I may have been a bad influence


There’s a big anti-Trump protest in St Cloud this weekend. We’re not having such a good event here in Morris, although I did overhear two old ladies in the coffee shop this morning, and while they also complained about the Democrats, they grumbles a lot about Elon Musk. They really hate Musk, which was heartwarming.

I couldn’t be at any protests today, but I did spawn an individual many years ago who carried on for me.

Good work, young man!

Comments

  1. raven says

    Our event here on the coast was huge.
    I haven’t seen a bigger protest since the Vietnam war in the early 1970s.

    About 1/3 Boomer age people and the rest a mix of ages.

    A lot of people around here are completely fed up with the current regime.

  2. StevoR says

    Best wishes, solidarity and more power to all those protesting over in the States today.

  3. grandolddeity says

    Mrs. and me attended a Hands Off! rally in our town. It was quite a thrill to participate!

  4. John Morales says

    “Best wishes, solidarity and more power to all those protesting over in the States today.”

    AKA ‘thoughts and prayers’, and worth every bit as much.

  5. raven says

    There were at least 1,400 individual demonstrations nationwide.
    Huge turnouts in places you wouldn’t expect such as Idaho and Utah.

    I tried to find some good estimates of how many people came out.
    They range from the hundreds of thousands up to 5 million.

    It is hard to get an accurate count without putting a lot of time and effort into it.

    I looked at a lot of photos from a lot of places and I’m sure it was over a million at the least.

    I can say something about our local area demonstration though.
    Turnout was around 3% of the population it drew from.
    In these sorts of demonstrations, 1% is considered high.

  6. Silentbob says

    @ 6 Morales

    Dude. It’s not expressing support for others that people have a problem with. It’s that being used as an excuse to do nothing (and an appeal to supernatural intervention).

    If you don’t get that and you’ve been on PZ’s blog for twenty years you are really not paying attention.

  7. Silentbob says

    @ ^

    Expressions of support are not “useless”. Many, many people have found a positive effect on their mental health. You would think that goes without saying.

  8. beholder says

    @4

    Best wishes to everybody protesting, StevoR? Even me?

    Aw, you shouldn’t have.

  9. John Morales says

    Silentbob, being silent as usual:

    Expressions of support are not “useless”.

    Gotta love it; here is what I actually wrote: “AKA ‘thoughts and prayers’, and worth every bit as much.”

    (Go bash that straw dummy some more! Better than kicking against the pricks, eh? :)

    Point being, it may be nice to be told someone is praying for you expressing solidarity and best wishes for you, but the net effect in the real world is the same.

    Here, for you:

    1 Corinthians 13:12
    Love will continue after we die. Faith will not be needed in Heaven, and our hope will be fulfilled. But love will continue. Our relationships with those we love will go right on, and, in fact, be far better.

    Makes the saps feel better, maybe. Reality remains the same, of course, and outcomes likewise.

  10. John Morales says

    beholder, I do not believe you whatsoever.

    Aw, you shouldn’t have.

    Indeed. You did not protest. So fucking obvious!

  11. robro says

    According to various sources, the organizers of “50501” achieved a goal: there were protests in all 50 states. I haven’t found an estimate of the actual attendance, but over 600,000 people had signed up and CNN puts total attendance as “millions”.

  12. asclepias says

    There was a crowd of 500-600 people here in Cheyenne! That’s a fantastic turnout! We did attract a group of 20-25 counterprotestors, but they left long before the rest of us. Laramie (just over the hill from here, if you know the geography) had a protest with a crowd estimated at about 1,000! I’m a bit envious, but Laramie is home to our only university, so it trends more liberal than Cheyenne. In my opinion, the best part was the last half hour or so when a Hispanic guy decked out in pride gear ran across the street to join us. He said he’d had no idea this was going on because he’s been taking a break from social media, but he was delivering coffee to someone, saw the crowd, it was everything he agreed with, so he decided to join us.

  13. John Watts says

    In another age, your son would be a Viking warrior with horned helmet and battleaxe ransacking an English monastery.

  14. Mobius says

    I made it to the protest in Tulsa despite the disagreeable weather. It was great. I even got to meet Seth Andrews. Wonderful. Lots of honking and waving from the cars passing by, which was truly surprising given this is Oklahoma. I even got waved at by the driver of a Tesla!

  15. says

    Hopefully, they weren’t abducted by the mump secret police. They were, to paraphrase John Lewis, ‘causing good trouble’.

  16. birgerjohansson says

    Shermanj @ 18
    For a moment I wondered “What did C S Lewis say about trouble”? 🙂

  17. birgerjohansson says

    You have my expression of support. I cannot attend, because of that inconvenient ocean. Rest assured, there are plenty of people all over the other continents who support you.

  18. birgerjohansson says

    Considering the tariffs levied on Jan Mayen there may be some disgruntled polar bears, too.
    The one demographic Trump has left alone are the sharks, a community Trump has been interested in since the time he had sex with Stormy Daniels. Does he feel affinity with them?

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