~a column by Colleen O’Brien
I can remember my dad talking – blustering – at the dinner table about President Eisenhower. From what I could understand in my 9-year-old mind, he said the president didn’t talk well, did not have a command of the language. I gathered that speaking the language well was necessary to becoming a president. I realized years later that Dad was for Eisenhower’s opponent, Adlai Stevenson, an intellectual with holes in his shoes who used the language eruditely and put Eisenhower to shame in that department.
The public didn’t care about grammar and syntax and really liked Ike. He became president twice, a popular fellow, who did both good and erratic things, like most presidents.
If Dad thought Eisenhower was bad, he would have an apoplexy a dozen times a day in these times. He’d never have made it through Trump’s first day on the job a decade ago. My husband, who hasn’t been around either during all these weird years since 2016, would have had an apoplexy a day because Trump drives his golf cart on the greens.
The man who lives occasionally in the White House and spends most of his time at his hotel in Florida inviting people to dinner for a million-dollar meal or cheating on a golf course somewhere has no good sides.
It was evident last Saturday at the national “Hands Off” protest across the country that Trump and Musk are the big culprits. Congress wasn’t mentioned often enough, but I have a feeling that in the coming weeks, their sitting idly by and doing nothing will come to a screeching halt; they’ll get their due from the continuing Hands Off! Protesters. They are the only ones who can impeach a president, so they better start thinking about it.
The organizers expected a thousand cities to enjoy at least half a million marchers. As it turned out, there were more cities than that, and they weren’t all in the U.S. – Paris, London, Lisbon, Berlin
“Resist Like It’s Germany 1938” — a protester on The Mall in DC.
And a friend of my sister was a major cancer researcher for the NIH and she couldn’t march but could get to her sidewalk in front of her house in Harrisburg, PA, where she wrote: “Hands Off the NIH!”
.Jefferson, Iowa, protested, with a dozen hardy marchers along the Jefferson Gardens wrought iron fence on a cold, windy day. My sis was there in her pink beanie hanging on for dear life to her giant sign reading “Support Our Veterans.” Her cohorts held signs reading “We Welcome Immigrants Here!” and “Wake Up the Fox in the Chicken House!”
I was in Sparks, NV, the town adjacent to Reno. At least a thousand people lined Kietzke Lane with their flags and banners. They sang and yelled and waved at honking cars, ignoring cars with a middle finger sticking out the window or driving by at accelerated speed revving their engines – the un-fans of Democracy. Their privilege.
The protesters I was hanging with were mostly past middle age; few 30 to 50-year-olds. A woman with a placard reading “Save the Children’s Educations” asked me where all the young people were.
The signs were calm and sensible: “Imprison the Prez” “My dog is smarter than Trump” “Beware of Dog…e” “Elect Bernie and AOC” “Grow a vagina and stand up for your people” . . . ; my favorite: “Biden and Harris.” My sign was “Imprison the Felon in the White House!”
Down the highway 32 miles were the Carson City (state capital) protestors – more than a mere thousand. These people were excitable, a bit hyper, not rowdy but eager to tell the reporter they were there because they were scared, worried, angry – “Keep your ‘hands off’ our VA, our Social Security, our Education, our Post Office, our healthcare. They’ll continue. We’re DONE!”
“We need our middle class back. And our due process. What our government is doing to me now is inhumane!”
“I’m not transgender. I’m not gay. I’m not old enough to get Social Security. But I hate what’s going on.”
“Our checks and balances are not working!”
Signs: “You Wanted Eggs? You got omelet” “Dissent is our Duty” “Morons are Governing America” “Hands off our Democracy” “Blind Loyalty is not Patriotic” “Stop this Cruel Racist Coup” “Make Lying Wrong Again.”
In Seattle, 25,000 gathered to protest Trump and Musk and their “All-out assault” on our country.
The “Hands Off” organization works on this peaceful protest rule: “A core principle behind all Hands Off! events is a commitment to nonviolent action. We expect all participants to seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation with those who disagree with our values, and to act lawfully at these events. Weapons of any kind, including those legally permitted, should not be brought to events.”
At least four organizers put this together within two weeks. They are Indivisibles, MoveOn, Women’s March, Hands Off 2025. And they will continue the protestations of the populace until we oust the greedy gobbling up the most enduring democracy in history. The director of MoveOn, Rahna Epting, one of the core planners of the April 5 protest, said, “This peaceful movement is powered by everyday people—nurses, teachers, students, parents—who are rising up to protect what matters most. We are united, we are relentless, and we are just getting started.”
Organizers of the “Hands Off” national and international protest, said the goal was to speak out wherever we could be heard. My dad did – vociferous about a popular president, wearing a black armband during the Vietnam war, even with a son-in-law in the Navy off the coast of ‘Nam. I am doing so, too, Dad.
