Hands-off
Thousands of Americans, from small towns to big cities, sent a loud message to the heads of major institutions like business, higher education and the law. And especially to our leading lagging indicator, the media.
Lead. Follow. Or get out of the way.
It’s become a routine story that major institutions, whether Congress, American business executives, college and university presidents and major law firms have bent their knees to the Trump regime.
Fearful of retribution from the the “Leader of the Free World,” they have remained silent as the regime made unilateral and illegal cuts to spending and federal agencies; snatched immigrants here legally off the streets and whisked them off to gulags in El Salvador or Louisiana; or demanded tribute in the form of millions in pro bono legal services to Trump loyalists.
Only to invite even more demands. While the free world is quickly turning the United States into a pariah nation.
We also know publishers of the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times put their other business interests ahead of free speech by dictating new, Trump-friendlier editorial policies.
So if you want to see, hear and feel what happened in hundreds of communities, large and small across the nation yesterday, you’re better off searching #handsoff on the cesspool site owned by one of the protest targets rather than scouring major news outlets.
The story was off the New York Times home page by 8 a.m., while the print issue offered a Page One picture and a tease to Page 18.
The Washington Post still offered prominent home page coverage, but paired it with a story about a dispirited anti-Trumper who now just wanted to “let it all burn,” a gift to the MAGA Injustice Department that equates Tesla vandalism with domestic terrorism.
The LA Times? Good home page play but couldn’t be bothered with more than a tiny Page One tease to an inside page. The Boston Globe had good home page play but a focus-group Page One story on the views of the Trump economy that relegated the rally that brought tens of thousands out in the rain to its Metro front page.
Yes, dead tree editions are dying along with its readers, but the crowd I saw in Boston skewed decidedly toward the print-reading generation and a march from the Boston Common to Boston City Hall was led by a 78-year-old United States senator who knew how to use both old and new media to win his last race.
I couldn’t help but be reminded how the legacy media missed the political story of 2016, the discontent that led to Donald Trump’s election, by focusing its resources on “her emails.”
The #handsoff movement was relatively quiet in promoting its intentions but word certainly spread to hundreds of communities in blue and red states across the nation turning out a minimum of 600,000 to a maximum of 3.5 million people in a variety of good and bad weather.
All with the same message, Hands off our bodies, our Social Security, our teachers, our health care and our wallets and life savings.
And oh yeah.
Meanwhile, a different 78-year-old man played yet another round of golf at yet another one of his golf courses, profiteering on his name, image and likeness while his leisure activity has cost American taxpayers $26 million since January 20.
Donald Trump, fresh off crashing the American economy to the tune of $5 TRILLION (more than his proposed tax cuts for his billionaire buddies) offered a perfect cross between Emperor Nero and Marie Antoinette.
Why? An aide granted anonymity by the Washington Post, summed it up:
“He’s at the peak of just not giving a f--- anymore,” said a White House official with knowledge of Trump’s thinking. “Bad news stories? Doesn’t give a f---. He’s going to do what he’s going to do. He’s going to do what he promised to do on the campaign trail.”
To paraphrase that great Buffalo Springfield song, there’s something happening here. But this time, what it is is exactly clear.
Reporters have been doing a good job of trying to document it while many editors remain oblivious to the lessons of 2016.
No need to run to red state diners or blue state soccer fields. The action is in the streets.
The Trump regime has set its eyes on taking down a free and independent media. Democracy dies in darkness. But it’s playing out in living daylight. Right now.
Important to note that most of the southern red states also have marches with less attendance than the northern states, but still remarkable. One of the surprising marches I saw with in Florida's The Villages.