Big cities, small towns and even the burbs had one thing in common. Millions of people who live there decided to get up, get out and start yelling to Trump and Musk to “get your hands off my stuff.”
Chant:
What do we want? Hands off? When do we want it? Now, what do we want? Hands off? When do we want it now?”
Thousands show up at the Hands Off rally and march in Tigard, Oregon. The town is a small suburb of Portland. I talked to Laura who is one of the orgsnizers.
“Are you encouraged by what you're seeing?
Absolutely.
They just said almost a thousand people signed up for this Tigard rally. That's incredible.
“I've never seen that happen in the suburbs.”
I know, I know. It's 'cause we care.
“Are you encouraged? Are you beginning to see signs that things are looking up?
I am absolutely encouraged. You know, just watching the numbers of people who are turning out that are just increasing, increasing, increasing. Watching last week when they had all those empty chair town halls and people showed up in red states and blue states. Everybody is concerned and everybody's showing up and yeah, I find that really encouraging.”
Laura is a pediatrician who decided to assemble a community group after watching what was happening to the health care system. She somehow finds time to treat her patients and go to protests.
“And you're using your own energy.”
“Yes.”
“Which you have left over from your job. Of course.”
“I don't know. This energizes me, right? Does it? Yeah.”
“Okay.”
“Yeah. I mean, when you have something you really strongly believe in, somehow you find, you find what you need to take care of it.”
“I was gonna ask you how do we manage the fear?”
“How do you manage the fear? So, that's a really great question. I, when, when he was elected, one of the things I said to myself is, I will not be afraid. So that's just been my motto. I mean, you don't look, look afraid at all. I refuse to be afraid.”
“Is there a point, do you get to where you absorb too much of this information and you want to work it out.”
“I can take a day off once in a while. Once in a while I realize I can't make calls today. I can't. I just need to sit with a book that has nothing to do with anything and regroup. And I think we all should do that. 'cause you can't do this every single day.”
Protester Debra tells me she schedules her off time to stay out of the fear zone.
“Actually, my fear is, is pretty high. I'm a veteran and I am on VA disability, and I'm in the VA medical system. I'm also on social security. That's what I live on. But I keep trying not to go too far down a road that I don't need to go until I need to go there, because that's the only thing that keeps me from going off the deep end.”
“How do you moderate that?”
“I tell you how you moderate it. First of all, I'm a news junkie, which can actually do damage if you consume too much news. So I schedule myself for two mental health days every week. No, no news at all. I just disengage.”
Then it was on to the march and a line up on the major highway going right through the middle of town.
Chant: hands off No blocking traffic
There were no incidents. Just a lot of love and support from those who drove by.
Music out:
What the World needs now is love, sweet love.
I’m Mike Turner
Thank you for listening.
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