This Is What Democracy Looks Like

The energy is building

I could feel the energy building for days, in conversations with family and friends who without prompting brought up  the Saturday “Hands Off” rallies for democracy, in online communities where the talk was everywhere despite a noticeable lack of coverage from major press institutions, and in my own mind as I looked forward to a day of public solidarity.

Also, after all the insanity and depravity we’re living through and seeing in the news, I was eager to be around people who were rooted in reality and determined to keep this country a functioning democracy. I have been working on a piece about what I think of the intellectual aptitude of the idiots running this regime. What a joy it is to be able to write something different. 

By the time my wife, a friend, and I were walking to take the train downtown yesterday, the magnetic draw of the moment was palpable. You could tell by the smiles on the faces of people waiting to cross the street and those streaming onto the station platform. We were all heading in the same direction—towards a determined optimism.

By the time we disembarked at Civic Center, the site of the San Francisco rally, one of many in the Bay Area, the crowds were unlike anything I had seen aside from maybe a warm summer day for a Giants baseball game. And the mood was just as festive. There was a line just to exit through the station’s turnstiles.

Being on the West Coast, many of the country’s rallies had already taken place by the time ours started. And I could see pictures and videos online of the crowds, the clever signs, the energy. 

A lot has been made of how the response to the return of the Trump regime is relatively muted compared to the first time. And indeed we were recalling the Women’s March as we gathered yesterday. But this perception is not born out by reality. By many metrics, not to mention the Tesla protests, engagement now already exceeds where we were eight years ago. And it is only building.

I heard one woman describe the rally to another by saying that it felt less like a single unifying movement than a collection of different issues—pockets of people expressing themselves on a wide range of topics. And I felt the same way. There were signs about autocracy and oligarchs, social security and vaccines, democracy and decency. People were talking about the threat to science, the widespread corruption, and the attacks on trans rights.

I don’t see the lack of a unified message as a weakness. Because this is what the fight is about. It’s about the future... of everything.

It was hard to hear many of the speakers. The PA system wasn’t up to the task, but it didn’t matter. We, the people, aren’t being led so much as we are leading. The most unifying moment I felt was when the chant went up from the crowd, “This is what democracy looks like.” Indeed.

When I was in Europe recently, many I talked to couldn’t understand why people weren’t in the streets. I said I felt it would come, that we don’t have a recent history of mass protests, that it will take creating new muscle memory and exercising our instincts. But I was hopeful. I could already feel the energy building, looking for an outlet.

And here we are.

Of course it is easy to dismiss a rally in progressive San Francisco, but even here it feels like something has shifted. Complacency and comfort are giving way to conviction. I was even more heartened to see the pictures of crowds in small towns and communities in Red America. And I loved seeing the size of the gatherings in places like New York and Boston.

I am not surprised. I hear it in the urgency of my parents’ pleas and my children’s questions— a determination across the generations not to let this country be taken from them.

I was struck by the breadth of ages at the rally. Prior obligations meant my children couldn’t join us yesterday, but they are eager for the next one. I saw a sign held up by a young woman that read “I’m taking and reliving AP US History.” Our past, and the progress we have made, will be the preface for what’s to come. I have faith in the young to seize the momentum. 

It was easy to remember yesterday why this country is so special. It is a place of creative, passionate, and determined people. It is a nation that, at its best, is about an ideal: democracy—built on equality and justice—that must be accessible to all. Millions of Americans are already standing up and shouting, demanding to be counted, letting the hateful regime and the world know that we will not go gently without a fight. Rage, rage, against the dying of the light, as the poet Dylan Thomas exhorted.

But in this fight, unlike our mortal journeys, death is not inevitable.

This is what democracy looks like.

I know many of you planned to attend rallies where you could, or are supporting the movement in other ways. Thank you all for the energy and for your determination in the fight to save this country. I’d love to hear about your experiences yesterday and otherwise in the comments section.

Note: If you are on Bluesky and wish to follow me, you can find me at: @elliotkirschner.bsky.social