Activists to protest Trump’s SNL gig

The campaign will start at Trump Tower and make its way down toward NBC Studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

“The truth here is that ‘SNL’ and NBC are trying to normalize what Trump is saying,” said Juan Escalante, digital campaigns manager at America’s Voice and author of a petition to ban Trump from the show. “At the end the day, nothing that Donald Trump has said is funny.”

The campaign is an amalgamation of petitions aimed at getting “SNL” to take Trump off their schedule. It counts more than 522,000 supporters, according to its website.

The group is still pushing to get Trump kicked off the show, a goal that seems to be nearly impossible to achieve given NBC’s promotion of Trump’s hosting duties Saturday night.

“NBC is embarrassing itself, and SNL is doing a disservice to its own reputation. But they can still make this right,” said Justin Krebs of MoveOn.org.

While the effort seems certain to fail, members of the group said they’re hoping the effort to organize the protest can continue to speak out against Trump.

“It means a lot and it shows the power and strength of our community,” said Escalante. “No matter what happens tomorrow, this is a campaign that will continue to grow and move forward.”

They also made it clear they think Trump, who currently is fourth in the Washington Examiner‘s presidential power rankings, will be a problem for other ethnic minorities as well. It’s longer-term goal is to ensure people come out and vote next year.

“We want to make sure that we continue to highlight the importance of what it means for the community to be united,” Escalante said. “We want to make sure folks are registered to vote, energized and mobilized. A candidate like Donald Trump cannot win the White House with this kind of hate message. The fight will continue into 2016 to hold those accountable who spew this kind of hatred.”