Boots On The Ground

I’m not going to belabor this but yesterday with a great deal of preparation and effort I did manage to make it into downtown Portland for the protest rally and march, although I spent my time lingering around the edges.

Prior to the march, I watched from the Burnside Bridge, bracing my knees against a plinth along the stone railing in order to battle the height vertigo. Just before the march began I moved down to the shade along Naito.

My rough estimate based upon ten to fifteen people passing my location every night me onto seconds for a good forty minutes is that the protest attracted between 12,000 and 18,000 people. I doubt it reached 30,000 as some have suggested but could have reached 20,000.

Catching up on social media when I got home, I gather there were some malcontents dumping on the nationwide protests (although that’s a roundup of ones here in Oregon) either for being “cringe” or for being too “normie”, or often some combination of both. I’ve two things to say on this.

First, whatever use the term “cringe” might once have possessed, if any, it’s long since become a term to dismiss earnestness, especially if it’s somewhat faltering or stuttered, and I’m not here for that kind of judgmentalism, and people should do some self-interrogation as to why they cast this particular aspersion.

Second, I hate to tell you hut fascism isn’t falling without mass normie mobilization, whatever else other quarters of the movement or movements might be getting up to, so shoot yourself in the foot if you want to but don’t expect the rest of us to join you.

At this particular point in time what mattered was people in the streets of America in numbers too substantial to ignore and, critically and crucially, in numbers sufficient for everyone to see that they very much are not alone. They shouldn’t be told that they aren’t doing it right.

(Note: this doesn’t in any way mean that organizers are exempt from any and all critique. There’s a story going around, for example, that organizers in Los Angeles might have called the police on a Black vendor set up along the sidelines. Even this, however, would not be a reason to dismiss and disparage the thousands of people who came out for the action.)

You discount that not just at your own peril but all of our peril, when what the other side wants is to preempt and corrode solidarity. For the opposition to get its footing, it needs to have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people willing to put their boots on the ground.