Josh Riley Avoids Ithaca Hands Off Protest April 5, 2025
The fundamental idea of Josh Riley Watch is that we, the people of Ithaca, Tompkins County, and New York’s 19th congressional district, are going to watch Josh Riley, our new U.S. representative. We’re going to watch what Josh Riley does as a member of the US House of Representatives. We’re going to pay attention to what Representative Riley is doing, to see if his actions match his words. Even more basic than that, we are going to watch where Josh Riley goes, to see who he associates with.
A part of that mission is to pay attention to the negative space in Josh Riley’s term in office. We need to watch where Josh Riley refuses to go, and the people and events he avoids.
Yesterday, April 5, 2025, was an historic day in the United States of America. It was the day when the truth of American popular resistance to the fascist takeover by Donald Trump and Elon Musk became unavoidable. Yesterday, in thousands of locations across the United States, people took to the streets in massive protests demanding that Trump and Musk be held accountable to the law.
Here in Ithaca, the demonstration filled up the Commons and spilled out onto the streets beyond, with an estimated 3,000 protesters coming together on a mile-long march out to Route 13. The weather was not comfortable, with high winds and cold rain, but these Ithacans decided they had seen enough. You could say that they were ready to fight like hell (nonviolently).
The protest began at Noon, and it lasted until 3:00 PM.
Congressman Josh Riley was not present at the protest in Ithaca. He wasn’t at the protests in Binghamton or Cortland either. Neither was he at the protests taking place in the Hudson River Valley, or in Washington D.C. Josh Riley didn’t attend even one protest yesterday.
Instead, Congressman Riley made a social media post on Facebook and X, Elon Musk’s pro-fascism platform.
Did Josh Riley write about the protests taking place in Ithaca and across the country?
No. Riley hasn’t said one word about the protests. So what did he have to say?
“I’ll fight like hell,” Josh Riley wrote in a Facebook post yesterday at 1:39 PM. Congressman Riley has grown very fond of saying that he’s going to fight like hell.
What’s becoming increasingly awkward is that we never see Josh Riley actually fighting like hell.
Josh Riley boasted that he attended a meeting yesterday, and he posted photographs to prove it.
Below is one picture Josh Riley’s aides took of the Congressman’s meeting. It shows Josh Riley sitting at the end of a table in a small conference room. There are a few other people at the table with Riley, but a lot of empty seats. Perhaps half of the chairs around the table are occupied.
Looking at the photographs taken by Riley’s staff, it seems that there were six, or perhaps seven, constituents meeting with the Congressman yesterday. Some of the people at that meeting seemed to be rather preoccupied, as with this man in a business jacket and a red plaid shirt, checking his smartphone while Josh Riley was speaking.
I would like to think that if I had the chance to sit down at a conference table with Congressman Josh Riley and just a handful of other people in order to discuss what Congress could be doing to address the growing economic crisis and disintegration of democracy in the United States, I would not spend the time checking my text messages, or playing Candy Crush, or using another app on my phone.
But then again, like most people living in New York’s 19th congressional district, I haven’t been invited to sit with Josh Riley at a conference table.
I didn’t recognize any of the people in that small meeting with Congressman Josh Riley. That’s not to say they aren’t important. I’m sure they are, but are they more important than the three thousand people who were gathered outside nearby, in vigorous opposition to Donald Trump and Elon Musk?
I did recognize one thing in a couple of the photographs, however. Sitting on the table right in front of Congressman Josh Riley was a paper coffee cup with a very familiar logo. The cup was from Collegetown Bagels.
Collegetown Bagels is a local, Ithaca-based business. In fact, Collegetown Bagels has only location outside of Ithaca. That location is way up in Syracuse, a 45-minute drive from the northernmost border of New York’s 19th congressional district.
The three Ithaca locations of Collegetown Bagels are all within an easy 5-minute drive or 15-minute walk from the location of the Ithaca Commons, where the Hands Off protest took place yesterday. One of those locations is just a couple of hundred feet away from the Commons.
So, Josh Riley could have easily gone from that meeting, which was over by 1:39 PM, to speak to the anti-Trump protest nearby. He didn’t do so. Why?
It’s certainly not because Josh Riley and his staff didn’t know that the protests were taking place. Plans for the Hands Off protests were one of the top three stories covered by the Associated Press the day beforehand. The Ithaca protest was also extremely well-publicized, as were other protests across the district.
There’s no way Josh Riley didn’t know about the protests. Instead, Congressman Riley chose to avoid participating in any of the protests. Why?
The most obvious explanation, given that Josh Riley’s office has not issued any statement even acknowledging the existence of the local and nationwide protests against Donald Trump, is that Riley doesn’t want to associate himself with the protests.
Josh Riley is actively avoiding been seen with the constituents who are actually out there on the streets, organizing opposition to Donald Trump.
Instead, Representative Riley is holding tightly-managed meetings with small numbers of constituents who he and his staff select. That sparsely-attended meeting Josh Riley had with a few people in Ithaca yesterday was not announced to the public beforehand.
Josh Riley has yet to hold even one in-person town hall meeting in New York’s 19th congressional district. His contacts with the people of the district have been highly filtered, matching Riley’s minimal legislative actions.
Congressman Josh Riley isn’t fighting like hell. He’s doing everything he can to avoid joining in the fight against Donald Trump.
Come here to New York’s 19th congressional district and talk to the people who voted for Josh Riley four months ago. They’ll tell you loud and clear that hiding the big problems being caused by Donald Trump is not what they elected Josh Riley to do.
