Dem
47
GOP
53
We've now been able to read through and sort the many Hands Off reports we got. Yesterday, we focused on swing states. Today, we're going to highlight reports from small/smallish municipalities:
P.W. in Springwater, NY, writes: Of course the bigger cities of New York had protests, but in my little (red) neck of the woods, there were protests galore! Within 35 miles of my house, there were four—three in Livingston County alone. Each was about an hour long and I was able to participate in two.
It was raining in Livonia at 10, but everyone was peaceful and cheerful. Like the other protests nationwide, there were a variety of signs, many with American flags attached. We lined the street corners, taking care not to block local businesses, which many of us also patronized. Most of the cars passing by waved, gave us thumbs up, and honked their horns. After about a half hour, a convoy of approximately 16 trucks and cars, decorated with Trump decals and/or American flags, came through, went around the block, and returned for a second pass. One of the drivers yelled, "Long live the king."
The Geneseo protest was a hybrid; about 1/2 of us marched down each side of Main Street. Police officers graciously stopped traffic so we could cross. Other protesters rallied at the village square. Some of the counter-protesters from the morning showed up. At one point, the guy in this truck (picture below) got out of the truck while waiting for us to cross and danced in the street. He was pretty much ignored. On his second pass, he was stopped again and yelled at us. I couldn't hear him above the chanting of the marchers, but was told he'd asked if we knew how silly we looked. He should have looked in a mirror while practicing his "dance" moves.
The attendance (approximately 200-250 people each) seemed huge for these small towns. Although I recognized some faces from the morning protest, the majority of protesters in the afternoon were new. We heard that someone had said we were being paid to attend by left-wing groups and we laughed about where we should go to collect. (I'm still waiting to be paid.)
A small convoy vs. 250 protesters in an overwhelmingly red county? I think we won the day.
L.L. in Seymour, CT, writes: From a rally in tiny Newtown, CT (one of about 10 rallies throughout the state). We had almost 1,000 people there.
D.L. in Boston, MA, writes: The Hands Off protest in Plymouth, MA, had a great turnout. After months of pent-up frustration, I found the event more cathartic than I had anticipated. The attached image includes the monument to Plymouth Rock:
J.H. in Lodi, NY, writes: A rally in Ovid, NY, of close to 200 people. Small? Ovid's population is 2,847 (2020 Census) and is in rural NY District 24, where Rep. Claudia Tenney (R), avid Trumpist, chose to run two election cycles ago because it would be an easier district for her to win than the district she lives in.
(Photo credit to Jan Quarrels, an organizer with Indivisible Seneca NY, who has released the photo to the public.)
S.B. in Hood River, OR, writes: In Hood River, OR, a town of 8,000, 1,500-2,000 people showed up. Photo was published in the Columbia Gorge News.
A.S. in Bedford, MA, writes: Even little Bedford held our own Hands Off rally on Saturday with 1,000 (!) people. I had originally planned to attend the one in Boston, but with a toddler in tow, it was easier to attend the Bedford one. I never expected protesting to be so conveniently located.
T.F. in Craftsbury Common, VT, writes: From the predominately Republican Northeast Kingdom of Vermont:
M.K. in Portimão, Portugal, writes: A crowd of about 125 US expats turned out in the small city of Lagos, Western Algarve, Portugal.
S.B. in Granby, MA, writes: I wanted to write about our experience with the Hands Off protest in our small town of about 6,100 people. The weather was not friendly. We started our 2-hour stand out in a chilly drizzle, which escalated into a soaking, continuous rain by the second hour. No let up. At the peak of our stand out, our organizers counted 275 people. Given that many people came and went for whatever shorter time spans they were able to accommodate, our total participation was likely over 300 people—about 5% of the population of our town. Not bad for a town that went for Kamala Harris by only 9 votes!
The mood was great. We were at the only busy intersection in town and overwhelmingly we were greeted by waves, cheers, thumbs up, people waving their own protest signs from their cars and enthusiastic (and sometimes quite musically rhythmic) honking and tooting. There were a few birds flipped our way, a few thumbs down, but the vast majority were in our favor. We had a handful of people, driving what I think of as overcompensating-for-something type cars or pick-ups, who revved their engines aggressively or made a show of hot-dog driving tricks. One jerk deliberately swerved hard into a puddle to splash nearby protesters. My husband was one of the soaked ones. He described those types as "more testosterone than intelligence." Interestingly, all of the few dissenting reactions I saw were from men. I'm told there were a few thumbs down/middle fingers from women, but very few. I'll let you make what you will of that.
We weren't sure how parking would go, but the CVS at the intersection welcomed us to use their lot and other people with private or small business properties within walking distance also gave us the use of whatever parking spaces they could provide.
We had a few out-of-town participants. I talked to someone from Vermont who was visiting a daughter in town and came to join us even though the daughter was not actually able to attend. A couple of people came from a bigger nearby town and said they knew there would be plenty of people in their town protest, but they wanted to help out the protest in our smaller town. This is who we are.
One woman brought long-stem red roses to hand to anyone who gave us a negative reaction, but it didn't work. She couldn't get to any of them because they all drove off too fast. Make of that what you will, as well.
At one point a younger woman came running down the sidewalk. She was wearing a colorful sweatshirt reading "You know I love Lesbians." "I live up the street," she told me. "I was just driving home and I didn't know anything about this so I had to run over here and join in! Does anybody have an extra sign I can hold?" She was so excited that this was happening and so glad to stand in the freezing cold rain with people like us.
It took several hours to chase the chill out of our bones, but the warmth of being together in this shared cause will carry me for a while. We're not alone and we're not the minority.
Next time out, we'll share some reports from red states. (Z)