As promised, here's how I spent my Saturday afternoon.
LA is huge, and I didn’t feel like dealing with the traffic or parking that would come with one of the really big demonstrations, so I opted for one here in Burbank, next to my local library. I’m not going to try to guesstimate crowd sizes — there’s more than enough of that available elsewhere — but it was a good turnout, with the small park fairly full.
Rather than focusing on numbers, here are some more subjective and anecdotal observations.
I’ve seen the mood of the demonstrations described elsewhere as a big block party, and that about perfectly captures it. It felt festive and cheerful. Though anger was what brought people out, I don’t recall seeing anyone actually angry. You saw cheerful seniors in wheelchairs, elementary school kids timidly asking if they could have their pictures taken with a dinosaur (the answer was always yes), funny signs, and elaborate costumes being compared. Just a bunch of folks from the neighborhood having a good time defending democracy.
The Portlandia / Spirit Halloween aesthetic has proven to be an ideal response to the administration’s push toward fascism. With the possible exception of misinformed economic concerns, Trump’s return to power was mainly the result of his success at playing on fears of social upheaval — fears rooted largely in racism. Inflatable frogs and dancing grandmas completely undercut that. It’s not surprising that Republican frustration with these images has been palpable.
The administration’s messaging is further undercut by the fact that, like the Burbank protest, so much of the No Kings movement has been, if anything, slightly disproportionately white. The Republicans’ attempts to portray the protests as collections of militant Islamists and other “scary” types engaging in violent insurrection have pretty much collapsed. It’s impossible to frighten white suburbanites with middle-aged wine moms and Barney the Dinosaur. It’s no coincidence that Fox News has gone from warning its viewers about Marxist revolutionaries to mocking No Kings for having “too many old people.” (Side note: given the network’s own demographics, perhaps not the best strategy.)
From what I’ve seen both online and in person, protesters seem to grasp the importance of not giving the administration or conservative media anything that could be depicted as threatening. One thing that struck me was that, while large groups would march from one side of Buena Vista and Verdugo to the other, they always did it with the light and were careful not to actually impede traffic.
On a probably related note, for the entire two hours — or at least the hour and forty-five minutes that I was there — there was a constant cacophony of honking horns from passing motorists, most smiling and giving the protesters a thumbs-up, which was met with cheers and waves in return. It would be interesting to get a count of those showing approval, but I can say it had to be a large number.
The biggest cheer of the day came when a hook-and-ladder truck from the Burbank Fire Department drove past the demonstration, honking and waving with an American flag flying from the back.
One comment I made to a friend at the rally — and have since seen echoed online — was that there were an awful lot of American flags for what was supposed to be a “hate America” rally. That was combined with a great deal of patriotic imagery: a protester dressed as Abraham Lincoln, countless references to the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence. Many signs referenced 1776. Much of what I saw would not have been out of place at a Fourth of July parade.
Not to rain on your parade, so to speak, but doesn't this also describe a lot of the vibe of the 2024 Harris campaign? Lots of large enthusiastic crowds, upbeat messages, wholesome cheer, American flags, etc.? Just not quite enough for 50% of the vote.
ReplyDeleteAndrew
Andrew,
ReplyDeleteFor starters, this was a descriptive post — an account of what I saw attending this event. I’m not trying to draw simple or sweeping inferences about what it means politically.
That said, based both on scale and the seriousness of the moment, these demonstrations are of historic importance. It would, of course, be a mistake to assume that big — even really big — crowds mean the country is turning against Trump or that we’re reaching some kind of tipping point. It would also, however, be a mistake to follow the example of The New York Times and try to ignore what’s going on.
And while there are certainly similarities between this and the Harris campaign in terms of tone, message, and many of the participants, the No Kings demonstrations are radically different in both magnitude and moment. Quantity has a quality all its own, and once you take away the not-at-all-analogous Earth Day, this may be the largest political demonstration in American history — followed by the last No Kings protest. Perhaps more importantly, the difference in context between a campaign rally in 2024 and a pro-democracy/anti-occupation demonstration in 2025 could not be greater. This is nowhere more obvious than in the dominant images of these protests: the inflatable frogs, dinosaurs, and unicorns. These costumes aren’t just an attempt at whimsy; they’re a deliberate and focused way of undercutting the administration’s case for military (or in some cases paramilitary) occupation of Portland and other cities. The frogs in particular are associated with footage of heavily armed thugs firing teargas pellets at protesters dressed like cartoon animals.
We can talk later about the ramifications of these demonstrations — what they tell us about the state of the country and what they mean for upcoming events. For now, the important thing is simply to understand what’s happening. Without that, we’re no better than a typical editor at The NYT.
Mark