(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
I drove through Easthampton today [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-04-05
I drove through the Easthampton town center today.
This may not sound like much — I mean, the Last Homely Shack East of the Manhan is a mile and change from Easthampton center so it’s not like I can avoid it if I need to run errands — but today was different.
It wasn’t because the local Episcopal church, St. Phillip’s, was having its annual All 4 Her consignment sale, although their parking lot was parked with women hoping for bargains. Nor was it because it was Saturday and a lot of people were out shopping, having a nice breakfast at the Silver Spoon or Tandem Bagel, or making their weekly trip to the library. It wasn’t even locals out for a stroll or a walk to enjoy the spring air; it’s in the 40s and raining pretty steadily, so sensible folk are indoors making lunch or watching college basketball.
No, it was different because over 500 average, salt-of-the-earth, middle class Americans were standing out at the little rotary where Main Street turns into Route 10, holding up homemade signs denouncing President Funnel Tinyhands, his bestest buddy Mr. Elong Muskmelon, and their attempts to dismantle the last century’s worth of gains by anyone who wasn’t a rich white man.
One had a sign that read DOGEBAGS. Others had written DUMP FRUMP on the remains of a cardboard box. A grim middle aged woman had wrapped clear plastic around an optic yellow poster board to protect a call for Mr. Muskmelon to be deported from running in the rain. There was even a bearded Jewish man in a bright yellow safety vest and matching full length sparkly tutu directing traffic and dropping curtsies as he waved motorists through. It was absolutely glorious.
It was also a prime example of the sort of quiet, everyday, unremarkable heroism that can and does spring up in the least expected places.
Think about it: the idea of protecting democracy, supporting the weak and defenseless, standing against rich men attempting to claw back protections against child labor, against disease, against poverty, against hunger, against any and everything except their own greed, was enough to bring several hundred very ordinary, very average, very very very angry citizens out of their warm, dry, comfortable homes in their comfortable middle class subdivisions to stand out in the rain and raise their voices against the darkness creeping over our land.
There’s been a lot of talk about how Americans are soft and complacent, about how 2016 and 2024 proved that we are the sort of “good Germans” who did nothing when a failed watercolorist destroyed the Weimar Republic in 1933. That may be true in some areas — a white guy in an oversized pickup trailing a TRUMP 2024 banner roughly the length of an aircraft carrier drove past at one point, sneering and shouting — but if what I saw today is any guide, Easthampton is not going to submit meekly as President Tinyhands and Mr. Muskmelon take a meat axe to our government.
Did you attend one of the stand outs? Drive past one? What signs did you see?
Feel free to share.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/4/5/2309215/-I-drove-through-Easthampton-today?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
