Multitudes can do what individuals can’t

Field notes from a first-time protester

Saturday, April 5, was slat­ed as a nation­al day of protest by “Hands Off!,” a loose coali­tion of nation­al orga­ni­za­tions, to protest over­reach by the Trump administration.

At 63 years old, I had nev­er attend­ed a protest ral­ly before. This was a first. My gen­er­a­tion is in that weird space, not exact­ly baby boomers, but also not real­ly Gen X. I was a child dur­ing the protests of the 1960s against racism and the Vietnam War. My gen­er­a­tion nev­er had a lot to protest about—or we weren’t con­cerned enough to do so.

I was anx­ious about par­tic­i­pat­ing in such an event, safe­ty being chief among my con­cerns. As it turned out, this and all the events held on April 5 were utter­ly peaceful.

In fact, the organization’s guid­ing prin­ci­ple is non­vi­o­lence, as evi­denced by this state­ment on their web­site: “A core prin­ci­ple behind Hands Off! 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.”

The prin­ci­pal pain points for pro­tes­tors involve such issues as school fund­ing, LGBTQ+ rights, DEI pro­grams, civ­il rights, immi­gra­tion, courts, libraries, social secu­ri­ty and oth­er enti­tle­ments, tar­iffs, and veterans.

By some esti­mates, around five mil­lion peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ed in these ral­lies, which were held in cities through­out the US and abroad. Nearby Hands Off! ral­lies were held in Frankfort, Danville, Morehead, and Lexington. The Lexington crowd has been esti­mat­ed at around 1,500 peo­ple crowd­ed into the Courthouse Plaza.

Attendees heard from numer­ous speak­ers, includ­ing elect­ed offi­cials, teach­ers, vet­er­ans, doc­tors, and oth­ers con­cerned about our country’s direc­tion since Donald Trump’s inau­gu­ra­tion in January.

My friend Adrielle Camuel, State Representative for House District 93 in Lexington, was one of the speak­ers. She ener­gized the crowd with a litany of griev­ances, point­ing out the dearth of health­care and gov­ern­ment ser­vices in many Kentucky com­mu­ni­ties. She point­ed out that the GOP-dom­i­nat­ed Kentucky Legislature seems bent on fur­ther­ing the Trump agen­da in our Commonwealth.

Words fail me when attempt­ing to describe the feel­ing of meld­ing my voice with hun­dreds of like-mind­ed peo­ple who love the USA but hate what is hap­pen­ing to our great nation. We chant­ed, sang, cheered, and jeered togeth­er. We car­ried signs and exchanged greet­ings and smiles. We waved as pass­ing cars honked their approval—and jeered those who shout­ed oppo­si­tion to us. I was hap­py to see sev­er­al friends there.

It felt like democ­ra­cy in action—because that’s pre­cise­ly what it was.

But this was not a social event. This was a seri­ous response to what many of us con­sid­er to be a mad grab for pow­er and mon­ey by Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and oth­er pow­er­ful oli­garchs. It reflect­ed the per­cep­tion among many of us that nei­ther Congress nor the courts (for the most part) are doing their con­sti­tu­tion­al duty to reign in the over­reach of the Trump administration.

“We the People” are responding.

So many of us are feel­ing help­less these days. What can indi­vid­u­als do to fight such pow­er­ful forces? Sure, we can con­tact our rep­re­sen­ta­tives, but that often feels inef­fec­tu­al. Many of those in the GOP, includ­ing Andy Barr, refuse to attend even their own town hall meet­ings. They know we are angry and seek to be heard, but they don’t seem to care. They seem more con­cerned about gain­ing Trump’s approval and avoid­ing a chal­lenge from the right in the next primary.

Attending these ral­lies mag­ni­fies the pow­er of the indi­vid­ual into the pow­er of the mul­ti­tudes. It has the poten­tial to actu­al­ly open some eyes to the will of the American peo­ple. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and oth­ers are grow­ing increas­ing­ly alarmed at the slow-motion coup tak­ing place in Washington. Maybe, just maybe, we can do some­thing about it.

I’ve joined the resis­tance. How about you? 

Hands Off! Website: https://handsoff2025.com/

Mobilize.us Website: https://www.mobilize.us/

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