I guess most of you saw at least something about the demonstrations on Saturday. Hands Off 2025 ranged from sea to shining sea, and organizers said at least 500,000 RSVP’d for the events. I didn’t even know that was an option; I just showed up. (Or maybe I did, saw the RSVP link that required me to give them my email, and thought: Nah, I get enough junk mail already.) Anyway, based on the turnout in Detroit on a chilly, overcast, rain-threatening day, I’d say the crowds exceeded expectations.
There were several thousand marching here. At least 8,000, I’d guess. The course was from the Detroit Institute of Arts to Little Caesars Arena down the southbound sidewalk of Woodward, then back on the other side of the street, 1.7 miles each way. The returning side was back at the DIA while some were still leaving the grounds. Lots of people, lots of horn-honking from passing motorists.
I made a sign, because George Soros promised me an extra $10 if I did:
Thanks to Dorothy for the idea. It was clever, but not cleverest by far. A selection of my own photos:
And some bangers I found on social media, mostly Bluesky:
Here’s Fort Wayne, with Mark the Shark’s granddaughter and her great-uncle Phil:
P.S. Her dad’s a pediatrician, and that little girl looks EXACTLY like her grandmother.
The biggest media fail I’ve seen so far comes from the Detroit News, which so dropped the ball they ended up posting a story about the march in Wyandotte, a downriver suburb. Three hundred people showed up, Debbie Dingell spoke, and they gave four paragraphs of pushback to the chairman of the state GOP, who sneered at what he called a “fake grassroots organization.” Are you kidding me? It was so grassroots it smelled like a new-mowed lawn. At least he didn’t talk about outside agitators or paid protestors, but I don’t know what the reporter left in her notebook. (And George Soros better pay me that extra ten bucks!)
I took the bus there and back, because we’re down to one car this week and Alan was supervising some plumbing fiddling over at Kate’s before she moves in. Stopped on my walk back from the bus stop for a slice of Buddy’s Pizza, and a nice Girl Scout was selling cookies outside. Now that’s what I call a good day.
Posting early for timeliness’ sake. Hope your Hands Off was fun and heartening, too.
Deborah said on April 5, 2025 at 8:48 pm
At the end of the last thread I said maybe 25,000 (my highest guess) in the Chicago protest and I’m reading 30,000 now, so better.
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NancyF said on April 5, 2025 at 8:52 pm
A friend sent a photo of this sign from the San Francisco protest: “I didn’t immigrate from England just to wind up with this shitty king.”
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alex said on April 5, 2025 at 9:16 pm
Didn’t get my ass in gear in time to go to our local protest but from images I’ve seen on social media it looks like a good time was had by all. At least there weren’t ranks of police in riot gear shooting teargas like they did for Black Lives Matter.
Today I traded recipes online with a former colleague in Chicago and she urged me to check out a TV show called the Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, so I’m giving it a go tonight.
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Heather said on April 5, 2025 at 9:19 pm
I was flying back to Chicago during the protests, but I’m loving all the sign photos and the big crowds! Thanks to everyone who went.
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Suzanne said on April 5, 2025 at 9:50 pm
Alex, I just got a copy of the book The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning. I have spent hour upon hour upon hour trying to clean out my mom’s house and am determined to avoid doing that to my children. I want to enjoy my mom’s company since she’s 90 and the time is limited but mostly, I spend my days angry because she got rid of nothing for so many years and now, I and my brother have no choice but to deal with it. We are hiring an auctioneer to sell most of it, but we still need to sort through it to see what we want to keep and what we want to sell. It is physically and mentally exhausting.
It was rainy here and cold and I am still suffering from the after effects of the Shingles vaccine, so I didn’t make it to the protest. But it looks like a good turnout. I hope it does some good but I am not terribly hopeful.
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diane said on April 5, 2025 at 10:08 pm
I did not go to a protest because I am down and out with what I hope is just a cold. But I had friends sending pictures from Baltimore to Sacramento. I was told that the turnout in Baltimore estimated at about 1,000, which I find extremely disappointing. On the other hand, the turnout in a smallish red town in a red county (Andy Harris is their representative) north of Baltimore is also estimated to be about a thousand. And my little county in western Colorado had an estimated turnout of 500.
It didn’t have any fancy graphics but a favorite sign of mine was from the Baltimore protest and was handwritten and said “Librarians will not shhh!”
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susan said on April 6, 2025 at 12:03 am
Saw lots of great home-made signs at the protest/rally in my little town. I liked this one: Chinga tu MAGA I’m kind of surprised I haven’t seen that before, especially in this area where there is a large population of Spanish-speaking people. (In case you didn’t know, the phrase in Spanish is “chinga tu madre.”)
Another sign/assemblage took quite a bit of effort in making and in presenting. She had painted an old porcelain toilet gold, had it on a furniture-moving dolly so she could move it around. She was dressed as the Statue of Liberty. She held a sign in her left hand: “Sometimes you gotta flush twice,” Trump’s yellow toupée on top of the toilet on the sign, his red tie hanging out of the toilet bowl on the sign. In her right hand she held a firey orange toilet brush as a torch.
Another sign: “Fascists Deserve a Platform” under which was a drawing of a guillotine. Next to him, a woman held a sign: EAT THE RICH — CHEAPER THAN EGGS
I carried my pitchfork. So many people came up and asked if they could take a picture. And there were lots of great comments and honking horns. One fellow said ever since he had seen me with the fork at the protest in Feb., he’s been looking for one, and hasn’t had any luck finding one. I told him you can buy them new at Lowes, Home Despot, etc. but had he tried Craig’s List or eBay or garage sales? His wife scolded, “You don’t even do the gardening! Why would you have a pitchfork?” Sheesh.
AND, there was one other woman carrying a pitchfork! It’s a movement! We need 6,998 more pitchforks.
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Jerrie in MidMd said on April 6, 2025 at 12:11 am
My husband and I were at the rally at our City Hall today and then we all marched to the bandshell to hear speakers. The weather was misty and gray and the local paper said turnout was over 1000. At least 7 busloads of local residents went from here to D.C., according to our sub-reddit. The next demonstration here will be larger as there wasn’t much advance notice.
I’m disgusted and disappointed with the Washington Post’s minimal coverage of the demonstration in D.C. and around the country. I learned much more from the comments where people from many states posted their local events and turnout.
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Peter said on April 6, 2025 at 2:22 am
Nancy, your sign was excellent.
I had a longstanding engagement in the morning so I couldn’t go to the local protest, but in the afternoon I met a former coworker and her family who relocated to Indianapolis. I took them around the Loop, and at 5:00 pm the Daley Plaza was empty – and spotless. Just something to point out when Fox will undoubtedly make their remarks about the rabble…
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Kristen said on April 6, 2025 at 5:08 am
There was a good turnout in CT, but we are a blue state, so that wasn’t surprising. Not sure of the exact numbers (it was cold and rainy), but it was in the thousands. One of the funniest signs I saw showed a close up picture of the back end of a pig with the words “And now a word from Trump” written below. I settled on a cartoon picture of Trump with “Does this a$$ make my country look small?”
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David C said on April 6, 2025 at 6:25 am
I’ve been looking at photos from the protests around the country and the signs are universally well spelled. Good job libs. Education works.
I spent the day making offers on two houses. We didn’t get either. Shit. I lost one to someone I outbid but who declined inspections. Why would they do that unless they knew something was there to be found? The other was a cash offer. Those are the breaks, I guess.
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Alan Stamm said on April 6, 2025 at 8:56 am
Good after-action report. Strong sign.
Gave Bruni a chance to love this sentence as much as I do: It was so grassroots it smelled like a new-mowed lawn.
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basset said on April 6, 2025 at 9:28 am
Embarrassed to say that I didn’t know about our Nashville protest till it was too late to get there. We were occupied anyway, watching the storms/tornadoes and flooding around Middle Tennessee and specifically in our back yard, where the Harpeth River has been rising and falling since around midweek. Good to have a NOAA river gauge just upstream of us, their projection is that it’ll crest at 19 feet, just short of flood stage, in about three hours. Plenty of room… flood is 20, reaches the house at 24, normal is about 2 and a half. The big flood in 2010, the one that trashed our house, ran to 35 but the gauge is under a highway bridge and water ran chest high over the bridge deck so it had to be forty-something.
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jim h said on April 6, 2025 at 2:39 pm
My wife saw one with a picture of Trump with the line “Does this ass make my country look small”.
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Peter said on April 6, 2025 at 5:42 pm
Kristin: is that you holding that “Does this Ass make my country look small” poster that’s up on Huffpost?
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Dexter Friend said on April 6, 2025 at 5:51 pm
basset, thanks for checking in. The visuals from Tennessee are stunning.
I hope the demonstrations have some real impact, like the 1967 anti-Viet Nam war moratorium sparked the fire that eventually led to the end of that fiasco, but 8 years later.
The anti-Bush43 massive demonstrations had a lesser impact, because by then general police policies had been formed to herd demonstrators into holding pens like cattle, then arrest a few for good measure, and quell the enthusiasm; I call this psy-ops.
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