Shoring up the Republic

My original plan was to join the protest at Daley Plaza. I knew there was one planned for Evanston, too, but I was worried it would be too small to make much of an impact. When I checked the RSVPs, though, there were over 1500. If even half that many showed, we'd spill out into the street and block traffic. Plus my buddy dedos was coming along to that one and bringing a couple other friends.

In the end, I was right to worry: maybe 10% of that number showed. Even more dismaying, in a college town with more than 20,000 students, the median age was well above mine (though that probably says less about youth enthusiasm and more about the recruiting reach of MoveOn). "I think most of these people protested Nixon," I told dedos. As if she were eavesdropping, one of the speakers read out a quote from Elliot Richardson.

I often find myself cringing at the speeches during a rally, but these were decent. The Methodist minister had me laughing with her and I wanted to ask the rabbi to lead us in a prayer for Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The last speaker, the one who was meant to motivate us to take to the streets, was an odd choice--an aged Mennonite on a rant against false Christians. (I don't remember the last time I've heard a speech with more derivations from "Christ" in it, in or out of church.) But he kind of pulled it out in the end.

They had us march through downtown, which was kind of thought out in the sense that they had fogies stationed at each corner to make sure we didn't lose our way. I don't think I've ever been at a protest march before where I struggled to keep up with the pace. It got gappy quickly, which made chanting difficult; we had a guy in front of us who would try to take lead in the call-in-response he was hearing behind us, but always with a delay so we didn't know who to follow. Not that the chants were brilliant either. (NB: "Special prosecutor" is not a word that lends itself well to being shouted rhythmically.)

In the end, we ended up doing more chatting than chanting, as did the women in front of us, making it something of a cross between a protest march and a walking tour of downtown. We got some encouragement (and excited questions) from passers-by but the whole thing felt surprisingly improvised for an event supposedly planned a year in advance. (The idea was to have a ready-made protest for the moment Trump fired Mueller.)

I didn't regret turning up, but I felt afterwards like I'd performed a duty, nothing more. Afterwards, everyone wanted to eat so I suggested Sea Ranch with the end result that it was basically like any other Thursday night for me with just a little democracy-saving wedged in.