The Life in My Years

March 22, 2025
Walnut Creek CA.

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” ~ Desmond Tutu

It’s the third straight week that Cora and I have joined the Saturday protest at the Tesla dealership in Walnut Creek. On March 8th, the crowd was estimated at around 500. The following week the crowd was estimated at 700. On this, the third week, the crowd size was estimated at 1000.

These are the faces of democracy.

Cora and I and our good friend Ramon have arrived at the site a few minutes early and already we’re feeling optimistic about the crowd size. Because as is true with many things, when it comes to a protest, size matters. It isn’t even the appointed time and the crowd is already larger than last week’s protest at its peak.

“You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man’s freedom. You can only be free if I am free.” ~ Clarence Darrow

The protest begins near the Tesla dealership and marches to South Main Street, a major thoroughfare. We’re just behind the front of the march and when I glance back I see a throng behind us.

Cora and I exchange looks and we both feel the same surge of emotion. Almost daily, Trump, Musk and a band of pirates looking to pillage the republic leave me feeling ashamed and in despair. But out here, I feel pride and optimism. I’m almost in tears. Out here impending subordination is replaced by the surge of power.

“I am your justice…I am your retribution.” ~ Donald J. Trump

“They want us to be afraid.
They want us to be afraid of leaving our homes.
They want us to barricade our doors
and hide our children.
Their aim is to make us fear life itself!
They want us to hate.
They want us to hate ‘the other’ …” ~ Kamand Kojouri

“The future of this republic is in the hands of the American voter.” ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1949

In November of 2024 the American voter, or at least the American voter who sat it out or cast a protest vote, underestimating the threat of Trump, dropped the ball. And so here we are, trying to recover the fumble.

Their aim is to divide us all!
They want us to be inhuman.
They want us to throw out our kindness.
They want us to bury our love
and burn our hope.
Their aim is to take all our light! ~ Kamand Kojouri

Our demonstration is loud and boisterous. Horns, drums, whistles, the honking horns of support from drivers passing by. And of course there are the human voices. Democracy isn’t words scrawled on yellowed parchment with a quill pen. Democracy is the voice of the people. And out here the voice is a crescendo. Right now it’s a growing movement, but we have to be vigilant and persistent. I’ve seen movements sputter and die until they’ve been relegated to a sentence in a history book instead of being the book itself.

“There is absolutely no greater high than challenging the power structure as a nobody, giving it your all, and winning!” ~ Abbie Hoffman

“We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country,” ~ Donald J. Trump

“The point is that both Hitler and Stalin held out promises of stability in order to hide their intention of creating a state of permanent instability.” ~ Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

This is my sixth protest since Inauguration Day. By the end of the fifth protest I was discouraged by the fact that most of the protesters seemed to be fifty or older. Where were the younger generations? They’re here today. Every generation, from boomers to grandchildren.

“Trump’s America is not America: not today’s or tomorrow’s, but yesterday’s. Trump’s America is brutal, perverse, regressive, insular and afraid. There is no hope in it; there is no light in it. It is a vast expanse of darkness and desolation.” ~ Charles Blow

“One of the greatest advantages of the totalitarian elites of the twenties and thirties was to turn any statement of fact into a question of motive.” ~ Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

For nearly the entirety of Trump’s political career, turning on the news in the morning has had all the appeal of settling into the dentist’s chair for a root canal. And it shouldn’t be that way. Sure there’s bad news every day. But in normal times there was also good news, news of progress, of innovation, news that could uplift. Now, the only good news is that some Trump inspired outrage or DOGE misadventure has been stopped or at least slowed down.

For a short time on a Saturday afternoon, the bad news is set aside. Instead of feeling alone, deflated, and defeated, we’re all part of a team. There’s a sense of purpose out here. Out here there’s camaraderie. A thousand people, all different in some way and you probably don’t know but about two or three but today, we’re all friends and teammates.

There are a myriad of causes represented out here but one singular goal, and that is to save the democracy. The details can be worked out later. It’s how democracies are saved. Just ask France and Austria.

“A state that denies its citizens their basic rights becomes a danger to its neighbors as well: internal arbitrary rule will be reflected in arbitrary external relations. The suppression of public opinion, the abolition of public competition for power and its public exercise opens the way for the state power to arm itself in any way it sees fit. … A state that does not hesitate to lie to its own people will not hesitate to lie to other states.” ~ Václav Havel

To be sure there’s anger out here. How could there not be? But it’s righteous anger, one that differs from the vengeful vitriol that guides the Trump Administration.

“When a state treats its citizens as an existential threat then that state ceases to be a democracy.” ~ Suchitra Vijayan

Everyone out here would rather be doing something else. Being out here is a duty, one that we accept, and one that we wish would be taken up by the others whose freight we’re carrying.

But there’s also a feeling of accomplishment and, as ironic as it may sound, there’s joy out here.

Blatant dictatorship—in the form of fascism, communism, or military rule—has disappeared across much of the world. Military coups and other violent seizures of power are rare. Most countries hold regular elections. Democracies still die, but by different means. Since the end of the Cold War, most democratic breakdowns have been caused not by generals and soldiers but by elected governments themselves” ~ Steven Levitsky, How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future

“No class or group or party in Germany could escape its share of responsibility for the abandonment of the democratic Republic and the advent of Adolf Hitler. The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it.” ~ William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany