Bill
The sight of people marching in streets, waving placards and posters, and shouting slogans for a cause is common enough. But it usually involves something concrete, like racial justice or jobs. They want something to change.
So, what would bring millions of American citizens who, like me, are not the protesting types out on a Saturday morning to advocate – rather desperately, at that – for something not to change?
In my case, I had never participated in a demonstration or a public protest in my life, and I’m old enough to have marched against the Vietnam War if I had wanted to.
I once watched a riot – from a distance – at the college I was attending in 1970. I totally sympathized with the cause, but a natural reticence to make a public nuisance or spectacle of myself kept me on the sidelines. Later, in my professional career as a journalist, I was naturally disinclined to get involved in public events but instead preferred to observe. It’s just the way I am.
But on a raw, rainy day on suburban Long Island, NY, bundled in a parka and fighting off a biting wind, I was there with several hundred mostly middle-aged citizens like me. People you would hardly call activists, but who just had to get out there and shout, “We’ve had it!”, “Enough is enough!”, and “Hands off!”
Destruction of the state
These people did not have a personal cause like the civil rights marchers in the South, a personal grievance like the suffragettes of the early 20th century, or a boiling point like the anti-Vietnam War protesters of the 1960s and early 1970s.
They weren’t demonstrating for better housing or striking for better wages or the right to vote. They were there because they saw things they had grown up with and depended on – Social Security, Medicaid, health care, and a myriad of government services such as education and scientific research, things to make American citizens’ lives better – being looted and destroyed.
All this in the name of some billionaire’s (who’s not even American citizen; how can you even explain that?) lark called the Department of Governmental Efficiency. America’s governmental infrastructure was being destroyed at lightning speed, right in front of our eyes, and we were all looking at being left with nothing when the dust settled.
Well, that’s how I felt. This was not merely social justice for other people’s causes – women, people of color, exploited workers. We were righteously angry. I was righteously angry.
In my day, the government was derided as “the Establishment”. You could rail against the Pentagon, you could lament the country’s record of racial atrocities, you could complain about “government waste” and corrupt politicians (“The best government money can buy,” as my father liked to joke).
Yet we also came to rely on the federal government for guidance, for expertise, for setting standards, for doing scientific research. In other words, looking out for all its citizens. There were no red or blue states. We were one union.
How does this slash-and-burn destruction make American citizens’ lives better? How does gutting the Centers for Disease Control (especially after the Covid-19 pandemic), the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Education, Social Security and Medicare, which millions of us rely on to stay alive, either financially or medically?
Essentially, we were out here protesting being deprived of things that we had always taken as a given: normal stuff.
MAGA no-show
The posters were as diverse as the protestors: “Hands Off Our Libraries”; “Hands Off Education – Make Our Kids Smart Again”; “Remember Polio? I Don’t. Trust Science”.
There were people like me who wouldn’t generally do something like this: “I Hate Injustice More Than I Hate Crowds”., and my personal favorite: “So Bad Even Introverts Are Here”.
The anti-protesters, the pro-Trumpers and MAGA faithful, were hardly anywhere to be seen. Yes, we got a few middle fingers or were just ignored. In their trucks and cars, comfortable and warm, some drove past us and gave us curious stares, as if we were merely waiting at a bus stop. Someone reported that at one protest a MAGA type yelled, “You’re all just lazy liberals who got laid off from your woke jobs”. It’s like you must pass a test in derision to join this crowd.
I remarked, not entirely jokingly, that I was especially leery of anyone driving a black pickup truck. Sure enough, one of those cruised by several times, once even pulling into the curb – over the curb, actually – before peeling away. Maybe he felt threatened by a crowd of grannies and grandpas.
But it’s also true that we got even more thumbs up and honks.
Marches and protests are not uniquely American, but the recent day of protests against Trump’s brutal and capricious actions in the first two months of his second term were comprehensive and national. The rest of the world noticed.
This was an orchestration of ordinary folks who saw real threats to their lives and well-being. The kind of people who do not normally take to the streets to make a lot of noise. They have families to raise, constructive lives to lead. They make the kinds of contributions to American life that we have always been told is the American way. And now we felt betrayed.
This was deeply felt, as close to the anti-war protests of the 1960s and early 1970s as I have ever seen. And I won’t forget it. In fact, when’s the next one?
PJ
It was cold.
And windy.
With threatening skies.
The Saturday before, temperatures had hit 80°F. Everyone wore shorts and tank tops. On this day, we’d be lucky if it hit 50. People bundled up. I was in an overcoat and boots.
Unifying moment
But neither the threat of sleet nor MAGA could keep us from our appointed task. Millions of people across America, in all 50 states, in big cities and small towns everywhere, gathered in one mighty, collective burst of citizenship to say, “NO MORE! DEFEND DEMOCRACY!”
What compelled the elderly and young to band together on such a miserable day, at least in my neck of the woods? We could all be inside, snug and warm.
It wasn’t just about our collective hatred of the White Potus and his merry band. It was something deeper. It was like Paul Revere sounding the alarm. It was tossing tea into Boston Harbor, JFK, and the promise of Camelot. It was a clarion call to our better nature that resonated. And it exceeded everyone’s expectations, including my own.
Look, I’m an old liberal broad on Long Island. I’m old enough to remember when JFK was shot. RFK. Martin Luther King. All the anti-war anthems. Woodstock. The summer of love. Kent State. I was just a kid, but I still protested in my own way. When our junior high refused to allow us girls to wear pantsuits, I wore one anyway. The school soon rescinded its policy.
I campaigned for Fred Harris in the snows of New Hampshire. I voted diligently. I kept abreast of the issues. I helped my mom cast her first vote as a naturalized citizen for Bill Clinton. Later, when the Supreme Court robbed Al Gore, I told my husband angrily that we should go to DC and protest Bush’s inauguration.
He soundly pooh-poohed me. “Democrats,” he sniffed, “don’t take to the streets.”
Subsequently, due to a chronic illness that flared up at inopportune times, I became an armchair warrior, doing my bit for Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Kamala Harris on social media, telephone banking, and attending Zoom meetings with like-minded progressives.
It’s not that bad, it’s worse
When Trump was elected in November 2024, I was devastated. However, the media told me not to worry. Everything would be fine and dandy. How bad could it be? We’d already survived the White House Apprentice 1.0. This would be no different. Presidents come and go. Our bedrock norms and principles would remain, no matter who was in the Oval Office. And besides, it was only four years. He couldn’t run again.
Well, what do you know? They were wrong. As subsequent events have borne out since Trump was sworn in, it’s been one crisis after another, The Trumptanic on steroids. Honestly, it’s worse than I could’ve imagined. It became clear that democracy, like Marie Antoinette, was on the chopping block.
Time to stand up
Once I got over my shock and dismay, it quickly became evident to me that the old order was being swept away. We had to make a choice. Either we gave up entirely, obeyed in advance, put blinders on, or we forged a new path.
By acquiescing, we’d be rendered obsolete. Extinct, like dinosaurs that once roamed the earth. If I just sat meekly by, what kind of example would I be setting for my kids? My grandchildren? How could I look them in the eye and do nothing? And how could I live with myself?
It would be easy for me to say the hell with it. Not my problem. I voted the right way. MAGA made their bed, let them lie in it. I’m a writer with a pile of work to do. Plus, I’m a nobody. No one cares what I think. I’m in no imminent danger. I was born here. I’m comfortable. ICE won’t knock on my door and drag me away.
Until they do.
So, for a thousand reasons and more, on a crummy morning I stood on a streetcorner, proudly held up my homemade sign, and yelled pithy slogans.
No one paid me. I bought my own poster board. I was here, like many others, to express my righteous indignation, frustration, and rage, to be a part of something greater than myself, and yes, to get off my behind and make my voice heard.
It felt good. It felt empowering. I wasn’t alone. Thankfully, we beat the rain.
I didn’t march in the ‘60s, but I’m marching now. And my husband of forty-five years is marching along with me.
Welcome to the Revolution, sweetheart!
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