I just came back from the San Francisco No Kings protest.

I went with my husband, who is very much more of a protestor than I am.  He’s been attending protests on a regular basis for months.  He has a bunch of protest shirts, and a big US flag.  Normally he flips the flag upside-down, symbolizing distress.  Today, he flipped the flag right-side up, saying he wanted to dial up the visible patriotism. At the protest, there were of course lots of people with US flags, and other flags as well.

In contrast, I’m the type of person that goes outside once a week.  I freely admit that I do not like being at protests.  But I showed up in my everyday clothes and a backpack.  I enjoyed seeing the immense popular support for democracy, and opposition to everything Trump stands for.

The event was extremely crowded.  The protest was organized as a march from Mission Dolores Park to Civic Center Plaza, but we couldn’t get into Mission Dolores, because it was too packed.  My husband wanted to meet up with a friend he had met at an earlier protest, but the phone reception was spotty, so I had to use my tallness attribute to spot him.  The march was supposed to start at noon, but it was obvious that the crowd needed to thin a bit before anyone could get moving anywhere.  So we hung around for half an hour near an exuberant brass band.

Around 12:30 there seemed to be a bit of motion forward, and we made the march to Civic Center.  Very crowded the whole way, and we had to hold the flag up high so it wouldn’t get in people’s faces.  The signs were angry, but the crowd was happy to be taking action.  There were cars that were probably stuck behind the march for hours, yet were still honking in enthusiastic support.

We made it to Civic Center plaza at 1:50.  Or rather, we made it to the outskirts, because it was too crowded to actually get in.  So we found a spot to sit down and had lunch before dispersing.

Not sure how large it was.  Definitely thousands, maybe tens of thousands?  It was large enough that we could never see the whole thing at once, so we’ll have to rely on aerial photos.  My husband said it was the largest protest he’d seen since the Women’s March, and maybe even bigger than that.  And it was completely peaceful, as I always expected.  Honestly, you’ll never find a more altruistic crowd than a protest like this one; they’re very conscientious about making sure everyone is safe.