Sylvia's Journal

Yesterday we were out on the streets, first in Easthampton and then in Northampton, protesting the Trump kleptocracy. The vibe was wonderful. There was so much creativity, in signs, in songs, in chants, in outfits. Many had American flags which was a problem for the lonely Trump supporter who could no longer lay claim to the American flag and was not really easy to distinguish from the other flag wavers. He did have a Trump hat and he could pretend that all the honks and thumbs-up signs were for him, supporting his president. Like so many others who still support the president, he lives in an alternative reality. Apparently the man is out waving the flag for his president not just on No Kings Day but every day (which is, I suppose, Kings Day for him).

I made my signs the night before in Sita’s studio. It is a paradise for sign makers as it has everything one could possible need for sign making. I had wanted to make a sign depicting Lady Justice without a blindfold. Thanks to my sketching class I was able to do that without having to trace her from an image on the internet.

I had also liked a sign I saw in the past of the statue of liberty with the words “I am with her,” and put that on the other side of the plain brown cardboard. At the Easthampton protest there was a large puppet of lady liberty. I posted with her with my sign.

Saffi had had a friend over for the night and the two of them made their sign at the breakfast table. Her friend Lula proposed ‘Time out for Cheeto’ and illustrated it with small cheetos that looked like little poops. On the other side she wrote ‘Fascism, eat my farts.’ Sita had to spell out how to write fascism for her. Saffi remade her sign from a year ago, I love dinosaurs and democracy,’ and illustrated the sign with a dinosaur. Democracy also needed to be spelled out. I didn’t lend itself to an illustration, so the lonely dinosaur prevailed. On the other side she wrote ‘Two Wongs Don’t Make a Right,’ and discovered too late that she had forgotten the ‘r’ in wrongs. She squeezed in a small ‘r’ but from a distances it still read as Two Wongs.’ We wondered if Two Wongs could be interpreted as some insider joke but we couldn’t think of anyone with the name Wong who had done bad things in the administration.

We left for the early protest in Easthampton where a few hundred gathered on a round-about near Sita’s house. There were speeches and songs and a box full of donuts which the kids discovered quite quickly, as if they could smell them. The average age must have been in the 60s or 70s. I didn’t see any teenagers and our grandson, who showed little enthusiasm for the whole thing, conveniently forgot his sign (a crown crossed out with the words No Kings) and probably only stayed because of the donuts.

Our grand daughter and her friend were photographed a lot. They were indeed adorable with their funny signs, and so they posed. Yet there were few kids from their age group. A few toddlers, waving tiny No Kings’ signs, brought down the average age a bit, but not by much. There were a good number of walkers, rollators, canes and a few wheelchairs. It is probably because that generation knows what we are losing. Sita and her husband have tried to compensate for what the school is not doing by educating their kids about what is at stake. The local school is staying neutral, as if the competing value systems are equally valid, or maybe it is because they fear they cannot take a stand because it will cost them, even though the Trump administration. has already cost them.

We then drove to Northampton where the age distribution changed markedly. It is after al the center of student life from 5 large universities and also a DEI universe. My guess is that there were more than 1000 people in Northampton as the main intersection was packed in all direction. We walked along the sidewalk for a while and then decided to warm up in a tea shop because it was very cold, just above freezing. At least there wasn’t any snow and ice as we saw on the pictures taken in Anchorage. Spring is around the corner here, but not visible yet.