Hands Off - IT WAS GREAT!!!
The photo is a partial view1 of the people who attended the Hands Off! Rally earlier today at the Old Courthouse in West Chester, PA. My guestimate is that there were between 1,500 and 2,000 people all told, but I’m sure someone will have an accurate number later today, I’ve heard the rally was over 2,000 people!
I can’t wait for the news tonight to see rallies from across the country, and hear the numbers (which I’m sure will be HUGE!)
Being there reinforced to me why I do what I do, and how grateful I am for the people with whom I work on politics writ large.
This had been a terrible week for me, and not just because 40 years of savings vaporized, just one of those weeks when everything goes wrong, and one wants to crawl in a ball and say “enough, I’m done.”
But the rally!!!
The speakers were amazing: local/state elected leaders, candidates, members of resistance groups, even our Congresswoman. Everyone spoke with passion, and further fired up a crowd that was already all in! I feel so lucky to know the speakers, as well as the people who worked so hard to make the rally a huge success. I even ran into people I know who have never before attended a rally, but they all said it had reached the point where they couldn’t stay on the sidelines anymore.
It has given me the strength I need after a really bad week.
One might have thought that the crowd would have an air of anger, but no - it was one of determination and hope and a commitment to stay involved. And this, my friends, is just the start. There is strength in numbers, and I fully believe what I’ve said from the day we knew he won: dark times ahead, and they’ll win battles, but WE THE PEOPLE will win the war. The tide is starting to turn: it will take some time, but the power of the people is a joy to behold.
Anecdotes:
A woman tripped and fell. Immediately, everyone around her helped her up, asked if she wanted to sit down, did she want some water, did she need an ambulance? The caring of strangers.
A girl (maybe 8 years old?) was huddled in a doorway with her mom, crying. I, and another stranger, stopped and asked if she was scared of the crowd. When she nodded yes, we told her that we were all here for HER - for her generation, for the future. She looked at her mom and asked if that was true, and her mom said yes, it’s all about the fight to save America, and make it a country she wanted her daughter to grow up in. Others joined to make the girl feel secure. I saw her later, smiling, and chanting “hands off”.
And finally, on the way home, I went through a residential neighborhood, and I was at a stop sign, wanting to turn right. There was a woman on the corner who wanted to cross. I motioned for her to cross and I’d wait, and suddenly a car went around me, and sped down the street. She and I started laughing because it was, OF COURSE, a Tesla.
I tried to do a panorama with my iPhone, and that shows the people near the stage, but behind them are so many people they had to close the street….
I was on Market St for most of it, so couldn’t hear the speakers, but it mattered not. We had the honor of greeting all the vehicles- and traffic was constant. Lots of honking and waving, clapping, and signs held out windows as they drove by! ‘Sell your car!’ was how t’s were acknowledged.
Daily local news estimated 6,000! Biggest rally ever in WC!