Who Hates America?

I find that I write a lot of posts criticizing the left — which is, more or less, my own side. I write much less stuff that’s critical of Trump, the GOP and the hard-right then I could mostly because if I went after every outrage and every dumb thing they did I wouldn’t have time to write about anything else.

But today let me stand up for the No Kings protests that I was critical of last week. I continue to think that they won’t be effective at actually defeating the hard-right and putting Democrats back in power. I also continue to believe that, if you had to protest something, the better thing to focus on is the cost of living rather than civil liberties, which are for most people an abstract. And, as a general rule, and with the exception of the early civil rights protests, I don’t think street protests help any cause because they don’t usually connect with the political center.

But my worst fears that No Kings would actually set us back were not realized. There was a sprinkling of socialism here and there, but for the most part press reports indicate a peaceful crowd that came off as more mainstream than I thought might be the case.

What was out of the mainstream was the Republican response. Before they even took to the streets, GOP leaders called the protesters “communists” and “Marxists.” “I encourage you to watch — we call it the Hate America rally — that will happen Saturday,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana. “Let’s see who shows up for that,” he said.

Well, alright, let’s see who showed up. In addition to the press reports about them, I witnessed a No Kings rally in person. I didn’t mean to, but Dianne and I had to cross the Highway 12 bridge over the Wisconsin River at Sauk City on Saturday morning on our way to the Fall Art Tour. There was a big protest on the bridge’s sidewalk and, maybe because of a gapers block, we were stuck on the bridge for maybe five or ten minutes.

That gave me time to study the crowd. It was very white and pretty old. I didn’t see a single Black person and it looked to me as if about 75% of the crowd was over 50 years old. So it was about as diverse as you’d expect in Sauk City, but I didn’t observe any signs indicating Marxism, communism or “antifa.” Most of the signs made reference to the Constitution and other civil liberties related messages. There was a spirit of high energy and fun about it and there was a lot of honking of horns, in apparent support, from drivers passing them on the bridge. (I did not honk. I do not march, I do not carry signs, I do not chant. And I do not honk. I’m just that way.)

And here’s the main thing. I didn’t get the feeling that anybody on that bridge hated America. Quite the opposite.

In an AP story on the protests across the nation Brian Reymann, who was at a protest in Washington, DC said: “This is America. I disagree with their (MAGA supporters) politics, but I don’t believe that they don’t love this country,“

Yeah, well, I think Mr. Reymann is giving MAGA too much credit. They do, in fact, passionately love something, but it’s not America. It’s the idea of a nation meant for white, conservative Christians. It’s a love for blood and soil. But that’s not America. J.D. Vance notwithstanding, America is an idea. It’s about classically liberal, Enlightenment values of tolerance, pluralism, reason, free speech and fair play. Trump’s America is about the opposite of all of those things.

Now, there is a part of the hard-left that does truly want to blame America for every injustice in the world, but I don’t think they were anywhere near the core or the spirit of the No Kings rallies.

Mike Johnson’s got a lot of chutzpah. For a guy who meekly roles over and lets Trump trample on the prerogatives of his branch of government, for a guy who says nothing or openly supports Trump as he tramples on the Constitution over and over again — for THAT guy to say that it was the No Kings protesters who hate America is just ludicrous.

I continue to be skeptical that the No Kings protests will amount to much, but there is no doubt that the people on that bridge in the middle of America on that sunny Saturday morning were there because they loved their country.