BRATTLEBORO-"Honk for Decency," said the sign, and, oh, honk they did.
It was a beautiful fall afternoon on Brattleboro's Town Common, where a joyous No Kings 2.0 protest on Oct. 18 pushed against the presidency of Donald Trump.
More than 3,000 people came out and filled the Town Common in Brattleboro. They were among nearly 2,700 other marches, vigils, and protests that spanned the U.S. from coast to coast, and drew an estimated 7 million people. Similar events were held around the world.
As in the previous events in Brattleboro, demonstrators wore costumes, carried witty homemade signs, waved both American and Gay Pride flags, listened to speeches, chanted, sang, and danced.
Afterward, they marched down the sidewalks of Main Street holding even more signs and filling both sides of the street while more cars honked their horns in solidarity.
Speakers included Vermont State Treasurer Michael Pieciak, state Rep. Emilie Kornheiser, and Brattleboro Union High School graduate and current Columbia University student Django Grace, all three of them from Brattleboro.
Also in the crowd were state Reps. Mollie Burke and Mike Mrowicki, and former state Sen. Jeanette White.
Frogs, unicorns, and Moses
Costumes were worn in honor of Portland, Oregon, where Trump recently deployed federal troops against protestors. In response, Portland protestors whimsically turned out in costume - mainly as inflatable frogs and unicorns.
Brattleboro certainly had its share of frogs, but it also had a bald eagle, a Statue of Liberty, an inflatable pink shark with a red bow tie, a unicorn, a mushroom, a hot dog, and a multitude of cartoon characters. A man dressed like Moses wore long robes, a white wig and beard, and carried two pink tablets: one saying "No" and the other saying "Kings."
As for the signs, they were everywhere.
"First they came for the immigrants and we said not today, Motherf-er," said one. "White Supremacy Is Terrorism," said another. "No Kings, No Trump Gestapo, No Occupation Army." "I Love My Country, That's Why I'm Here." "Due Process for All." "We have a Constitution, not a King!"
Roger and Ann Allbee of Brookline carried a sign that read, "Trump Is a Danger to Democracy."
"Every Republican I used to know is probably rolling over in their graves about Trump," said Roger, once Vermont's Secretary of Agriculture. "Remember when the Republican leadership told [President] Richard Nixon he had to resign over Watergate? This guy Trump is a hundred times worse than Nixon."
As streams of people converged on the Common from every possible path, street, and roadway, the crowd was entertained by the 100-plus members of the Good Trouble Street Choir, backed by The Peoples Resistance Marching Band.
Among the protest songs the choir sang, one, "No Kings Here," was specifically written for the day by Tom Paxton and Cathy Fink. One stanza goes: "We had a king once, years ago / Back in days of yore / He showed us what kings were like / So we showed him the door."
Rallies in BF and Wilmington; Republicans speak in Chester
Meanwhile, nearly 500 people turned out in Bellows Falls, lining the sidewalks on Westminster and Church streets for a noontime rally and march. Approximately 200 people attended a rally in downtown Wilmington near the Route 9 and 100 intersection.
As with the Brattleboro rally, the events were peaceful.
In Chester, approximately 100 people gathered during the No Kings rally on the Town Green for the Chester GOP's first "Red on Green" event to listen to four speakers: former U.S. Senate candidate Gerald Malloy of Weathersfield; Rep. Tom Charlton, R-Chester, Greg Thayer, a former candidate for lieutenant governor from Rutland, and Hank Poitras of Brattleboro, producer of the "Planet Hank" podcast and the new chair of the Brattleboro Republican Town Committee.
An estimated 10,000 people showed up at the Vermont State House in Montpelier, where U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, and U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, both Democrats, were among the event's speakers. A Burlington rally also drew an estimated 10,000 people.
Speakers on showing up, fighting, yet finding common ground
Back in Brattleboro, Kornheiser spoke first, saying that "no one is going to save us, we have to save ourselves."
"You're doing it today by showing up," she said. "We need to build the future we want to live in."
She emphasized that building community was crucial to the resistance to monarchy and fascism. She said that caring for a neighbor, organizing with a union, or even standing on an interstate highway overpass with a sign "all build a community where we can take care of each other and build a government we can trust. This government is ours to shape."
Grace, 19, gave the audience a high-energy speech that began, "I am angry and I am terrified."
He, too, emphasized community as an antidote to fascism and called for common ground with all Americans - not just the ones who agree with you politically.
Grace said that beneath Trump's antics is a much graver problem, something "that is ripping America in half." He said the billionaire class encourages Americans to divide and fight against each other "so money can move in the shadows" as they siphon off America's riches for themselves.
"If we have the courage to look deep into the heart of America, I'm afraid that we will find a disease," Grace said. "We will find something that is much more powerful, much more lethal than the actions of one man and his cronies."
This "force of polarity" or "bipartisan stupidity" is not a natural state of affairs, Grace said.
"I see Americans losing the ability to talk to one another," he said. "And we need discourse. We need to engage with the people who oppose us because this is how we find common ground. And common ground is the only way that we're going to get out of this mess."
He especially called for people to leave social media - Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X - which are owned by some of the richest men in the world. He called social media an "activism echo chamber."
Instead, he urged people to build on the Vermont Town Meeting style of democracy, where neighbors can talk to each other and work out problems face-to-face.
"Disagreement does not mean hatred," he said.
Pieciak, the keynote speaker, talked movingly about the lessons he learned from his late mother, Carolyn Pieciak, the founder of Brigid's Kitchen and Pantry at St. Michael Catholic Church. She died in May at the age of 79.
Pieciak said he learned about social justice at his mother's knee.
"Every time I was with her in this community, serving food to somebody that had been forgotten about or who was shut in, without fail she was always kind and patient and loving to every single person she encountered," he said.
Although his mother urged him to be compassionate, she also urged him to continue to fight.
"I was with my mom in the last few weeks of her life, and she asked me, 'Michael, are you going to continue to stand up to Donald Trump?'" Pieciak said. "And I said, 'Yes, Mom. I am.'"
That is one reason why, he said, he recently started the Vermont Immigrant Legal Defense Fund.
"It's so that every immigrant who faces ICE [the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] in court has a lawyer standing with them," Pieciak said.
He is trying to raise $1 million for the fund.
"The movement we are building is bigger than Republicans and Democrats," he said. "It's about right versus wrong. We need anyone with a backbone, anyone who is willing to say clearly, 'This is wrong.'"
Taking health care from veterans, taking food from low-income families, sending the National Guard into U.S. cities, or taking away a woman's reproductive freedom - all actions Trump has taken - are wrong, Pieciak said.
"They're moral failures," he said. "We need all our elected leaders to clearly say what is right and what is wrong. Brattleboro, keep fighting, and never, ever give up."
With additional reporting by Robert F. Smith of The Commons and by VTDigger.
This News item by Joyce Marcel was written for The Commons.