Dem
47
GOP
53
We had a general report on Hands Off, and then reader reports focused on swing states and small towns. Today, we wanted to highlight some of the reports we got from red states:
S.M. in Oak Ridge, TN, writes: I joined a group of friends in Knoxville for the Hands Off march. It is difficult to say how many people attended, because we were sent out in small groups to street corners and medians all over downtown. Estimates vary between 2,000-4,000 people—in very red East Tennessee! My group was located in the median of a street with several lanes of stop-and-go traffic. We were extremely encouraged by the drivers' responses! Hundreds of people honked, gave us thumbs up, or yelled in support. One person who kept count said that about one in three cars which drove by us responded positively! On the flip side, we only saw about five drivers who reacted negatively! I can't emphasize enough how amazing this is in East Tennessee—the reddest of the red!
E.C. in Miami, FL, writes: Grabbing some shade at the Miami protest. We estimated about 2,000 people.
P.Y. in Boca Raton, FL, writes: About 2,000 protesters attended the Hands Off rally in Boca Raton, 2% of the Florida beachside community's population of 100,000. Unlike the Seinfeld stereotype of Morty and Helen's Del Boca Vista, the real residents of Boca Raton are not all retirees living in over-55 condos. They are actually a mix of blue- and white-collar workers, retirees, and students at the city's three colleges, Florida Atlantic University, Lynn University, and Palm Beach College. Four Fortune 500 companies have their headquarters in Boca's bustling downtown of office buildings and trendy bars. In the last election, Donald Trump received 56% of the vote, almost exactly the same as in Florida overall.
My wife and I are retired college professors and have lived here for 25 years. Most of our friends and neighbors are middle-aged, middle-income, middle-class swing voters. The majority are independents who lean slightly to the right of center, though some are Democrats and a few are ruby-red Republicans. The majority, even the Democrats, support Trump on the border. Ditto on extending the 2017 tax cuts and exempting Social Security. They agree with him on biological males in women's sports, though most couldn't care less about persons with penises peeing in women's bathrooms. But every one of them is livid about the losses in their IRAs and 401(k)s caused by Trump's tariffs. Once again, as in the last election, it's the economy, stupid.
As expected, protest signs and speeches at the Hands Off rally leaned heavily to the left, covering subjects near and dear to progressives, such as firings of Federal workers, deportations, bullying of law firms and universities, trans rights, DEI, and the like. But there was far less attention to what should have been the elephant in the room, the tariffs. It was almost as if Kamala Harris' defeat had nothing to do with the price of eggs. To me, the rally looked and sounded more like preaching to the choir, while its organizers failed to take advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity handed to them by Trump's blunder on tariffs. The votes of moderate independents are there for the asking if the Democrats would only stop scaring them with lefty cultural issues and start talking to them about their pocketbooks and the damage done to them by Trump. Is Bernie still the only one who gets it?
K.T. in Columbus, OH, writes: Hands Off in Columbus:
E.S. in Cincinnati, OH, writes: My husband and I joined over 2,000 protesters in downtown Cincinnati, despite significant rain all morning. It was invigorating, and as one of the speakers said, this is just the beginning of our action.
I want to note something about these protests that the same speaker pointed out, and others have as well—the significant lack of non-white participants. At first this disappointed me, because I hoped for solidarity with the most vulnerable among us, but I am also sobered by the reality: They wisely stayed home to protect themselves. And truthfully, this is our problem to solve, our mess to clean up. I can think of no better use for my white privilege than to stand between this insane Trump regime and their innocent victims. So it was a good day.
H.S. in Columbia, SC, writes: At the State House in Columbia:
P.C. in Austin, Texas, writes: Hands Off protest/rally in Austin:
F.S. in Idaho Falls, ID, writes: Deep red Idaho had protests in many of our little cities. I heard Idaho Falls (pop. 68,000) turned out maybe 2,000 protesters, Pocatello (pop. 58,000) had an estimated 1,000, and little mountain ski town Driggs (pop. about 2,000) had about 150 people on Main Street. You wrote, in your first item about Hands Off: "after months of not doing anything..." Here in Idaho Falls, there have been protests every week, sometimes multiple protests in a week, for all the various reasons people hate Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their useless representatives. So local people here were trying, and I'm sure the same elsewhere. Previous protests had been attended sporadically, but this one was big by our standards, and seems to have been organized well. I'm wondering who the Hands Off organizers are.
Thanks to everyone who has written in! We'll have one more entry next week. (Z)