Maybe it is me being cranky from a headache and lack of sleep, but these pictures piss me off. They should fill me with hope, but they don't. Where the FUCK were all these people 6 months ago when Bernie was being shafted? Where were all these people in October when Hillary was starting to waver? Where were all these people in November when voter turnout was at a 20 year low? we got a fuckwit here in Kentucky because voter turn out was 25% when he got elected. Low voter turnout gives you shitheels like Trump. So, where were all these people? Mark my words. Over the next six months the Trump people and the Republican Congress are going to do some regressive vile shit. And people are going to throw their hands up and say "hey man I marched back in January!" And then sit on facebook and twitter and bitch, but not make calls, not go to the local ACA rally etc. I'm having a deep crisis of self over this shit. The ACLU announced it is going to focus its efforts on reproductive health issues over the next four years. This is what they have done for the last 30 and we have all but lost the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth not to mention that the Seventh and Eighth Amendments might as well not exist because most people don't know or care what they are. The First Amendment is still hanging in there, but it is starting to look like Swiss cheese. Reproductive rights are important, and they should be fought for (why are we still fighting this shit again?) but if you don't have a right to privacy or speech what good with that do you? I give the ACLU a decent amount of money every month. Been doing that since I could afford to. After the last donor call where they called and asked me what I wanted them to focus on, I said "end the war on drugs." I was told that was not in the mission statement. the kid on the other end of the phone call was polite, but I felt like I was being taken advantage of for a paycheck and they did not really give a fat flying fuck about what I want out of the organization. I'm going to sit on this and let it noodle in my head, but realistically my payment in February is probably going to be my last. That money is going to go to the EFF instead. Sorry for the rant, did not mean to hijack your thread.
So the most optimistic estimation I've seen of all the marches everywhere is 7.5 million people. 66 million people voted for Clinton. I know you're pissed, and I know why. But make no mistake: the people marching are pissed, too. Mobilization shouldn't give you a crisis of faith. There's a whole bunch of people - myself included - that trusted in the system. That trust is gone now. This march? That's a bunch of distrustful people coming together. This is how revolutions happen. Turn that frown upside down and recognize that when three times as many people come out to protest trump as came out to inaugurate him, you can pretty much guess which side has the fair-weather activists.
This brings up a funny thought I had recently... what would a Republican protest look like? I imagine it'd look like rush hour. A thousand BMW and C-class Mercedes, parked on the street in downtown, with the windows up and air conditioning blasting, drivers furiously tweeting out Trump re-tweets.
