(Photo/Keith Schneider)
BENZONIA — America, the resistance is us! All of us. We experienced that here in the far northwestern corner of Michigan when more than 500 people gathered with signs displaying all manner of messages of resistance. Then we marched along US 31 to a sound track of excited voices and honking horns in a historic “Hands Off!” protest of President Trump’s MAGA recklessness. Nobody in that crowd ever experienced a political demonstration of that size and sound in this tiny village in this rural county of 18,000 souls. Nobody. Ever.
America, the resistance is us! That is Saturday’s message. In almost every place where the 1,200 Hands Off! demonstrations were held across the country, big crowds gathered. Tens of thousands in America’s big cities. Hundreds of people in small towns like Benzonia. Saturday was a powerful national rebuke of a billionaire-dominated administration that defies the law and twists reason for two primary purposes. The first, to add $billions to their personal fortunes. The second, to foster fear so powerful and entrenched that it strips the country of its confidence, its dignity, and its essential purpose.
The people who marched in Benzonia expressed clearly their disgust with those goals. Every facet of Trump’s attack on America’s basic decency was a target for reproach on signs and slogans. “Tariffs tax everyone,” said one sign. “Impeach the felon,” said another. “Hands off our rights.” “Tax cuts for billionaires kill jobs.” “Science is not a liberal conspiracy.” “Truth: a dictator’s first victim.” “Hands off our national parks.” “Hands off a free press.” So many more.
And my wife’s favorite: “OMG GOP WTF.”
What the Hands Off! demonstration meant here, and what it should mean to its organizers, is that Americans will participate in more intentional large displays of opposition that will bring the madness in the White House and Congress to a halt. Big marches. Big demonstrations. National days of strike that shut down the business of MAGA menace and disruption.
A big thumbs up to Jim Dulzo, former chairman of the Benzie Democratic Party, who, along with others, organized and then led the demonstration down the hill on Highway 31 and back up the hill again. It brought to mind the downhill slide the country has been on for six months, and the uphill climb to get on track again. Still, our rally on Saturday was a reminder that in the hard work of stirring our national soul to revive American decency we will have hundreds, thousands, nay millions of people with whom to get giddy with excitement and join hands to save our nation.
There is nobody as powerful, as influential, as respected as us, the people, to accomplish that goal. You could feel that in the big crowd that gathered here in Benzonia. People were dumbstruck by its size and its energy. Every generation was present — from babies held close by their fathers to seniors in their 80s. And young people, lots of them.
Saturday was more than enlightening and enlivening. It was thrilling. A big lamp of resistance switched on. It illuminated the devotion all of us share for our American ideals. And it lit a big and wide civic movement to engage what we love most about America and to defy the madman in the White House.
— Keith Schneider
