At the Minneapolis Protest

As I mentioned yesterday, I went to the counter-protest that formed in response to Mulligan's visit to downtown Minneapolis. I could only be there for an hour and a half, all well before he even arrived in the city.

I took only a few photos, since it was pretty damp and windy:








I joined up with a group of people called the Justice Choir, who brought along a short song sheet, a bullhorn, a marching brass baritone horn, and a couple of drums. Their songs were all pretty easy to participate in. The most popular was sung to the tune of "I've Been Working on the Railroad," with two verses about high crimes and so on, then a chorus that involved blowing on whistles they had  passed out:

Whistleblowers blow [blow the whistle], whistleblowers blow [blow]
Whistleblowers blow your horrrrn,
Whistleblowers blow [blow], whistleblowers blow [blow]
Whistleblowers blow your horn.

Whenever we did that song, it was an effective crowd-interaction moment and almost everyone who walked past us was smiling. So my recommendation is for all future protests: organize something that's participatory and has some humor and ideally singing. I think the majority of people in the group had found out about it through a Facebook post. I know I, at least, had never heard of the Justice Choir until the day before.

The whistles they passed out were also very effective at drowning out the small group of overt white nationalist guys who tried to march right through our group carrying a banner that said something about white nationalism. (The banner is the reason I knew they were white nationalists.) They were chanting something, but we couldn't hear them through the ear-splitting screech and neither could anyone else. They went away pretty fast.

One final thing. 

This photo is by Jim Walsh from MinnPost (published as part of this story).


I saw this guy and his sign in person, which means he was also there early, probably around 5:45 p.m. He wasn't there just to see the president speak (since the people who were going inside were entering the arena through the second-floor skyways, rather than the street): he was there to have his say to people who think the president should be impeached. That's his right, of course. But what a thing to say.

According to Walsh's story, his name is Jay Gabbert, and this is part of what he had to say when Walsh asked him about it:

I made my sign this morning, because I’m sick of the liberals’ rhetoric. I just think it’s important that the Trump supporters have their voice for a change. It’s actually pretty simple. Nobody’s out here to hate people and all that nonsense.

So. Yeah. Nobody's out here to hate people and all that nonsense, but liberals are traitors who should be hanged. That's not hate. Nope. Or maybe Gabbert forgot what words he was holding in his hands as he spoke to the reporter. Maybe he was remembering people he knows and even loves who are "liberals." Does he really want them killed?

I hope he's embarrassed.