On Saturday Val and I drove to Gulfport to participate in the nationwide protest against Trump known as “Hands Off,” presumably referring to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, American freedoms, American pocketbooks, and American democracy. Val and I made our small-ish signs: Hers warned, “Wake Up: Trump Doesn’t Care About You” and mine admonished, “Patriots: Silence Is Submission.” The use of Patriots was a small attempt to re-claim the word for people in the middle or on the left who, like me, hate to see the word co-opted by the right, as it largely has been. In fact a FB friend chided me for its use for exactly that reason, but gave my explanatory reply a “like.” Actual patriots are the folks who are not trying to storm the Capitol, trample the Constitution, deconstruct democracy, and institutionalize authoritarianism. By saying Silence Is Submission, I was also acting on my decision that I will make my views known—no longer simply on my unread blog, but on Facebook and in conversation if my interlocutor is knowingly or unknowingly willing to offend me by taking a Trumpist view—not that I won’t hear him out.
The protest itself was uneventful. We started near Senator Roger Wicker’s office in the Cadence Bank Building and listened to some impassioned anti-Trumpist, anti-Wicker boilerplate. The organizers contrived to overlook the utility of a hand-held megaphone, so much of the boilerplate was lost to the crowd of what I estimated to be nearing 300. We walked two-thirds of a mile to a federal building, with obligatory chants of “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Trump and Musk have got to go” issuing from some of the more inspired. At the end there was another short megaphone-less speech or two, after which there was some mulling around, posing with signs for passing motorists, and heading back singly or in small groups to Cadence Bank or other stops along the way.
I have generally felt that virtue is most credible when it is done when no one is looking, and so doing it will be its own reward. Thus I feel a certain ambivalence about my own participation in such protests. On the one hand there is an uncomfortable feeling of performative self-indulgence, or virtue signaling (“Hey, look how virtuous I am”), or just plain showing off—especially when the prospective dangers are few or almost non-existent. After all, it’s not like we were Russian citizens protesting the war in front of the Kremlin (where even calling it a “war” is a jailable offense), or Chinese students in Tiananmen Square (much less the solitary man blocking the tank), or a young John Lewis and company civilly disobeying the Selma police by marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge—and knowing they would pay for it, as indeed they did. No, ours was not even civil disobedience—we had a permit—nor did we rate a single counter-protester, much less modern brownshirts or menacing police with tear gas and billy clubs. And I’m sure not saying I wish we had.
But on the other hand of my ambivalence, the threat of Trumpism is so profound, and the stakes so high, that making one’s non-violent stand known is, if not an actual act of physical courage, at least a willingness not to acquiesce or meekly, silently, scurry to the safety of what Mencken called “the warm, reassuring smell of the herd.” Participation in the protest was—is—an act of active citizenship, an act of patriotism. So, performative as it may be, even more so is it necessary.
John Rachal's Blog
“The [fellow] doth protest too much”: No, Not at All
April 8, 2025 at 5:37 pm (Political Commentary)
On Saturday Val and I drove to Gulfport to participate in the nationwide protest against Trump known as “Hands Off,” presumably referring to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, American freedoms, American pocketbooks, and American democracy. Val and I made our small-ish signs: Hers warned, “Wake Up: Trump Doesn’t Care About You” and mine admonished, “Patriots: Silence Is Submission.” The use of Patriots was a small attempt to re-claim the word for people in the middle or on the left who, like me, hate to see the word co-opted by the right, as it largely has been. In fact a FB friend chided me for its use for exactly that reason, but gave my explanatory reply a “like.” Actual patriots are the folks who are not trying to storm the Capitol, trample the Constitution, deconstruct democracy, and institutionalize authoritarianism. By saying Silence Is Submission, I was also acting on my decision that I will make my views known—no longer simply on my unread blog, but on Facebook and in conversation if my interlocutor is knowingly or unknowingly willing to offend me by taking a Trumpist view—not that I won’t hear him out.
The protest itself was uneventful. We started near Senator Roger Wicker’s office in the Cadence Bank Building and listened to some impassioned anti-Trumpist, anti-Wicker boilerplate. The organizers contrived to overlook the utility of a hand-held megaphone, so much of the boilerplate was lost to the crowd of what I estimated to be nearing 300. We walked two-thirds of a mile to a federal building, with obligatory chants of “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Trump and Musk have got to go” issuing from some of the more inspired. At the end there was another short megaphone-less speech or two, after which there was some mulling around, posing with signs for passing motorists, and heading back singly or in small groups to Cadence Bank or other stops along the way.
I have generally felt that virtue is most credible when it is done when no one is looking, and so doing it will be its own reward. Thus I feel a certain ambivalence about my own participation in such protests. On the one hand there is an uncomfortable feeling of performative self-indulgence, or virtue signaling (“Hey, look how virtuous I am”), or just plain showing off—especially when the prospective dangers are few or almost non-existent. After all, it’s not like we were Russian citizens protesting the war in front of the Kremlin (where even calling it a “war” is a jailable offense), or Chinese students in Tiananmen Square (much less the solitary man blocking the tank), or a young John Lewis and company civilly disobeying the Selma police by marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge—and knowing they would pay for it, as indeed they did. No, ours was not even civil disobedience—we had a permit—nor did we rate a single counter-protester, much less modern brownshirts or menacing police with tear gas and billy clubs. And I’m sure not saying I wish we had.
But on the other hand of my ambivalence, the threat of Trumpism is so profound, and the stakes so high, that making one’s non-violent stand known is, if not an actual act of physical courage, at least a willingness not to acquiesce or meekly, silently, scurry to the safety of what Mencken called “the warm, reassuring smell of the herd.” Participation in the protest was—is—an act of active citizenship, an act of patriotism. So, performative as it may be, even more so is it necessary.
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