A picture of an alternate timeline
Especially since the crowd spilled back at least as far as the Museum of Natural History, my godchild and I got much closer than we had expected to the head of the Mall surrounded by signs themed from penguins to the Constitution, accompanied by intermittently organized political chants and a noise which turned out to be one dude processing through the crowd playing the Wii home theme on a shofar, which is honestly the kind of weirdness I want at my protests, along with the vocal defense of trans rights and science. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
selkie witnessed a bagpiper in parade dress blasting the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." We were near a marble bench when my godchild needed to sit down, after which he acted as a sort of gateman helping protesters and their signs and their backpacks over or under the thigh-high chain of the fencing. We saw a lot of veterans, a lot of people who looked as though they had protested on this same mall in the 1960's. A lot of kids. A lot of rainbow flags. We had no signs, but our queer/trans/disabled selves. We were tired and counted.
selkie witnessed a bagpiper in parade dress blasting the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." We were near a marble bench when my godchild needed to sit down, after which he acted as a sort of gateman helping protesters and their signs and their backpacks over or under the thigh-high chain of the fencing. We saw a lot of veterans, a lot of people who looked as though they had protested on this same mall in the 1960's. A lot of kids. A lot of rainbow flags. We had no signs, but our queer/trans/disabled selves. We were tired and counted.
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The last time I was on the National Mall for anything political, it was Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in 2010, which was rather different. But people seemed so exuberantly energized. "No Kings, No Nazis." "They're eating the checks, they're eating the balances." "Remember Polio? I don't—let's keep it that way!"
Speaking of protest weirdness, someone was wearing a giant dinosaur suit in Glendale today. The only part of the person I could see was sandals and painted toenails.
Godspeed that person! And no heat stroke!
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I saw that one today too!
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It shows up in pictures from the Boston protest! I like that the memetic quality of the signs includes variations on a theme and also people just coming with their own things.