Hands Off! Mass Mobilization

Across the country, and right here at home. It’s been less than 100 days into the current administration, and folks have had enough. There are already a lot of people saying, “I voted for this, but I didn’t vote for THIS.” At the start of this administration, I said out loud that the phrase, “I can’t believe….” should be stricken from the American vocabulary; we were warned, we were here for the dress rehearsal, and we knew we were being lied to. But even those of us who knew it was coming were shocked at the speed and ruthlessness with which democracy is being dismantled.

I think we all know that things will get worse before they get better. I think we all feel the helplessness that moves us to do something, anything, whatever we can do to feel like we aren’t doing nothing.

Across the country, and right here at home, on April 5, we will take to the streets to say Hands Off! of all the people and programs that we love and care about. The reality is that there is not one concrete thing that the current administration could do on April 5 to make itself wholly redeemable. Not one concrete thing that will make us believe that April 5 is a one-and-done event that leaves in its wake a finished structure of a better democracy. It’s hard to give a detailed list of demands when the attacks on democracy are coming at us like a firehose.

The reality is that April 5 is just the beginning. We take to the streets across the country and here at home to show that we are all in this together. And starting April 5, we promise ourselves, each other, and the next generation that we will fight at every turn and carry each other through this with everything we’ve got for as long as it takes. It will be a long road, and an uncertain journey, and we are just getting started. But through it all, what we have is each other. And tomorrow there will be more of us.