Thirteen hundred protest rallies flooded across every state and ebbed with barely a ripple of notice from the news networks. Easily a million people converged in chilly streets, town squares, and state houses, strenuously objecting to the multitude of ignorant illegalities committed by the Trump Regime in their names, but who was counting?
Even the organizers weren’t sure what the total turnout was. They said “millions” assembled to voice their three demands: “an end to the billionaire takeover and rampant corruption of the Trump administration; an end to slashing federal funds for Medicaid, Social Security, and other programs working people rely on; and an end to the attacks on immigrants, trans people, and other communities.” See their manifesto and organizing tips on Google Docs.
The crowd in NYC stretched for a mile up Fifth Avenue. Our main stage was in Boston, where protestors milled at the Common and threaded up to surround Government Center, a hundred thousand bodies by some estimates. Not since the days of Black Lives Matter has such an angry crowd assembled in Beantown.
Yet, seemingly all this counts for nothing, at least in the eyes of the media and powers that be. Trump was playing a rigged golf tournament and his staff was mute. The press was too consumed by his tweets and machinations to treat the demonstrations as more than pep rallies. CNN’s detailed report was a welcome exception. Drilling in, here’s a report from Missouri rural activist Jess Piper on protests in that retrograde red state.
What seemed odd to me was the minimal police presence. Up to a thousand people came to the protest I attended in a city of 65,000, yet I saw not one officer or police car. Perhaps they were surveilling us from third-floor windows across Main Street. Or was that ICE? It shivers me to wonder from under what rocks ICE unearths its orcs, and what do those goons think about being kidnappers. How do they sleep at night, or is it during the day?
No reports of violence in the 1300 protests came my way beyond one head-butt in the midwest. Nor did my dire prediction of a face-off at the White House come to pass, as the crowd stayed around the National Mall. But that’s not the last street demo DC will see. People will keep on showing up, even if the protests are outlawed by by Presidential Decree. And if demonstrators get dispersed and beat up on, will it be insurrection time? Is it already?
More mass protests are scheduled for May Day. Let’s turn out to be part of whatever goes down. Because wouldn’t you rather be part of history than erased from it?
Of course, I understand that not everyone feels that way. There’s a group of people who assemble at a nearby brew pub to talk about current affairs, along with their gripes and ailments. These bar-side chats began before the election, then faded away for a few months until Trump came back and started breaking things.*
The idea was to have a venue where folks with opposing views could converse, understanding that “We’re all friends here.” Though I’d never attended, I knew about the group from my garage mechanic, Clement Kowalski, who’s sort of a MAGA but can be fairly coherent once you cut through his gruffness. I stopped by his shop to give him some unwelcome news and asked him if he’d been to the pub circle recently.
“Yeah, I was there last week, but I left early,” he said.
“Was anything wrong?” I asked.
“There was a lot of talk about veteran affairs, but I’m not a vet so it didn’t mean much to me. I wished we could have talked about antisemitism, transgender, and burning Teslas.”
Being a longtime customer and not some faceless lib, I couldn’t resist tossing Clement some bait. “I see. Along with veterans, apparently, those are all things Trump doesn’t like. So are you happy with the job he’s doing?”
“I’ll say one thing. The Dems are always yelling about how Trump is anti-woman. Well, look how many women are running things in DC. Chief of Staff. Press Secretary. Education. Homeland Security. Head of Intelligence. And freaking Attorney General, for crying out loud. Goes to show that he values women, don’t it?”
“I guess it could, but it also goes to show that sycophancy knows no bounds.”
“Whatever that is. But to get to your question, I think he’s been a bit too gung-ho on tariffs but I’m all for hauling off the dead wood in Washington. We don’t need all that bureaucracy.”
“Including the Agency for International Development, Voice of America, the Peace Academy, the Consumer Financial Protection Board, Doctors at the CDC, Social Security workers, and area specialists in the State Department? Were they all useless?”
Clement stuffed his hands in his overalls and stared up at the grimy ceiling of his garage. “I don’t know. They probably did some good things but did they put America first? Where’s the bang for our bucks?”
“Well, I heard that the Consumer Protection Board saved two hundred million American families twenty billion dollars over the last ten years or so. That’s not chicken feed. And now it’s dead in the water. For what?”
“All those regulations increase the cost of doing business.”
“Maybe, Clement, but not for consumers. And just the other day, Trump cancelled a provision that would limit bank overdraft fees to five dollars. Now, I guess you could say that the banks took a hit from the rule, but tell me, did you ever get fined for dipping under your bank balance?”
“Happened once.”
“Do you remember what you were charged?”
“I don’t know, maybe twenty-five, thirty dollars. But it was my own damn fault.”
“Maybe so,” I replied, “but wouldn’t you like to have saved twenty-five dollars? And will it be your fault when you can’t buy car parts for any reasonable amount of money and auto workers are laid off?”
“Actually, business is picking up. People are hanging on to their old cars more now.”
“And having to choose between fixing their cars and going out to eat.”
“Not that they’d want to, what with food prices going up. At least that’s good for farmers.”
“Not for ones in Mexico and Canada, which is where a lot of our food and fertilizer comes from. And in America unemployment and inflation are going up.”
“That’s Biden’s fault.”
Our rhetorical chess game seemed to be ending in a draw. I glanced at my phone. “Gotta go,” I said. “My new electric car is ready to pick up.”
“EV, huh,” he grunted, adding “I figured you were some woke environmentalist type. Is it a Tesla, at least?”
“No way. Its a Hyundai. But it’s made in America, if that’s any consolation.”
“No matter. Looks like you won’t be coming round to see me anymore.”
It hit me that EVs represent a threat to repair shops, so I said, “Not necessarily, Clement. It’ll probably need a brake job 40k miles down the road. Maybe new shocks someday.”
“You do that. Hope that car works out for you.”
“Thanks,” I said, turning to go. “See you around in the Great American future.”
All the way home I wondered what it would take for Clement and I to agree about anything. But then I realized that we both probably believe in things like honesty, trustworthiness, kindness, charity, and leaving a better world for our kids, but that just left me more confused.
* True, and taken from an NPR story. What follows is made up.
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Hey Jeff, this column was great. Right to the point,, no fluff whatsoever. Thanks.