The world is not divided into winners and losers

Protest – Week 8

Two months of protest.

I walked over to the weekly protest on Saturday. I left my apartment early, thinking about getting some air, finding that the weather was hot and nearly sultry, especially after the cooler temperatures that have made layers necessary in this slow spring. I felt hot, not ready for summer, but looking forward to standing with other people, engaging with the world. I had pushed myself to go, trying to find a hope that would conquer lethargy and depression. An older couple with signs went past, and I directed them to the correct location. They seemed so nice, so ordinary. They told me that they arrived early and were now walking around to “get steps.” They thanked me and went on their step count way, leaving me to wonder if I should try to get steps. Here I had been congratulating myself for walking at all, and there were people, older than I, filled with energy and holding a hand-made sign, hoping to enjoy a walk before the protest. Getting steps.

Early arrival to the location, I wandered around the common looking at the pink flowering trees, the old steeple that could be seen over the low roofs of the shops, the red brick police station, and the parking area, with a slot for meeting people if you were buying things from them online. In case of emergency, call 911, the sign added. Seemed a strange addendum, with the Police Station right there. Apparently, a new path and a monument to veterans is about to break ground. The sign said that the unveiling of the new path, etc. would be in September. This is a traditional area, I thought. The high school football team, the monument to veterans, the number of old houses, the big pickup trucks, and the array of landscapers, armed with equipment and mountains of mulch to patrol shimmering green and fertilized, pesticide sprayed lawns.

September. That seemed a very long way off. I wondered if their building works would disrupt the protests, once they got started, and if that was the part of the point. There is a vote coming up for increasing housing and changing the laws which concern how permission to build housing in the town is given. A lot of people are against it. Homeowners are the property owners who had the rights in the new government. Property owners are suspicious of renters.

A group was setting up, with amplifiers, and microphones, and more signs. There was the woman who came with a stack of signs to borrow. At about quarter to noon, I went over to look through them. I wanted a sign that said WAKE UP, or, THE WOMAN THEY DISAPPEARED FROM SOMERVILLE IS STILL IN JAIL DO SOMETHING but of course there were sensible signs about how no one is above the law. I really must make my own, however rough my marker skills. Little by little, people started to gather by the road side. The drumming began, the woman with the microphone tried to rally us to do chants, and the small crowd took their places by the roadside, holding up a range of creative protest signs. There were some new ones about saving Social Security.

Most of the people are over 50. The two young women who were here a couple of weeks ago, and who screamed delightfully every time a T supporter gave a thumbs down or shouted something rude, were not there this week. But it was a big crowd, for a small town. Apparently around 250 people showed up. The numbers are growing, slowly.

The signs are good. The energy is good. The cars that go by and wave and honk, all good. But – there are still too many cars whose drivers do nothing. And there are the supporters of the current president. This week a woman threw up both hands in the f – you sign as she was driven past. A man yelled out of his truck that we were all idiots. Some head shaking, as though we were misguided fools, or dangerous rebels. How do they justify this to themselves, as they glare at men and women who are part of their community? The anger and contempt for the protestors has been a constant for the past two months. So much anger.

I’ve heard some young people say the problem is with older people – and it’s just a matter of time. Sometimes that may be true. But there was a man in his twenties who gave the protestors the thumbs down, and his girlfriend just laughed and pulled down his arm. Some younger men driving by yelled out insults as they slowed down to take pictures of the group or to just shout as they passed by. But the majority of the people protesting, at least here, are retired, or older. There are very, very few people even under 40. This may be part of the real problem.

One woman passenger nodded and waved from her car, looking like a version of Katherine Hepburn – all cheekbones and small portions and determination – a portrait of fierce self-control and beauty. Not all of those in favor were elegant. Some messy hair and sweatshirts, some had kids in the car who waved little hands from their car seats, some men with beards lifted their entire arm out of the window with a thumbs up encouragingly, some women honked for as long as it took them to go by. A mix of people. And the protesters, lining the road, all cheered the support.

On the opposing side, there was not the same variation. Most were clearly the victims of our broken food system, misshapen, mottled, thinning hair, shortened necks and extended stomachs. These were the people who believed in the leader. I wondered if put through a yoga and vegetarian program, as had been done in some prisons to great impact, when people cared about those things, if the results would be as important as they had been for the prisoners. Could physical health be linked to intelligence and if not happiness, at least a lessening of misery? For these people looked miserable. They scowled at us, frowning, their faces retracted into gargoyle expressions of hate as their stomachs impeded the steering wheel.

Afterwards, I went to a local brewery for a beer. It was hot. I thought it would be refreshing. But the sense of complacency, the feeling that maybe some of the couples having lunch were on the side of fascists, suddenly spoiled it. What were we all doing, sitting there, acting as if everything was fine? Or maybe – what was I doing there, the lone woman in my Jane Austen t-shirt, trying to find community? This wasn’t a pub in London.

The suburbs have their good points. You’re close enough to get work in a city. You can come home, and listen to the birds. But it’s also filled with people whose idea of a good time is going to the mall for a burger. People who have never left the country, or if they have, are convinced that there is nowhere better than America, after having annoyingly to adapt to foreign customs. Of course liking where you live is not a bad thing. But when the myth that there is nowhere better helps to fuel the paranoia on the right that there are hordes wanting nothing more than to live here, who will take away services and jobs and money that belong to Americans, this myth making turns everyday life into the gated community and the zero-sum game that must be defended at all costs. Everyone becomes a stranger. Pride turns to what in a dog would be called food hoarding. Fear and misunderstanding turns too easily into mistrust and hatred. The people yelling from their black pickup trucks that the protestors were idiots, or shouting “Trump” over and over, would be laughable, if it weren’t so pitiable – and dangerous.

A woman who feels no shame at waving both middle fingers at a group of older men and women waving hand-drawn signs could be seen as an extremist, except that’s nothing compared to students and innocent people still imprisoned for expressing their viewpoints, or being a color that isn’t white. Saturday Night Live made a joke about using tattoos to identify criminals – “you see what color skin it’s on.” A woman in Minnesota called a 5 year old child a racial slur, and then did fundraising to support her actions. The New York Times ran an article today, and the lead said that weak leaders follow the rules, and strong ones who are remembered, break them. Can a newspaper live with itself if it “sane-washes” undermining the judiciary, or can a television network justify cutting a segment from an interview with the current president with his claims that he won the 2020 election? Do the editors and producers tell themselves that it’s about balance or that they aren’t able to print follow-up stories about students imprisoned by ICE or an elderly woman forcibly removed from a NY 17 town hall with Rep. Mike Lawler, because we are already on to the next crisis? That is what this government continues to do – provide new outrages until we can’t keep track and can’t keep up and just can’t anymore.

Back to the one hour per week that I cling on to, where some dedicated people stand by the road, and wave, and hold up signs, and hope. But part of the problem with hope is the delusion that it will be an easy win. It won’t. The billionaires and fascists think they are right, and that their money proves it. Meanwhile, they want control –of retirement money, of programs for children, health, Social Security. The educational supports that keep society moving forward. This attack on the country and the world is as if a giant ship had been brought to a sudden stop – while the storms of the world still rage around us. The crisis is here, and any sailor would know what could come next when you stop dead in the water in a gale.

A woman next to me today asked why I thought people were for him. I said I didn’t know, but tried to give reasons. Then I said, “I think of lot of them – are just racist.” She looked away. I know you aren’t supposed to say these things out loud in America. I’m white, by the way. So was she. But. I remember spending summers in the country, and while I loved it, I knew that the butcher and the shopkeepers looked at my grandparents differently. They tried to assimilate. I know racism is like an open sore, and something you don’t discuss in polite society, because that could lead to arguments, like discussing money. But this seemed like a good time to push back, and see how honest people could be with each other.

She tried, I think. I tried to look encouraging. “There are things that should be changed,” she said. “Better education. That’s why Canada were able to elect a good person.” I nodded. Then she carried on. “But there things that you have to acknowledge, ways that…should be different. Families should stay together. People should work for a living. They should not get addicted to drugs.” The last one was said with a certainty that made me wonder if she’d ever known anyone who was an addict, or had a family member who was. The pain addiction causes families is not ringfenced by race.

“No,” I replied, wondering what to say to a point of view that my subconscious mind recognized, but my must-deal-with-smalltown-society self tried to navigate. “But these cuts will make things worse for them.” I knew there was a them. I didn’t want to name who they were. Build connection, don’t judge – after all, we were on the same side. “Then those problems become more acute, as people are desperate,” I said.

The conversation was over.

One of the other weeks, a man with standing in the community had tried to tell me about the men who had struggled, who wanted to be men, who didn’t want handouts. He recommended a book. At the time, I kept thinking, it’s always about men, isn’t it? The conversation is always about white men, no matter who or what you’re talking about.

A country that was built on destroying an existing civilization, a country built using slave labor, and a country that has a problem with xenophobia as well as an obsession with exceptionalism has some beliefs it needs to confront. Is this why the Democrats are so vague in their pushback, with some notable exceptions? Do party leaders think to themselves, we have to fit in – although we don’t? We can’t alienate these nice men and women with their lawns, and their banks, and their local government and their high school football teams, and their ways of doing things. We can’t remind them about how their golf clubs excluded Jews, their wives were supposed to obey, and people of color were the servant class. Are the servant class. The protestors are cheering the Amazon drivers who honk and wave at the crowd, but all those drivers are people of color.

You can’t fix the neuroses in mid-warfare, but questioning why and what you are doing and for whom was always going to be the hard ask.

The thing is, you can’t be frightened that maybe the bankers and billionaires are right, agree with some of the Project 2025 ideas, and still fight whole-heartedly against the whole government takeover and dismantling. This is a war, and we are cannon fodder, and when we find we can’t afford to pay our bills or buy only the simplest items due to the tariffs, or when more people than usual can’t see a doctor, then maybe people will realize that it isn’t about us and them, it’s about control. And the people in the current government are relying on the fact that the people who have done well, have played by the rules, and maybe don’t mind if some things are relaxed in their favor. They think they are in the right group, no matter what. Capitalism taught everyone to accept any rule, as long as the person making it had money, as the price of admittance to the club. They keep mentioning eggs. The eggs I like to buy are now 7.50 for six. That’s over one dollar per egg. I won’t even mention the stupid comment of several weeks back about keeping chickens. When I started getting emails telling me not to worry about retirement savings, something that appeared so sensible and made me think I’d conquered some part of “adulting” after they dropped in value by 10 percent, I knew they were just as scared as me. Don’t pull out all your money at once people, because the whole system will collapse.

The woman next to me with whom I had the little interactions, had the same look on her face when I mentioned racism as the butcher did when my grandmother ordered some steaks in a small New England town in the 1970s. I was a young person then, but I noticed how he looked at her. I didn’t know what to call it, or why, I just knew there was a level of contempt and fake bonhomie. I’d been told the story of how her parents had been arrested on a drive down to Florida in the early 1950s. My mother had been with them, and was frightened. They all were. After a few hours, my grandfather was released. They carried on. And like a lot of people at that time, their wish was to assimilate. But the message had been received. They didn’t drive down again.

When I was in fifth grade, I went to one of the southern states to visit my father’s family. It’s a long story. I saw the way people in stores were treated based on the color of their skin. I saw how my cousins, on spotting me, were whisked away. We never did speak. I came back, city child, wrote a story about it all, and then my teacher told me I was exaggerating, that the things I described could never happen.

This battle is about survival. And you can’t discuss survival with people who own expensive cars, spend leisure time at the golf club, who meet each other at church. They don’t really feel frightened because they’ve never lost. No matter if they are Democrats or Republicans – they have never lost.

I have the horrible feeling that any push back, like arms to Ukraine, is designed to let off steam, or allow the appearance of struggle to continue, while in the background, all the levers are being pushed to far-right. Maybe people are like my fifth grade teacher, who found it easier to call something exaggeration, rather than admit the reality. People will say injustice is wrong, and believe it – as long as they don’t lose anything. When they start to lose things – maybe then they will understand that this path threatens both their comfort and their prejudices. Which side are you on?