A good protest


Joan Baez! Bruce Springsteen! Jane Fonda! Tom Morello! That was some of the entertainment at the massive St Paul No Kings protest yesterday. I’ve heard estimates as high as 100,000 in attendance. Unfortunately, Ted Nugent couldn’t make it. We couldn’t make it either, that was a 3 hour drive away from us.

I attended the rally in Morris. (Forgive the terrible photo.)

It wasn’t organized in a way that lends itself to grand panoramic photos. We didn’t march — we we were spread out around a couple of major intersections in town. About 150 people showed up, a good number for our small town.

I then drove out to an even smaller town: Cyrus, Minnesota, population 300.

Between 30 and 40 people were waving signs at that one.

Our numbers look tiny compared to the huge crowds in the big cities, but what was most heartening was the response. Cars were driving by, and I did see one guy flip us off, but mostly we got positive affirmations, with drivers waving at us or honking their horns. At times it was just one long continuous ‘beep beep’ as car after car saluted us.

I think maybe most of the country is fed up with Mr Trump and his idiot lackeys.

We did have some conversations about the point of all this, since it wasn’t going to lead to direct change. People had different answers: one was to show other people that they aren’t alone, another was to foster organization, another was to just piss off MAGA. All good answers, I think, so we’ll have to keep it up. I also learned that there is a weekly demonstration in Morris, every Tuesday at 4:30 on 5th and Atlantic…so I’ll have to try to make it to some of those.

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