles that make us proud to be American."

In recent months, the group has done rides in Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, as well as in Santa Fe, where they rode in March from the county fairgrounds to the Capitol for a rally during the legislative session.

Though they are starting their journey to the Roundhouse from the rodeo grounds, Cowboys for Trump events are not connected with Rodeo de Santa Fe, Trujillo said.

Those who want to take part in the event should plan to meet between 9:15 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. and leave for the Capitol at 10 a.m., organizers said.

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