No Kings Protest (otherwise known as Protest #2)

I'm doing my part by bringing friends to State Street in Trenton to protest the current government. I don't know if we are making a difference, but it feels good to do something.

This time I drove Lisa, and Pam met us in the parking lot. I'm guessing there were about 250-300 people (far fewer than the 500 on President's Day). I did see more young people, which is heartening.

The day before the protest Ukrainian President Zelenskyy met with our POTUS in The White House. If you don't remember what happened, google it. He stood his ground for 30 minutes before leaving and heading to the United Kingdom where he was embraced by the EU. As a result, on Saturday there were more signs supporting Ukraine than there were two weeks earlier.

The 19-year old woman with the green hair was back, and she had a few more volunteers helping her to lead chants. An older man brought a drum which he beat with enthusiasm for the first 45-minutes, and sporadically after that. In the crowd was a man in black pants and a dark green flannel shirt that looked to me like an ensemble member in Les Miserables, or straight out of casting for the part of young rebel. He stood a few feet away from others near the front of the crowd and kept up his enthusiasm. I thought he was one of the organizers until an organizer called him out praising his enthusiasm and encouraging the rest of us to match it. That was about the point Lisa, Pam, and I decided we had enough.

The day was warmer than the first one -- I was comfortable wearing sandals -- but the temperature was quickly dropping with the wind. Unlike the first protest, the buildings did not block the wind this time.

Following are some protest signs:

No Buy February 28

Our country is falling apart. The only solace is that we have not completely fallen apart and we are still free to write sentences like that, and publish them. I don't know how long that will continue.

Last weekend at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC I learned Germany was a democracy until Hitler took over. They lost that status a scant 53 days later. We are at Day 40.

Yesterday (Friday, February 28, 2025) was No Buy Day -- no using credit cards; no making purchases from Amazon, Walmart, Target, and other big box businesses. No buying gas. No buying groceries. Show the powers that be the people matter. I have not heard if it made a ripple. The news was inundated with our president meeting with President Zelenskyy from the Ukraine. If you are reading this far in the future and don't know what I am referencing that either means life got much worse and this was but a blip, or Democracy came back and we have forgotten about this meeting. I truly hope it is the latter. 

As for yesterday's No Buy Day, as expected, the other side encouraged people to spend more. 

Not spending money for a day was harder than we thought it would be. We don't feel like we spend money every day, but to be told NOT to spend on one specific day was a challenge.

The night before we made a quick grocery store run so we would not have to eat out or go grocery shopping on Friday. Don realized he was low on gas -- should he get gas on Thursday night, or use my car on Friday, or stay home? He opted to stay home. Today he decided to ride his bicycle to work rather than get gas.

As for me, I went through with my eye doctor's appointment, which meant paying a $10 copay and ordering a new pair of glasses while I was there ($22). Both went on the pre-paid health care card. As my eye doctor reminded me, they are a small business. With dilated eyes (they took 7 hours to return to near normal), I was not tempted to leave the house or go online. I have not been tempted to spend money today as I prepare to go to another protest.

I wonder if this was a test for our future -- as in there will be bread lines and rules about when and where we can shop, as happened in Germany as it fell to Nazism.