Yesterday, I attended the rally in Albany. Call it Indivisible, or 50501, or No Kings, or Hands Off, or whatever you want to call it, the event was a huge success. I’m not good at estimating crowd size and I haven’t seen any official numbers, but I’d say there were around 2000 people there; the crowd filled a good portion of the West Capitol Plaza, and when we marched, the line probably snaked around 3/4 of a very large block. It was heartening. There’s a lot of energy being mobilized. There’s also a lot of anger, and, humor, too (Saw one sign that said, “I can shit a better president.” I told the holder of that sign, “Please doo.”)
As I soaked up the energy and gave voice to my anger, five words began circling in my mind and I started imagining the speech I would give if I were standing before that crowd (True confession time: the organizers allowed rally-goers to speak. By the time I worked up the courage to get on the line, it was too late, so this speech was never delivered anywhere but in my head. Maybe next time.). The thought, though not the phrase, first rose about a month ago, when Senator Chuck Schumer was interviewed by Chris Hayes on MSNBC on March 19. During the interview (link here; the part in question is at about 12 minutes in), Schumer said this:
“[If] the rule of law goes by the wayside…there will be immediate and strong reaction from one end of the country to the other in ways that we have never seen…The people will have to rise up….if the people make their voice heard, and we* join them… we can beat them back.”
(*I’m assuming that when Chuck says “we” he means Congress, as in, Congress will join us)
When I saw this bit of interview posted on Bluesky, my reaction was–and still is–“Chuck wants us to bail him out.” Frankly, it pissed me off. Why? Because I was watching Chuck and the Democrats employing a Bugs Bunny “I dare you to step over this line” strategy. Trump, of course, will step over the line, again and again and again, but there is no cliff he’s going to plummet off of, or, if there is, he’s going to take all of us with him.
Even with that knowledge back in March (and it feels like a REALLY long time ago that I had this thought; it was literally just a month, almost to the day), it took yesterday’s rally for it to really coalesce into those five words. Those five words began circling, round and round and round. Here they are:
IT IS UP TO US.
It is up to us to tell Donald Trump–to show Donald Trump–and Elon Musk, and J.D. Vance and Stephen Miller and Pam Bondi and Russell Vought and all the other parasites and plunderers who are sucking up the wealth of the country and denying due process and defying the courts that this is not acceptable. Our rights are being violated. Our money is being stolen. We don’t want this.
It is up to us to show our elected officials that this is not acceptable. Call, email, write or even visit your elected representatives in Washington, DC and let them know how you feel. Embolden them. Urge them on. Tell them “We don’t want this.” Show them we don’t want this. Show up at town halls (if they deign to hold one, that is) and say it. And if they tell you to fuck off, like Nancy Mace did to one of her constituents yesterday? Or if they sic law enforcement on you, like Marjorie Tayler Greene did at a town hall last week? Shout it far and wide that this is how they treat you, this is what they think of you. It is not acceptable, and we do not want this.
And don’t stop at Washington. Trump has emboldened the worms and the worst people of our society. He has allowed them to crawl out from under the rocks and start eating at our state and local governments. They’re infesting town boards and school boards and county governments. It is up to us to stop them, to put them back under their rocks, to make them feel ridiculous and small and gross for the racism and misogyny that fills them. It is up to us to tell them we don’t want ICE in our communities, terrorizing our citizens and non-citizens, that we believe in liberty and justice FOR ALL.
It is up to us to show the corporations and businesses that have funneled huge amounts of cash into Trump slush funds and Republican political action committees that this is not what we want. And it is up to us to show them that humane treatment of employees and programs promoting diversity, equity and inclusion aren’t things you do just because there’s a law or regulation requiring it, and that you stop as soon as that law or regulation is gone.
It is up to us to show the universities and law firms and others that bending the knee isn’t acceptable. It is up to us to show them that resistance is the only acceptable response, that giving in only leads to more demands, each more odious than the last.
It is up to us.
It is up to us.