BUILDING UNITY IN A TIME OF FASCISM: Bringing Gaza To 'Hands Off'
Just as in our personal lives it is possible to have friendships and work with people we are not in 100% agreement with, so too in political movements. In fact, it is absolutely essential.
Hands Off demonstrators march from their rallying point to the Manitowoc County Courthouse in downtown Manitowoc. Photos of the rally by Mark Taylor, free to use.
Finally Donald attracts the crowd sizes he was always talking about.
— Online comment
By Mark Taylor
DeMOCKracy.ink (4/6/25)
The nationwide “Hands Off” protest organized by Indivisible and a coalition of progressive groups had solid turnout at over 1,400 protests staged across the country yesterday. I decided to go to the event in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, a one-time industrial powerhouse of some 35,000, located about 80 miles away.
My family moved there for a decade while I was in college. I spent the summer between my freshman and sophomore year working in a Manitowoc vegetable canning factory, where I first met Mexican seasonal immigrant laborers. I worked one shift five days a week while they routinely worked two … six or seven days a week. Damn good workers and wonderful people.
If you check the comments thread for Friday — the day before the protest — you will find some reader comments about one of the main organizing groups — Indivisible —being a front group for the Democratic Party and — legitimate — criticism that the US/Israel genocide in Gaza was not mentioned in the Hands Off agenda. As we have seen with many ‘progressive’ groups and leaders like AOC and Bernie Sanders, the main task of many groups like Indivisible is to keep disgruntled lefties reliably voting Democrat. To act as electoral ‘sheepdogs’ keeping grumpy disaffected progressives within the corporate Dem flock and reliably voting ‘lesser-evil’.
While the absence of Gaza in the Hands Off agenda was indeed shameful, they were rallying for issues I completely support, like protecting hard-earned Social Security and Medicare benefits and much-needed social supports like Medicaid, public schools, free speech, climate protection and an effective public service workforce. You can follow the back-and-forth in that post but my essential argument was if you are looking for a 100% pure political agenda in any group you’re in for a long, long wait. A forever wait. Where the fascist right has come together in a unified movement, the left is fractured into squabbling, too often nasty little groups that censor and refuse to speak with each other. Is coming together on nothing really better than joining forces to fight for the 50% you agree on and build from there?
That’s exactly what the oligarchs are counting on, and continually exploiting and stirring up
Politics is about conflict and disagreement, advocacy and compromise but most importantly it is about debate and dialogue and coalition building whenever possible. And just as in our personal lives it is possible to have friendships and work with people we are not in 100% agreement with, so too in political movements. In fact it is absolutely essential.
I argued that if Hands Off was ignoring Gaza then let’s take Gaza to Hands Off. I made the sign below for the Manitowoc protest…
And I wore the scarf below with a Palestinian flag lapel pin…
On the drive to Manitowoc I thought of what I would say if I were challenged bringing the issue of the US/Israel genocide into the Hands Off demonstration. Frankly, I was expecting some degree of push-back.
As the crowd was coming together and organizers were giving directions to the crowd a woman stopped and peered at the sign, then looked at me.
“Here it comes” I thought.
“Thank you for bringing that sign. What’s happening there is such a tragedy,” she said. “Can I take a picture of your sign?”
Similar things happened more than a dozen times during the two-plus hours of the event. There was not one negative comment, interaction or even critical glance. The cause of the Gazans was as accepted as protecting our government from Fascist goons.
One big surprise
Having participated in a number of street actions ranging from mass marches and demonstrations to my weekly solo picketing at a downtown four-way stop in my hometown, I was shocked at the enthusiastic support from passing motorists tooting their horns, waving, showing smiles and thumbs up and shouting words of encouragement to demonstrators.
There were perhaps a half-dozen nasty little fellows waving a middle finger and one crotchety old cad chirping the Mango Man’s name out the window as he drove by.
An organizer told me at a local event they held a couple weeks before, there were some nasty little MAGA wannabe Brown Shirt types harassing demonstrators. She said they were anticipating harassment and perhaps counter demonstrators at the Hands Off march. She too was surprised and encouraged by the high level of public support given the Hands Off demonstration.
Hands Off demonstrations also took place in nearby Green Bay and Appleton. A very rough estimate from the three events I knew of in northeast Wisconsin was 4,500 to 5,000. And this coming just days after Wisconsin voters spanked Elon Musk by giving Susan Crawford a solid victory over her MAGA opponent in the State Supreme Court race. An election that appears to have soured Trump on Musk, at least a little.
As in any vibrant and growing political movement, there are going to be debates and disagreements. I strongly urge everyone to engage, debate — stand for your position and make your case — and align on the issues you can agree with.
Align or fall and fail.
The fascist right is aligned and we all need to be very serious in facing their existential threat.
A reader sent this photo in from the Saturday ‘Hands Off’ demonstration in Appleton, Wisconsin.
Some Of The Best Signs From The Anti-Trump 'Hands Off!' Protests — Here
I Went To The Anti-Trump Protest In Madison, Wisconsin
VIDEO: People I interviewed were united on one thing I wasn't expecting
By Ken Kleppenstin (4/5/25)
As I arrived at the State Capitol in Madison today, I was immediately struck by the sheer number of people gathered — the largest assembly I’d seen since moving back to Wisconsin last year.
Thousands amassed, and the crowd was eclectic, from Vietnam era veterans to UW students and professors. One guy was even dressed up as Luigi Mangione, hoodie and all.
This was nothing like the sea of blue blazers and politicians protesting in front of USAID and other government shrines in Washington, D.C. several weeks ago. And though everyone was there to protest you know who, I was genuinely curious to hear people’s thoughts, so I put on my journalism hat and went around posing a simple question: ‘What brings you here?’
People are pissed at management writ large, with those who run the country. Not just Trump or Elon, not just Republicans or Democrats, not just the appistocracy or corporate America, but all of them.
“This is like an everything, catchall protest,” as one attendee told me, chuckling at the absurdity of the idea that this was just about Trump.
Given the magnitude of the protests today, from large cities to State Capitols to small towns, the message is clear. People have nowhere to look but in the mirror to find someone who they think will save America.
Here they are in their own words. …
More Upcoming Events…
Ralph Nader Radio Hour: Fighting DOGE! And Challenging Democrats To Find A Spine
Ralph Nader Radio Hour (4/5/25)
Ralph welcomes Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, whose group has filed eight lawsuits that have significantly slowed the Trump/Musk cabal’s attempt to dismantle the government. Then, our resident Constitutional scholar Bruce Fein reports on Public Interest Law Day at Harvard Law School and how important it is for law schools in general to step up to meet this constitutional crisis. Plus, Ralph answers listener questions!
58-minute audio
Learn more about how to support the important work and advocacy of Public Citizen HERE.
Thanks so much for letting us know how the Hands Off rally went, Mark, and I'm so glad you brought Palestine to it and received lots of encouragement.
A catch all movement -- I wonder what will become of this?
My hope is that the big tent left will become an unstoppable movement in all western countries, creating a new political party that everyone will flock to, or at least consistent demands that parties can publicly adopt or not.
The fascist movement is internationally co-ordinated, and we need to be too.
Of all individualistic progressive substackers out there trying to sell you their unique stamp on the world Mark Taylor offers the collective resource that I wish our public media was there to provide. Mark brings together the very best progressive ideas the collective thought needed for collective action. Rather than promoting his brand he provides connective shared insight like no other substacker I have encountered.
Bombs off Gaza, now there is connective thinking that has the perspective of the biggest picture.