Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

… gradually, and then suddenly.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

We still have time to mess this up!

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?

“But what about the lurkers?”

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

You are here: Home / 2025 Activism / Hands Off! Worldwide Protests

Hands Off! Worldwide Protests

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Today is the date of the Hands Off! Protests,  another day of action against the Trump administration. As of yesterday, there were 1,200 planned demonstrations with upwards of 600,000 people expected, per Indivisible.

Hands Off! Worldwide Protests

Not all of these actions are taking place in the US – there was a demonstration down in London’s Trafalgar Square, for instance (which I was not able to get to), and I’ve seen photos from demonstrations in Berlin, Amsterdam, and Lisbon, too.

Here are some Bluesky posts I’ve seen from attendees today. We’ll start with the big ones. Boston showed up big time:

Hands Off Protest in the Boston Common

[image or embed]

— Dylan Lion (@lionshue.bsky.social) April 5, 2025 at 4:36 PM

New York City:

#HANDSOFF #indivisiblebrooklyn
what a crowd on 5th Ave!

[image or embed]

— Randy G (@randygdata.bsky.social) April 5, 2025 at 5:59 PM


Philadelphia:

#Philly #HandsOff starting to overflow the square into the street and beyond

[image or embed]

— The ADHD Preacher (@adhd-preacher.bsky.social) April 5, 2025 at 4:59 PM

Chicago:

Wow! Daley Plaza is full and the crowd extends to the other side of the street! Chicagoans are here to say #HandsOff
@indivisible.org

[image or embed]

— skeveryday.bsky.social (@skeveryday.bsky.social) April 5, 2025 at 5:59 PM

There are also impressive showings in some smaller cities, too. Here’s Portland, Maine:

Still going in Portland Maine. Mainer’s won’t give up!

[image or embed]

— Paul Nakroshis / ac1si (@portlandphysics.bsky.social) April 5, 2025 at 5:40 PM

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania:

The Hands Off protest in Harrisburg keeps growing—just like the nationwide anger against Trump.
@50501movement.bsky.social #HandsOff

[image or embed]

— Harrisburg / Central PA 50501 (@hbg50501.bsky.social) April 5, 2025 at 5:55 PM

And my personal favorite, St. Augustine, Florida:

I’m just sayin’. St Augustine FL is a town of 14,000. In a red county. And we’re doing this. #handsoff #50501 #April5 AND we have some spicy signs!

[image or embed]

— Mary Lawrence (@mlawrence1027.bsky.social) April 5, 2025 at 3:36 PM

Computer, enhance the first sign in the third photo, would you?

Hands Off! Worldwide Protests 1

That’s the stuff right there. If you’re at an event – (or heading to one; I know you guys further west will just be getting your shoes on) – stay safe, and THANK YOU for showing up for our country.

Open thread, but share more links to photos or local news stories if you have them.

Reader Interactions

249Comments

  1. 1.

    eclare

    A friend is at the protest in Morristown TN.  I can’t believe Morristown is having a protest.  Her sign says “stop the king”, a GoT reference.

    The protest here in Memphis was postponed due to weather.

  3. 3.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @eclare:

    A friend is at the protest in Morristown TN. I can’t believe Morristown is having a protest. Her sign says “stop the king”, a GoT reference.

    A sign at the Memphis protest could be “There is only one King, and his name is Elvis! Stop the Pretender Trump!”

  4. 4.

    Bostondreams

    Dropkick Murphys playing the Boston protest.

    This machine will continue to kill fascists!

  5. 5.

    Matt McIrvin

    We had a couple on the theme of “IKEA makes smarter Cabinets”.

    One guy with a PA system standing on top of an old school bus at Central Plaza getting some call-and-response chants going.

    I saw a lady going down the street shooting video of the crowd and narrating “Where is the media? Where is the local media?” which was a damn good question because I didn’t see them either. It as a pretty strong crowd for a small city, I’d say somewhere in the ballpark of 800-1000 people lined up along Main Street.

  9. 9.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Lily: Well I guess we know where the MAGAt counter-protesters are, they’re at home trolling in the virtual peanut gallery on that livestream.

  10. 10.

    Paul W.

    Here in Media, PA population 6k and at least 1000 here with people coming and going all the time.

    its a little skewed because its outside Philly so I’m sure we are getting spillover but its for the entire downtown hopping!

  12. 12.

    Citizen Scientist

    Usually during protests in Harrisburg, PA, we have a small contingent of MAGAs that stand at the back, but today there were literally only 3 – all young dudes that had to be escorted out of the protest area by the cops.  They were drowned out by multiple chants.  Tons of great signs and doggos to pet today.  Be safe today jackals!

  13. 13.

    Gary K

    In Reading, PA, it seems there were about 500 with great variety and creativity in the signs. Many passing motorists honked in support. There was a drone observing us.

  14. 14.

    H.E.Wolf

    Thank you to everyone who attends a “Hands Off!” event!

    In lieu of attending a protest (our household remains Covid-cautious), I wrote “APRIL 5th: POWER TO THE PEOPLE” on our sidewalk in 4 colors of chalk. Plus a non-artist’s rendition of daisies. :)

    We’re near a bus route, so I’m hoping it cheers up some of the protest attendees.

  15. 15.

    NickM

    I’m visiting Atlanta and went to the protest here. Incredible energy and numbers.  Tens of thousands all the way up Peachtree street.

  17. 17.

    eclare

    @NickM:

    Where on Peachtree Street?  Have they closed it off?  I lived in ATL for fourteen years and I only remember it being closed off for the roadrace.

  18. 18.

    Sallycat

    I went to the St. Petersburg (FL) action.  It was great.  Groups were on the corners of downtown streets, chanting and waving signs.  Very high energy.  As far as I know, no counterprotesters.

  19. 19.

    Betty Cracker

    Sadly, I can’t make a protest because I’d committed weeks ago to help a friend with a birthday party for her mom. (I’m there now but hiding on the porch for a moment.)

    Anyway, on my way to my friend’s house about 70 miles away, I drove through my town’s courthouse square and another small town square down the road, and there were protests in both! Probably around 100 or more people!

    These are towns with fewer than 8K people total,  both of which went for Trump by approximately 75%! Something’s happening here…

  20. 20.

    LeftCoastYankee

    I went to the one in Trenton NJ.  Good crowd given the weather.  Lots of energy and good sign game happening.  Drivers honking support including the city bus drivers.  Popo stayed down the street.  The PA wasn’t loud enough but who cares.

    I had the sad realization that the list of things to chant about (because they were under threat) could have taken the whole weekend.

    The loudest chant was “We’re Not Going Back.”  That almost made me cry.

    ETA Oh and Corey Booker could be the king of NJ now. Lots of positive comments and conversations around me about him.

  21. 21.

    Spanish Moss

    We are on vacation in Key West, and joined the protest there. There were several hundred protesters lining the sides of the street, with about half of the thru traffic honking and showing signs of support. Very uplifting. Lots of great signs and T shirts. The most subtle T shirt: Gulf of Mexico!

  23. 23.

    Shalimar

    Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi are such a big black space on the map apart from a few capitols.

  26. 26.

    RevRick

    Just outside Allentown about a thousand lined both sides of a major road outside GOP Rep. MacKenzie’s district office. Ran into several people I know. I wore my pulpit gown and stole, just so people know there are religious folks who abhor Trump’s policies.

  28. 28.

    RevRick

    @Betty Cracker: These smaller gatherings are super important, because they bear witness to the majority that they can’t assume everyone agrees with them and that they also assure the dissenters that they aren’t alone.

  30. 30.

    mvr

    I would say it was at least 1,000 people here in Lincoln NE outside the capitol.  Maybe twice that but I’m not sure.  It started at 11AM and was diminishing around 1PM. Pretty good mix of people.  Lots of supportive traffic going by.  Some of those had their own signs.

  31. 31.

    Emily B.

    I’d estimate that about 1,000 people turned out in Kingston, NY, despite cold rain. Lots of supportive honking from passing motorists.

  32. 32.

    bbleh

    You’ve already got a good Philly photo so I won’t send you more, but it was YUGE. Like at least 4-5x larger than even the largest we’ve had recently. And in ungood weather too.

    The masses are becoming restless …

  33. 33.

    mwing

    I just got back from the Boston one, I only saw the City Hall Plaza part and frankly I never even got to stand on actual City Hall Plaza until it was almost over because it was totally full of people long before I got there. The rain held off ’til like 1:30, so a lot of people came, but late.  Also people were coming and going the whole time, so total number of attendees would have been 2 or 3 times the size of the crowd at any one point.

    The crowd, besides being much larger than I expected, was much older, and whiter. I think this was lots of people coming in from the near suburbs.
    I mean, there were a lot of families with children and obvious grad students, but the median person there was at least middle-aged, and grey-haired and in sensible shoes.

    My university is is pre-finals study period right now, so timing would be bad for them but we have an earlier schedule than most schools.

  35. 35.

    tam1MI

    @Rose Judson:A dear, dear family friend who has never protested a single thing in her life was there! She’s a vet and a postal service carrier. She is FURIOUS.

    I have a friend from Wisconsin who plans to attend today’s protest in Oshkosh.  Same deal – she has never protested anything in her life before, but she is doing so today.

  38. 38.

    trollhattan

    Maybe an Attenboroughish look at an exotic foreign species, but BBC cannot help themselves going on a Cletus safari in a fucking Ohio diner. Hey, are the results predictable? You know the answer.

    A couple of booths over, as she finished eating breakfast with her son Rob, Louise Gilson said – quietly – that she did not really trust the president.

    But Gilson, along with many people here, said she wanted to see action. She wholeheartedly agreed when another diner commented: “Trump may be wrong, but at least he’s trying.”

    “The other people wouldn’t have done squat,” she said, referring to the Democratic Party.

    The Gilsons agreed that the big local industrial employers have generally been good neighbours, contributing to the local economy, charities and the wider community, even as they have seen some less desirable effects of industrial development and worry about unequal sharing of the economic pie.

    And as they recounted Delta’s history, they described a gradual erosion in quality of life that they believe has made many people willing to roll the dice even when economists say Trump’s tariff plan comes with stark risks.

    “It was a good little town to grow up in,” Rob Gilson recalled. But he said it now seemed less safe and friendly than when he was growing up in the 60s and 70s.

    “It seems like the heart of America is gone,” he said.

    Delta, Louise Gilson added, “is the kind of place where 25% or 30% of the people are struggling with their demons”.

    bbc.com/news/articles/cr4nr3230e7o

    I’d like my brain cell back now.

  39. 39.

    Ann Marie

    I was at the Philadelphia rally at City Hall and it was crowded and very spirited.  In addition to the Philly people, there were crowds coming off the trains from the suburbs to join in.  I couldn’t hear the speakers well, but there were lots of call and response chants.  Good sign action too.  There was a priest in a cassock with a sign quoting Psalm 82 — “Save the weak and the orphan, defend the humble and needy and rescue the poor, deliver them from the power of the wicked.”  Other signs read “Do it like Wisconsin”, “The SS we wanted was Social Security”, and “Not today Satan” (!), among many others.  One artist had a sign with a drawing of Hitler holding a Trump mask.

    The protest was supposed to continue with a march to Liberty Square, but my legs started their own protest and I went home.

  40. 40.

    Trivia Man

    Good crowd in madison, maybe 5,000?

    Fave sign was a cartoon of t and one of muskrat. With “whose/ who’s president?”

  41. 41.

    Lurker Dan

    Very strong turnout in Grand Rapids. Had to park at least half a mile away and Rosa Parks Circle was full of people. Alas, no pics as I left the phone in the car.

    Large crowds are not my thing so I only hung around for 30 minutes or so. In that time, I did not see or hear a single heckler.

  44. 44.

    narya

    I’m terrible at estimating crowd size, but I’d say the Evanston IL rally had a couple thousand people–lots of grey hair in the crowd, for sure. Not well set up, IMHO; it was very hard to hear the speakers. The cops blocked off the streets, which was helpful, but before that, a truck drove through w/ a Canadian flag, which got LOTS of cheers. I didn’t stay to the end; my feet were complaining too much, and I still had to walk back home. Two other things: most people were NOT being good about asking permission before snapping photos, but one person did ask the person near me (I couldn’t see the sign) and she said, “My husband is a green card holder, so I’d rather not.”

  45. 45.

    Origuy

    I was in Nashville, Indiana (pop, 1276) in solidly red Brown County. There were about 70 people there demonstrating in front of the county courthouse. There might have been more, but the rains last night have flooded some of the rural roads.

  46. 46.

    WV Blondie

    Just back from the protest in Culpeper, VA (I got too hot – the temperature jumped almost 15 degrees in 90 minutes!). FABULOUS turnout in a deep red area! We had more than 300 people, all of them with signs, in front of the Post Office, and I’d say the cars and trucks were at least 70-30 in favor of us! Lots of honking, waving, thumbs-up.

  47. 47.

    frosty

    I just got back from York, PA , center of a 65% Trumpy county. Based on my barely competent skills at counting Canada Geese, I estimated we had 500 to 600 people waving signs and chanting. Better than 90% of the horns being honked were in support, which is a nice showing.

  48. 48.

    mwing

    I should add that Boston is international student central of, like, the planet, and a lot of them, besides being in finals prep, would be genuinely afraid to go to any public protest, and for good reason. I think that was part of why there were relatively few college students vs. retirees

  49. 49.

    twbrandt

    Good size crowd in Dearborn, MI. Young and old, mostly white but with a few Arab-Americans. The Arab-American community here went fairly big for Trump due to anger with the Biden administration over Gaza. I am not sure how they are feeling right now.

    I saw only one MAGA counter-protester. He looked pretty lonely.

  50. 50.

    Shalimar

    @eclare: I swear I am not a total idiot, at least not on this.  There are dozens of them in those states that were not there on the Hands Off website an hour ago.  For example, there were 2 in Alabama and now there are 10.  There was 1 in Mississippi and now there are 3.  2 in Georgia, now there are 17.  3 in Tennessee, now there are 11.

    Edit: Also, there were none listed for Florida north of Leesburg, now there are 15.

  51. 51.

    LNNVA

    Just returned from a rally in Charlottesville, VA. There were hundreds of people there and lots of cars honking in support of us.

  52. 52.

    HeleninEire

    Just back from the demonstration in Bryant Park. Too many people to count. So…funny?? When I was a little girl all I wanted was to live in Manhattan.  And I did for 4 years. Now I’m in Queens and I go to Manhattan once a year because my mammogram doctor is there. Manhattan is for young people and rich people. I used to be one of them. 😆

    Anyway the demonstration was grand!

  53. 53.

    tobie

    I went to the Sarasota/Bradenton rally in Florida expecting a handful of people. We were at least 500 and possibly more. This is a deep red region and a protest along an 8-lane roadway is not an attractive place to spend a Saturday. Still good crowd and lots of support from the folks driving by.

  54. 54.

    mvr

    @Shalimar: I was looking for the one for Lincoln where I live and found nothing until 2 days ago by which time someone had given me a leaflet.  Saved me from driving to Omaha.

  55. 55.

    Steve LaBonne

    There must easily have been a couple hundred people in my little (and by no means blue) town (Medina, OH), and lots of enthusiastic honking and waving from people driving past.

  56. 56.

    dexwood

    Heading downtown soon with Mrs. dexwood and our son and daughter-in-law for the 2 o’clock Albuquerque protest. Cold and windy. Ah, Spring. My sign – Clearly we took anyone can be president too seriously.

  57. 57.

    Another Scott

    Rep. Al Green says he’s David coming for the Goliath of 47.

    He says he will file Impeachment articles within 30 days.

    :-)

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  58. 58.

    cmorenc

    In NC, Tom Tillis is already nervous about the potential collateral fallout from Trump’s unpopular damage inflicted on various fronts that Tillid is already running campaign ads patting himself on the back for his purported work protecting seniors and social security – both of which Tillis’s ads are completely missing any specifics to base those claims on.

  63. 63.

    Juju

    @cmorenc: He likes to talk the talk, but I don’t think he’s ever actually walked the walk. I hear it’s very difficult to walk without a spine.

  64. 64.

    Another Scott

    “… Alright, now go home and organize the next rally.  This one’s over.”

    To the point!

    Well done, Indivisible, and everyone who made it happen in DC.

    Forward!!

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  68. 68.

    Michael Bersin

    @RevRick:

    “These smaller gatherings are super important, because they bear witness to the majority that they can’t assume everyone agrees with them and that they also assure the dissenters that they aren’t alone.”

    Bingo. I had this conversation with some folks who showed up in the rain and cold today. It matters to the people passing by who now know they are not alone.

  69. 69.

    Matt McIrvin

    @mwing: The crowd in Haverhill, MA was mostly older white people, in a town that is definitely more diverse than that. But white retirees are the people who probably felt safe to come out. As I said in the other thread, if they bring in the military to quash these, they’re going to be attacking old white guys in veteran caps, not anyone Middle America is scared of. Not the look you want.

    I’ve been hearing a lot of minorities saying online, look, white people have to step up this time–they’re tired of being the ones who have to do it and they’re focused on survival.

  70. 70.

    Almost Retired

    Huge crowd at my local (South Bay Los Angeles) rally.  I’d guess 2500 people.  An amazing turnout in this comfortable laid-back surf dude (and somewhat apolitical) neighborhood.  We’re underperforming on the clever signs though.  Lots of variations on “Fuck Trump.”  Not enough penguin jokes.

  72. 72.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Matt McIrvin: I agree with that and would give them the same advice myself. Wypipo made this mess, and it’s on us to clean it up. We’ve been expecting POC to keep saving our stupid asses for much too long.

  73. 73.

    Rusty

    A couple of thousand people showed up at the New Hampshire state house in Concord.  My sign was, Billionaires telling the poor to suffer for tax cuts is Obscene!  My favorite had three pictures, two insects and a person, the first labeled dog tick, the second deer tick, and the third luna tick, that one was Trump.

  74. 74.

    Gretchen

    I hear that there was good turnout in Lenexa, KS, suburb of Kansas City. There was another planned for central Kansas City.

  75. 75.

    Joy in FL

    I attended HandsOff in west Pasco County in Florida. Lots of people lined both sides of Little Road. Lots of supportive horn honking. There was also a protest in east Pasco. I saw some photos from that one on BlueSky. Pasco County voted for T all three times he ran. It was great seeing protests in this place.

  77. 77.

    cintibud

    I wasn’t able to go myself but Ms Cintibud and four others went to the demo in Cincinnati. They reported over 2000 people and many cool signs and speakers. Rain wasn’t too bad

  78. 78.

    Marcopolo

    I did the Hands Up protest just west of St Louis. Went with 5 friends.  Miserable weather (steady rain & about 45) but I’d reckon somewhere between 1200 to 2000 (maybe more, we lined the street for a half mile or so) folks turned out to wave signs.  Lots of drive by honks & cheering.

    Based on a similar # of friends who did not come out due to the weather I imagine we’d have had 2X as many if it had been nice.

    Great to see all the other places (big and small) where folks are standing up.

  79. 79.

    Matt McIrvin

    There were some people who seemed to be veterans of protesting. Saw one aged lady holding an American flag with the stars replaced by corporate logos–someone asked her where she got it and she said “Adbusters!” And I thought, man, that takes me back, we’re all not gettin’ any younger…

  81. 81.

    M31

    lol my partner just sent a picture and said, “hey do you think this guy is from Balloon Juice”?

    so if you were in DC and your sign said “tick tock motherfucker” you got noticed

    hahaahaha

  83. 83.

    sixthdoctor

    Smaller gathering in Catonsville (suburb of Baltimore) had at least 200 (probably more) lining the roads of Rt 40 as traffic was slowed down with people staring and honking. Only time I’ve seen bigger crowds were our 4th of July parades where the whole town shows up.

  84. 84.

    Regine Touchon

    Five hundred  strong in Opelika, Alabama.  Pretty amazing!  A nice mixture of young and old.  A new Indivisible chapter organized this protest and are going to host an empty chair town hall with oru missing representative, Mike Rogers.  We’re not going back!

  87. 87.

    Interesting Name Goes Here

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I’ve been hearing a lot of minorities saying online, look, white people have to step up this time–they’re tired of being the ones who have to do it and they’re focused on survival.

    Mmm-hmm.  And every day, something comes along that just hammers that point home a little more.

    It’s been a recent point of contention amongst some on the left that Kamala Harris needs to step up and speak up.  Well, she did earlier this week, at a conference that CNN reported on.  The reaction from some of those same leftists was predictable…and pathetic.  Lots of last year’s greatest hits and ridiculing for not having the correct message – “What correct message?”, you may ask and if you ever get an answer, let me know.

    Of course, black people all over did not miss this.  As one of my favorite BlueSky posters notes in this thread about asking what more Obama could do:

    But also, here’s the question I KEEP asking (bc people keep saying “if anybody can make a difference, he can”) WHAT do you think will be different in anything he says/does now vs 6 months ago when there was an immediate call to action? He wasn’t enough for y’all to vote but you want him to organize?

    This is on those leftists, and now we’re just watching to see who’s going to nut up and who’s going to shut up, because expecting us to is no longer an option.

  88. 88.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Steve LaBonne: Someone at the Boston rally mentioned the possibility of Trump declaring martial law and/or invoking the Insurrection Act to use the military against protesters. From his executive brain farts it seems like he’s thinking of the kind of student-heavy campus protests and property-damaging riots that scare Fox News viewers, not a bunch of retirees marching on Main Street.

  89. 89.

    pacem appellant

    I am proud of the protesters. My SIL, who is normally politically apathetic, is protesting today.

    So take my cynicism with a grain of salt, but we protested GWB to ginormous crowds (that the media ignored) and the Women’s March in D.C. was record-breaking and, again, ignored by pols and the media.

    I want this energy channeled into primaries to challenge cowardly Dems into oblivion or action.

    But today. Good. Keep the momentum up. If there’s a republic in 2026, we’ll need ALL HANDS (and I mean ALL) on deck to claw back our democracy.

  92. 92.

    Miss Bianca

    About 70 showed up in my little town this morning, braving the April snowstorm, which may not sound like much, but considering that the total population in my ruby-red county is about 5000 during tourist season, not a half-bad showing.

    And strangely, *unlike* the BLM protest/march we had almost exactly five years ago, the MAGAts who congregrated around the office building of the local right-wing rag during that action, who couldn’t wait to thrust their ugly, leering mugs and hateful signs into our faces as we passed…were *nowhere* to be seen this time round.

    Wonder what the difference was…

    ETA: One of the other marchers just sent me a photo of a sign I hadn’t seen before: “So bad even the introverts are here”, lol.

  93. 93.

    Jay

    While this is an open thread, it has been uniquely focused for a BJ open thread, and congrats y’all.

    For those interested, a deep dive into Curtis Yavin, his Technofacism philosophy, and how it is being employed in DJTdiot’s 2.0 “Misadministration”.

    lexisantamaria.substack.com/p/curtis-yarvin-fascism

    If any of the Mod’s think this post is out of place, just delete it.

  94. 94.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jay: I am too fucking familiar with that dude, he’s a berserk trigger for me. That anyone is treating him as anything other than a two-bit blogger crackpot just makes the rage come.

  96. 96.

    Jay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    He was a two bit blogger a couple of decades ago, but now he is the “intellectual philosopher” of the DTJdiot’s “Maladministration” and the DOGEshitters.

  97. 97.

    Matt McIrvin

    @twbrandt: There was a group of people with a big Palestinian flag at ours but they seemed to be younger radical-ish white folk. One of them was wearing an Industrial Workers of the World T-shirt. They were well-behaved.

  98. 98.

    Saltwater Cleanse

    Good turnout in Rancho Mirage, CA.

    “Orange Lies Matter” is my favorite sign.

    I’d say there were way more positive honks and waves from the drivers-by compared to middle fingers. And Rancho is very white and very affluent.

    Go team!!

  103. 103.

    Jay

    Hands Off protests reported in Montreal, Halifax, Edmonton, Toronto, Vancouver so far.

  105. 105.

    Westyny

    @pacem appellant: The Women’s March in DC (and NYC, as well as other satellite marches) showed rising resistance that was borne out by a disastrous midterm election for the GOP.  The energy does get channeled and spirits are raised to do the channeling.

  106. 106.

    Lobo

    @Interesting Name Goes Here:  Like I mentioned before it is like LOTR.   The battle of the rings was Man’s battle not the elves.  Their magic was used up.  In the same way, this battle for America is for whites.  For many minorities our energy is used up and we are focused on survival.  Not the perfect analogy but what the heck.

  107. 107.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Jay: your topic deserves its own page. Here’s hoping one of the front pagers will give this topics page for discussion

  109. 109.

    Miss Bianca

    @Matt McIrvin: Well, I’d like to hope that this time, white people are actually taking this shit seriously. Damn straight, we’re the ones that should be out there – we’re the ones that created this mess and we’re the ones who have to be out trying to fix it.

  110. 110.

    brendancalling

    I was at Philly’s.

    Maybe I’m jaded, maybe I’m just in a worse mood than usual, but color me unimpressed. It seemed pro forma, didn’t seem urgent, and was too well-behaved considering the threat posed.

    But again, I’m jaded and think that “peaceful resistance” isn’t going to work this time.

  111. 111.

    Steve LaBonne

    @pacem appellant: Also having just a big march on DC was a category error. We are the very opposite of a highly centralized country like France or South Korea. The nationwide (and continuing rather than one-off) nature of these protests is what’s needed.

  112. 112.

    Interesting Name Goes Here

    @zhena gogolia: Someone noted it in the replies, but it gives off a strong vibe of “Where are the Negroes to clean up the mess I made?”

    That’s why I think AOC and Jasmine Crockett need to be really careful of how much they want to play to that side of the party, because to that side they are nothing but tokens to be spent and if it comes down to them or Bernie Sanders, that side of the party will go full Weekend at Bernie’s (literally) before they even think of backing either one of them.

  113. 113.

    persistentillusion

    In Colorado Springs, 3500 people turned up.  Largest protest I’ve ever seen and I got to all of them. I’ve been here more than 30 years.  Back then, probably 25 people would have shown. We’re getting less red every year.

    Best sign (and there were many contenders) was “Veto the Cheeto”. Second fave – “So Bad Even the Introverts are Here”.

    Eta: “Trump is Tariffying”.

  116. 116.

    zhena gogolia

    @Interesting Name Goes Here: I’m white, but I sympathize with the sentiment — I’m feeling, “MY HAIR WAS ON FIRE BEFORE THE ELECTION AND EVERYONE TREATED ME LIKE THEIR CRAZY AUNT.”

    More power to the protestors, but sigh.

  121. 121.

    Interesting Name Goes Here

    @zhena gogolia: For me, it’s just been a whole lot of “Where the hell was all of this energy last November?”  Why is it that every single time this happens, it takes acute, concentrated pain for people to get off of their asses?  I hear this a lot over on Fark.com – “Democrats need to give me something to vote for.”  I mean, your continued existence is something to vote for…or at least, it should be.

  129. 129.

    trollhattan

    @Interesting Name Goes Here:

    ‘Tis a mystery; I suppose starting with not remembering what things were like in 2020 and thinking maybe a redo wouldn’t really be so bad.

    California 2020: 81% of registered voters and 71% of eligible voters.
    California 2024: 71% of registered voters and 60% of eligible voters.
    And Trump’s vote count was unchanged.
    In sum we know who stayed home and don’t truly know why.

  130. 130.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Jay: ypur solidarity with us means a lot.

    If this country is a train, it’s big unwieldy train to derail, and getting the train thrown off the tracks will leave a big mess, a

    lot of damage…

  133. 133.

    sab

    There was a big protest outside of city hall in Strongsville OH. It is a very Republican community. The protesters looked like locals-middle aged and very white.

    There were a few young males with Trump banners, but everyone else had signs for the other side.

  135. 135.

    recurvata

    Around 1000 people in Petoskey, Michigan. Petoskey population ~ 6000, entire county 38,000

  137. 137.

    Spanky

    Must be front page in all the papers!

    Uh.

    Trending Now: What makes Alex Ovechkin’s shot so unstoppable?

    WaPo. of course.

  138. 138.

    Doc Sardonic

    @trollhattan: Without re-litigating the whole debacle, give some thought to what happened between 21 July 2024 and Election Day. Your answer lies there.

  139. 139.

    Madame Bupkis

    @persistentillusion: I was there, too! Great turnout, great signs, great people. So many topics that people are pissed off about. Also, it was 37 degrees!  One of my favorite signs read, “Ugh, where do I start?”.

  141. 141.

    JMG

    Protests in both Falmouth and Hyannis today, two towns on Cape Cod that are the closest thing to metropolitan centers we have. Weather was bad, too, low 40s, very windy, spitting rain.  Cape used to be very Republican, but we retirees have turned it quite Democratic in the last decade. In my town, the Obama-Romney vote was a dead heat, Obama by eight (!) votes. Last year, Harris got 70 percent.

  142. 142.

    Miss Bianca

    @pacem appellant: If you haven’t studied enough American history to be aware that *every single time* there has been a concerted movement towards expanding civil rights for any group that isn’t white Christian men of property that there has been a *prolonged and vicious backlash* against it, then I suggest maybe start doing some more reading. And thinking.

    Because it sounds like you’re saying that any protest or movement that doesn’t fit your exact bespoke parameters of “success” is worthless.

    Whatever I may happen to think about the efficacy of any *particular* given protest, I have to say that I don’t share that opinion, personally.

  144. 144.

    jonas

    Reporting in the local media is that about 1800 showed up in downtown Syracuse NY. Given that the weather was chilly and wet to boot, that wasn’t too bad!

  147. 147.

    xephyr

    A huge crowd in downtown Lansing, and a loud one too, with cars honking pretty nonstop as they drove by. This is the third protest at our capitol over the past month and this one was at least twice as big as the other two.

  151. 151.

    Alice

    Big crowd lining several blocks in Carson City, NV. Loud, lively, all ages. I saw no Trump signs at all, which is unusual. When one MAGA truck drove by, the crowd only pointed and laughed and the driver looked very disconcerted.

  153. 153.

    chrisanthemama

    Little Tigard, OR (population 54k), a suburb of Portland, turned out with a crowd of about a thousand:  old, young, a couple doggos, very few hecklers, PD keeping an eye on things.  This is in the shadow of the much larger downtown Portland rally and the other half dozen rallies in the Portland metro area.  We had dry and warm weather (and back to the PNW rain tomorrow).  Great day.

  155. 155.

    pacem appellant

    @Miss Bianca: ​
    I am acutely aware of American history, as despite the education that many of fellow Americans received, my US History was top notch. Additionally, I’ve made no claims as to what the right way to protest is, nor did I ever say that protest was “worthless”.
    My spouse is out now at the protest in our area with my full support (the children can’t go, so I am home with them).

  160. 160.

    Hungry Joe

    Just got back from the San Diego march. HUGE turnout. Entirely peaceful — mostly, I figure, because of me in my yellow Peace & Safety vest.

  164. 164.

    JoeyJoeJoe

    At the DC one, one of my favorite signs was one with the felon dressed as a Handmaid with “OFELON” below the picture

  175. 175.

    Almost Retired

    The press doesn’t seem to be covering this large suburban march (Torrance, California).  Where are the TV trucks?  They’re always out in force for car chases or untimely celebrity deaths?  Hope they’ll be covering the big downtown Los Angeles march later this afternoon.

  178. 178.

    frosty

    @brendancalling: ​
     Too bad you think that way. Violent resistance will bring the Insurrection Act, politicizing the military, and abandonment of due process and the rule of law so fast it will make your head spin. This is what Trump and P2025 want. Don’t give it to them.

  190. 190.

    pika

    Rochester, NY local Gannett paper article estimates 4000–this was much bigger than the Women’s March here in 2017. Mostly friendly honks except one white dude waving a MAGA hat and one Black dude flying a giant MAGA banner from his SUV. Crowd was happiest when a fire truck rolled by and gave lots of honks and waves (as the person I was with noted, “that was not a given…”)

  191. 191.

    Matt McIrvin

    @frosty: That’s probably coming eventually. But I think we can’t make the first move to violence. We do that, we lose all sympathy from Mr. and Mrs. Middle America.

    During the 1950s-60s civil rights movement they brought some white people into the movement to be nonviolent activists in the South. Part of the calculus was that sooner or later, some of the white people were going to get killed… and when that happened, people would care (people with some political power, that is). And that was in fact how it went down.

  192. 192.

    Aimai

    @mwing: Iwas there too! You perfectly described what I saw. The whiteness of Boston protests has been an ongoing issue:only when things are co-organized with communities of culture and the march starts in Dorchester or Roxbury do we start to see more diverse crowds. Otherwise the call to arms seems to be very race based.

  193. 193.

    Martin

    @brendancalling: Historically peaceful resistance works when there is a non-peaceful alternative that it seems we are being forced to choose between. Often one doesn’t work without the other. MLK was the alternative to urban riots. The ANC was the alternative to MK. Sinn Fein to IRA. Note that in most of these cases, they worked together. Gandhi’s actions in India only ultimately succeeded because the British feared India was descending into a Muslim/Hindu civil war and they and Gandhi would be unable to stop it, and hoped that independence might do the trick. The violence was the catalyst, and Gandhi became the acceptable alternative.

    But you need to have a peaceful call to action first, and we still lack that. These protest movement are reactionary and not yet at the ‘this is what we want’ stage. That needs to come out of some leadership – be it a MLK figure or the Democratic Party, and there’s no stated platform yet, because there’s no identified leadership yet (hence my constant criticism of the Democratic Party for failing to step into the necessary and obvious role). Once the goal is set, the call to action can happen, and that’s when the threat of violence starts to be beneficial – give us this, or you will get that. If you haven’t identified what ‘this’ is, ‘that’ doesn’t drive public opinion anywhere productive, and often drives it toward the people you are trying to stop.

  194. 194.

    Jaybird

    I’d guess we had at least a couple of thousand people in Eugene. We got there early, but by the time we left there were protesters all the way from the plaza behind City Hall all of the way across the Coburg Rd bridge. It was pretty impressive. My favorite part was the sweet looking older women waving signs like ‘tick-tock m-fucker”, “I can’t believe I’m still protesting this shit” and “touch my social security and I will cut you.”  That and the irish wolfhoud wearing a sign that said “doge”

  195. 195.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Interesting Name Goes Here: In November the median voter thought Trump was going to be first-term Trump again. Stupid and mean maybe, he’d make embarrassing tweets and persecute undocumented immigrants, but a dismaying number of them were OK with that anyway. The people running the economy and the military would be normie Republican types. And maybe by sympathetic magic the economy would somehow roll back to before the pandemic.

    Political junkies knew it wasn’t going to down like that; I was warning my peeps on social media, but it was a hard case to make.

    This is the point where people realize this isn’t first-term Trump. The complete freaks are in charge to a degree they weren’t last time until the waning bunker days of January 2021.

  196. 196.

    zhena gogolia

    @Matt McIrvin: I’m sorry, but anyone who took the trouble to watch his debate with Kamala Harris could have known exactly what was going to happen.

    Not to mention listen to any given speech by Harris, Walz, or the Obamas.

  199. 199.

    Matt McIrvin

    @zhena gogolia: It’s the people around him who are the variable here. Mnuchin and Mattis and Kelly weren’t people I liked–they were giving his malevolence “legit” cover–but they weren’t completely insane like Bannon or Miller were.

    Now we get Trump unchained because those “adult in the room” guys are all gone, and it’s just total freakshow time. We get Pete Hegseth and RFK Jr. running things.

    You could see this coming; I could see it coming; lots of people warned about it even when Trump was up for reelection in 2020, but it took getting a little into the weeds to see it. Your low-info voter was just going to see Trump being Trump.

    Even the moneybags guys clearly didn’t expect this business with the tariffs. Trump kept saying he loved tariffs but he didn’t do this degree of total crackpot fuckery before. I think they’re feeling blindsided.

  202. 202.

    Matt McIrvin

    Anyway, we’re a long way from the situation in January when the big story about protests was that there essentially were none. Lots of people wondering where the 2017 Women’s March energy went, and concluding that everyone had just decided to give up.

    (I think the variable a lot of these stories were missing was how brutally cold and snowy late January 2025 was. Elon Musk’s Mousketeers went in and did their thing during a frigid snap in the Eastern US that made it hard even to go outside.)

  203. 203.

    Nukular Biskits

    Plagiarizing what I posted on Bluesky, LOTS of older white folks w/ younger & other mixed demographics were present today. Pleasantly surprised because this undercuts the narrative of so many MS Republicans who desperately want to pretend we don’t exist and/or they don’t think they have to acknowledge the existence of.

    And something that definitely bears pointing out:

    There were a LOT of older, physically-challenged folks who made this +1 mile march, using wheelchairs, walkers & canes. THEY ARE PISSED.

    And MS Republicans like US Senators Hyde-Smith & Wicker & Rep. Ezell want to pretend they don’t matter.

    That’s not smart.

  204. 204.

    zhena gogolia

    @schrodingers_cat: I was just looking at my toilet paper supply and thinking, yes, we’re going to go through this again, because people have the memory of a flea.

  207. 207.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Another Scott:

    I am hopeful. While not thousands, it’s still encouraging to see so many protest today in a state that went 61% for Trump.

    Of course, this is on the Gulf Coast which is probably a hundreds years ahead of the rest of the state (except around college towns), meaning we’re somewhere around the 1980s.

  208. 208.

    lowtechcyclist

    I was at the DC rally today, with a couple of busloads of mostly gray-haired folks from Calvert County, MD.

    Good energy there.  Favorite signs:

    “Does this ass (pic of Trump) make our country look small?”

    “They’re doing us DOG-E style – fight back!”

    “Bat Shit and Robbing” with pix of Trump and Musk in the appropriate superhero costumes

    ” ‘Deep State’ = people DOING THEIR FUCKING JOBS”

    “Respect ALL of our existence, or expect our RESISTANCE”

    And a satirical “Tax Penguins, not Bazillionaires” poster.

  210. 210.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Martin: Besides, if people are planning anything violent or destructive they’re sure not gonna publicize it on the open Internet with RSVP links unless they’re irredeemably stupid.

    In other news a lot of Cybertrucks sure have been catching fire lately.

  211. 211.

    Another Scott

    bsky.app/profile/pgourevitch.bsky.social/post/3lm3r7y34pk2t

    Philip Gourevitch
    ‪@pgourevitch.bsky.social‬

    I asked the one high ranking policeman I saw on 5th Ave why there were so few police. He said “We did not expect anything like this. Don’t tell anyone but I’ve only got 44 officers out here — and it’s a great crowd, great event, no incidents.”

    ‪Mor Naaman‬ ‪@informor.bsky.social‬
    4h

    I have never seen anything like this in NYC. 5th Ave covered from 42nd St well to the 20s. Nobody prepared for this volume. Volunteers are holding the traffic on all the side streets. No police in sight. #handsoff

    [ image ]

    ALT – Full of people down 5th avenue, view from 39th Street.

    April 5, 2025 at 4:24 PM

    Something something gentlemen, let’s get this thing straight, once and for all. The policeman is not here to create disorder. The policeman is here to preserve disorder.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  217. 217.

    Martin

    @Another Scott: To give NYPD a little bit of credit, they deal with regular gatherings of a million people. They tend to not overreact to this sort of stuff. Haven’t done Times Square in quite a while but the tradition there was the NYPD would do this kind of show of force march into the area, almost like their own little parade with horses leading the way. It was a ‘just letting y’all know there’s 10,000 of us here’ reminder to the crowd, but otherwise not bother people.

    ‘Nobody prepared for this volume’ contains within it a little bit of ‘we’re always prepared for this volume’.

  218. 218.

    williamrd

    San Diego. Large crowd. Majority white and not-young. Cool signs. No counterprotesters to speak of. Did not see local media. Many positive honks from passers by. Will try to send pics (to Watergi rl?)

  219. 219.

    Jay

    @zhena gogolia:

    Kinda, US paper products rely on either Canadian pulp products, or Canadian paper products. Unlike Covid, the plants will not be shutting down, but TP, Kleenex and Paper Towels will cost 25% more, (less gouging). Unfortunately, you can’t even switch to bamboo products as those Asian and Australian suppliers have a higher tariff rate for now.

  223. 223.

    Bill Arnold

    @Jay:
    Writer Charlie Stross has an anecdote about young Curtis, that he’s told in multiple online venues (,each slightly different wording). For some reason, search engines no longer find it.  Here:

    About 25 years ago my GF (later wife) and I crashed in Curtis’s spare room when he was a student at Berkeley. His first words to us? “Charlie, Feorag? Dudes! Come on in! Let me show you our lizard room!” Because he and his house-mates had an entire room set up as a vivarium for their lizards — honking great iguanas and the odd pet snake.

  224. 224.

    sxjames

    Here in Beaverton OR, the organizers announced a crown of several thousand. May have been an overestimate, but not by much.  Best speaker was the mayor – she was energetic, to the point, and centered her remarks around her two children and their future.  She also implored the crowd to stay involved and active…which I suspect more than a few will. We also had a representative from Metro (our intergovernmental body for transportation, housing, community colleges, etc.) and he said that Metro was NOT going to change there DEI policies (yeah)!

    Crown was quite varied in age, and as we lined the streets around the park we had many, many drivers  honk, wave and give us a thumb up.  A couple of signs that caught my eye
    – does this ass (picture of trump) make my sign to big?
    – Trump and Musk sitting in a tree f*cking democracy
    – I can get a better cabinet at Ikea

    There were also a couple that quoted from Cory Bookers senate speech – words to the effect “If this country has not broken your heart, then you have not loved it”

    Anyways, onward and upward

  229. 229.

    Glory b

    From Pittsburgh, big crowd, .ostly college aged, but the older folks came out stronger than expected.

    My favorite sign, a picture of Musk, the caption: “He doesn’t even go here!”

  232. 232.

    Matt McIrvin

    @sxjames: I haven’t seen any media coverage of today’s sign-wavin’ protest in Haverhill MA, though a couple of local outlets mentioned the Indivisible estimate of “over 500” in advance. As I said elsewhere I think the actual turnout was between 800 and 1000. 500 wouldn’t have filled both sides of the street from the river to City Hall (except for a one-block construction zone).

  233. 233.

    MobiusKlein

    I haven’t seen much mention of the SF Civic Center rally here.
    It was big, loud, and friendly for the most part.

    The saddest part was how Zionist agitators were harassing the folks with Palestinian flags, like my daughter. Goading them about supporting Hamas, calling the pro Palestine folks antisemitic. The only counter protesters decide to target them. What BS.

  234. 234.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud:

    Dr. Neal Testerman, a 95-year-old retired pathologist from Hartford Hospital, looked up at Chapdelaine from a wheelchair, a colorful crocheted blanket on his lap. He held a sign: “Born in 1929. I vote.” He was accompanied by his 74-year-old daughter, Sherrell, a retired public health nurse.

  235. 235.

    Geminid

    @chemiclord: I think Reps. Crockett and Ocasio have cultivated a fairly wide circle within the Democratic Party. Ocasio-Cortez gets some pushback now from a few Lefties as a “sellout” but these folks are not very numerous and were never reliable Democratic voters to begin with. And there are still some people on the rightward side of the Party who distrust Ocasio-Cortez on account of her early association with Justice Democrats, but she moved on from them.

    Crockett seems to have broad appeal. I’ve seen a Lefty or two snipe at her but they only like Democrats who trash the Party and its leadership, and Crockett directs her fire at Republicans. I have not seen any moderate Democrats criticize her.

    Crockett is in the Progressive Caucus while some moderates identify with the New Democrats. But personally, I don’t think there are many practical policy differences between the two groups, which are fairly balanced at ~95 members each.

    I read something interesting a couple months ago, about the two caucuses: their leaders have agreed not to endorse primary challenges against each other’s incumbents. This could not be binding upon individual members, but it’s a sign the leaders want to avoid making next primary season an intra-party fight, and to concentrate instead on delivering a Democratic majority in the November midterms.

    I expect there will be plenty of challenges to incumbents next year; we’ll see if they are more successful than in past cycles.

    I think two incumbents lost primaries in 2018 and two more in 2020. In 2018 Massachusetts Rep. Michael Capuano lost to Ayanna Pressly and and Joe Crowley lost NY14 to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In 2020 Jamaal Bowman beat Elliot Engle in NY16 and Cori Bush beat Lacy Clay in MO01.

    In 2022 saw a couple incumbents lose to other incumbents after redistricting threw them into the same district: Marie Neuman lost her Illinois seat to Sean Casten, and Andy Levin lost his Michigan seat to Haley Stevens. And Kurt Schrader lost his primary in Oregon’s 5th CD to a more liberal challenger.

    Last year saw two incumbents lose to challengers: Cori Bush lost to Wesley Bell and Jamaal Bowman lost to George Latimer. Bush and Bowman had unseated more moderate incumbents in 2020.

    So typically, relatively few primary challenges to incumbents have been successful. I think that next year will be little different, and that the real action will be for seats opened up by retirements. There are usually 20 to 25 of those.

  236. 236.

    Central Planning

    @pika: I was looking at that D&C article. My favorite sign was “MAGA: Morons Are Governing America”

  237. 237.

    MobiusKlein

    One odd thing at the San Francisco rally today was seeing a C-130 flying overhead a few times.

    No helicopters, but I am dubious anytime I see military craft around protests.

  238. 238.

    CaseyL

    I went to the Seattle rally with a friend. I generally avoid these events, because I’m not sure they’re effective as anything other than self-validation, but my friend said she was going and I felt honor bound to go with her. There was a good turnout – I was a little nervous for a while, when the crowd seemed a bit thin, but the area (Seattle Center, International Fountain and the grounds around it) filled up to SRO in less than an hour.

    I was very happy with the signage. Everything was home made, individual, some very elaborate, others very simple. I saw one person giving out mass-produced “Hands Off!” signs, but that was it. I wonder if Indivisible (the main organizer all across the country) made a point of telling people not to use mass-produced signs, but to make and bring their own.

    I was also very happy to see no more than a smattering of the usual every-issue-except-the-ones-we’re-rallying for signs, a perpetual problem with liberal political actions. 99.9% were focused on Trump, Musk and the ruination they’ve wrecked on us. I also saw one fellow carrying a “ITMFA” sign, that I had to look up to translate. “Impeach the Mother Fucker Already” – from Trump’s first term. Oh, the nostalgia!

    But you would expect a good, even great, turnout in The People’s Republic of Seattle. We’re about as blue as it gets. I am more encouraged to hear of good turnouts in purple and red areas.

  239. 239.

    NightSky

    Pasadena CA, gorgeous blue sky, breezy 78′. Maybe 1000 folks clogged the sidewalks and other spaces for several blocks near the main post office and Paseo — passionate yet polite folks, all ages and colors with a slight trend towards grey haired women.  Nearly all with homemade signs with much wit; chanting.  Loud constant honking in solidarity by all the cars going by. Nary a Magat in sight. Friend’s green “Is he dead yet?” tee was very popular.Overall, it was helpful to see so many people share my concerns about the present and the future. I hope we won’t stop protesting. (and thnks to Martin to remind us that it’s the subtle threat of violence that makes the building nonviolent protests work)

    Yes, there were lots of older women out there, but it makes a lot of sense because the events of the past few weeks have made it clear we have a lot to worry about with little time to recover. We REMEMBER when abortion and birth control before marriage were illegal, when we needed husband or father’s permission to get a credit card. Our male friends in college worried about the draft, and we marched against the Vietnam War. Do we really have to do fight that all again?! Now our life savings just took a MAJOR hit, have probably not found bottom yet, and we don’t have time to wait for the market to recover (if it ever does — who knows what tricks T and his billionaires will pull?) Plus our earned social security and healthcare benefits are likely to be stolen too (we have less than men to begin with bc our wages and years in the workforce are typically less than theirs). We are worried as hell about what kind of a world (and climate) our children and grandkids are having to navigate. Those of us over 70 are also daily aware that despite trying to eat right and stay active and social, we have no control over which health problems our bodies will fall prey to and when, tripping up our best laid plans to enjoy old age and make the world a better place. Luckily I grew up learning how to pinch pennies, but what life is left to me and spouse may become pure hell if the broligarchs make health care unaffordable or unavailable. So yeah, we have a lot of good reasons to protest this travesty.

  240. 240.

    MobiusKlein

    @CaseyL: I don’t view them as Self Validation, but more of a Dress Rehearsal.    Practice, get a bit of solidarity, see that it’s a thing we can do.

    Today was the easy mode – it’s going to get a lot harder, a lot uglier by the summer.

  241. 241.

    Helen

    @mvr: Estimated three thousand showed up at Memorial Park in Omaha NE. Cars slowed to honk and wave as they drove by. Great support and great fun.

  242. 242.

    dww44

    @Shalimar: not sure what you mean but there were 14 other rallies I. Georgia besides the Atlanta one.  Went to one in Mscon.  Maybe not large but well done and fun!

  247. 247.

    mvr

    @Helen: Thank you for the update.  I’m sure Lincoln had 1,000 but it could have been double that because of the way it was spread along the road.

    Just added: Apparently Lincoln Police said 3,000 according to a post by someone on Bluesky.

    There was supposedly an event in Hastings which was on the website long before the one in Lincoln. I don’t know anything about it.

  248. 248.

    sab

    May I just say Do not take your dog to protests. It’s great if things go smoothly, but if they don’t you go to jail and your dog goes to the pound, with no one to rescue them since you are in jail.

    ETA Leave your dog at home and tell a responsible relative that you will be protesting.

    It is all fun and friendly now, but at some point when Trumpsters feel threatened it will get ugly. Keep your dog out of it.

  249. 249.

    sab

    @Steve LaBonne:Some people (my husband) say these demonstrations are only performative.  I strongly disagree. They inform people that a lot of other people share their feelings. That can be galvanizing.

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