I parked at the Science Museum of Minnesota — about a mile by foot from the state Capitol grounds. I started alone.
At the first stoplight, a woman came to my side. We crossed. A few more protesters emerged and clustered around us as we passed side streets.
The sky was a deep blue, save for a few wisps of flattened contrails. The cold was biting.
More and more people joined our group, like individual water droplets merging into a single moving mass. There was a quiet word passed between friends now and again, an occasional light laugh, but for the most part the mood was somber. It reminded me of waiting at the border to cross into Ukraine.
A chopper thwacked through the air overhead and circled. I peered up into the brightness between the high-rises but couldn’t tell whether the helicopter was the police or the news. It didn’t really matter. That sound always raises goosebumps on my flesh now.
As we got closer, several strategically parked St. Paul Police cars kept the roads closed to traffic. We crossed over the freeway, and the moment I set foot on the Capitol grounds a blast of wind nearly knocked my cap off. The group that’d coalesced around me on the way there melted into the massive crowd already present. I walked past the columnar Peace Officers Memorial and found a place where, with the aid of my binoculars, I could see the far-off stage at the foot of the Capitol building.
Speakers were already pontificating. The audio system projected their voices clear and crisp all the way to the back. As much as I understand the importance of restraint when addressing a crowd of hundreds of thousands of pissed off people, and as much as there were plenty of joyful and even silly elements (including about a dozen attendees in large inflatable frog costumes), I wanted more of those at the podium to match the simmering mood on the ground.
The crowd was very diverse, as was the roster of speakers, and that was self-evident. There were way too many unnecessary nods from the stage to those of every imaginable creed and heritage and sexual orientation. The one acknowledgement that was then needed, to recognize the demographic group that had been most harshly and most unfairly targeted of late, was to Minnesota’s immigrant community. The crowd repeatedly rewarded those who made this particular acknowledgment. However, when the first chance arose to boo the brutal federal oppression of the Twin Cities in the guise of immigration enforcement, the crowd howled deafeningly, much louder than they’d cheered. Shouts of “Fuck ICE!” sounded all around me.
Tim Walz gave a hell of a speech. The man would have made a powerful vice president. He introduced Bruce Springsteen. It was the first time I’d ever listened to the entirety of “Streets of Minneapolis.” The Boss’ tribute to Renee Good and Alex Pretti, sung there, sung then, felt like a moment that would matter beyond the next news cycle.
Around the time Bernie Sanders started excoriating billionaires I realized cellphone service was down. No doubt the network was overloaded. A good friend had arrived, and I tried to make my way to the intersection he said he was at in the last text that’d come through. I made it across two rows of short, spindly, still leafless hedges before the crowd became impenetrable. I never did find my friend, but at least now I was positioned in front of one of the jumbo screens.
Jane Fonda announced that she wouldn’t give a speech because things were behind schedule, which everyone appreciated at that point. As soon as she said this, as either a sign of divine approval or a fortuitous coincidence, a gust of wind ripped a sheaf of papers from her hands. She recovered and instead read a short statement given to her by Renee Good’s wife.
It had been about two-and-a-half hours since I’d arrived. After Joan Baez sang a song, the trickle of people who’d started to bow out turned into a surge. The very last speaker finished up around the three-hour mark. By then I could get right up to the stage. After the end, 10 women dressed as handmaids stayed pressed against the frontmost barrier, still, silent, staring straight ahead.
I wandered aimlessly for a bit with the other stragglers. A handful of State Patrol officers wearing neon safety vests remained at their posts adjacent to the stage. There hadn’t been a single violent incident.
As I departed, I noticed two more handmaids stationed at the far end of the Capitol grounds. One was off to my left. The other stood among the columns of the Peace Officers Memorial.
Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.
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