Time to Rise Up

San Francisco was absolutely LIT today. Two protests, one at Civic Center and another in front of the Tesla dealership on Van Ness. Perhaps more impressive than the numbers turning out was the amount of solidarity honking by people driving by, including a significant number of folk in work vehicles, truck drivers, cab drivers, construction guys, even the MUNI bus drivers were throwing their fists in the air.

I’ve been to a lot of demos over the last 20 years, but I can tell something new and different is brewing. The energy is contentious, cantankerous, and contagious. People are tired of just taking it on the chin from these tin-pot dicktators. There’s a mood that a boiling point has been reached and citizens are no longer just going to stand by as their beloved institutions are dismantled, international reputation shattered, and public investments plundered.

As more and more average Americans become personally affected by this direct attack on all the government services they rely on (and PAY FOR), they will find permission to raise their voices by joining their friends and neighbors who are equally incensed and already taking action. This is just the beginning of people fighting to reclaim their government from the hands of a bunch of rag tag insurrectionists and their oligarch sponsors.

I think focusing on Musk is a really smart strategy. Nobody elected this guy and he’s a foreigner messing with Americans’ money and private data. And while the Nazi comparisons may have felt a bit out of proportion during T1, the Nazi salute in effigy today felt powerful and commensurate with the moment we’re in. While a lot of us knew exactly that this was going to happen (and thus worked our asses off to get Kamala Harris elected), it is now the dawning of the age of Middle America to wake up and activate.