What I Saw at the June 14th Protest

Observations from small town America and what comes next

Depending on what source you believe, 11-12 million Americans protested Donald Trump on June 14^th. While our slimy, orange president celebrated his birthday with a pathetically attended military parade, we Americans got off our asses and got out in our communities. We stood up for democracy. It was a good baby step in a long quest to get us palm-colored folks to care enough to exercise our First Amendment rights, lest the rest of the rights go away too.

I attended the protest in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. Wolfeboro is the town next to mine on Lake Winnipesaukee. The lakeside vacation enclave is quintessential New England: quaint, upscale and white. It’s heavy on Baby Boomers and family money, as those are the only people who can afford a second vacation home or even a first home in the tony town.

Wolfeboro is home to the sprawling Brewster Academy, one of the many elite boarding schools in the region. There’s also an exclusive country club on Wolfeboro’s outskirts called the Bald Peak Colony Club. Initiation fees for membership cost six figures, and its members include the owner of the Boston Celtics and a bunch of under the radar people with ungodly wealth.

Believe me when I say my expectations for the Wolfeboro protest were low. Call me a cynic, but seeing Bentleys cruising through town on the regular doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in a place’s civic engagement. Obscenely wealthy people never believe it’s their job to fight for their rights. After all, their money will always save them, right? And if worst comes to worst, they can always hire someone to fight for them.

I was pleasantly surprised to see around 400 people turn out for the protest. All were white with an estimated median age of 65. As one might expect, there was a lot of talk of fascism and cutting Medicare, Medicaid and social security. But the group was mostly activated by the ICE raids and the mistreatment and detention of immigrants without due process.

Most of the folks I spoke with had never been to a protest in their lives. They were nervous, and it showed. One thing to understand is that this is new territory for most of us white people. White supremacy teaches us to be rugged individuals pursuing perfection in all things. Protesting is hella intimidating because it requires us to be in community with other humans and learn something new. It’s impossible to be perfect at anything, and it’s especially daunting when we’re learning.

When it comes to protesting, most of us white folks are tourists. We’re like vacationers in a foreign country with no clue on the language or the social mores. For those of us in small, upscale towns like Wolfeboro, we’re even more insulated, privileged and naïve.

One example is our view of the police. At the beginning of our protest, peacekeepers in orange vests managed traffic and helped protesters cross the street to our gathering point. When a cop finally showed up to do his job, the crowd erupted in cheers, grateful for the illusion of safety.

The same people cheering for Officer Friendly must have missed the three marked local police cars, an unmarked cop car and a state police SUV that cruised by non-stop. In a town of just under 7,000 people, a protest of elderly, white people had drawn the attention of five law enforcement officers – six if you count the guy who directed traffic.

I just know the law enforcement bootlickers were itching for us to get wild in our Lily Pulitzer vacation outfits. “Mayday, mayday! Grandma has thrown a Negroni! Bring out the tear gas!” I could see the tight-lipped disappointment on the officers’ faces as they drove by.

Three locals mounted a sad counterprotest. One woman who looked like she’d bathed in Bain de Soleil - like her cult leader- showed up with her 2024 campaign yard sign. She took great delight in thrusting the sign in our faces and babbling incoherently about “a woman’s right to choose.” When she couldn’t get our attention, she resorted to blocking a traffic lane on Main Street. More than one protester tried to pull her out of harm’s way which caused her to scream bloody murder. We all gave up and surrendered her to the universe.

Two guys repeatedly slow-rolled us in a camo John Deere Gator. The classy vehicle had a mini hot air balloon adorned with Trump’s face. Like good little cult members, the geezer driving the mini mobile leaned on the horn for two hours straight, eliciting zero response from Officer Friendly or the plethora of useless cops in the area.

That’s because laws are only for lefties and anyone not in the Death Cult of Orange.

Plenty of MAGAts drove by and flipped us off. A fair amount of incels in diesel trucks revved their engines which I found to be very masculine. One lady leaned out the window of her SUV and proudly boasted, “I voted for Donny!” Her proclamation turned out to be totally unnecessary, as she looked like she voted for President Taco. An angry tradesman in a pickup truck slowed to a crawl and shouted, “Don’t any of you people have jobs?” That comment took us back to the central issue for MAGAts: they have to work and nobody else does. Life is so unfair.

As I sat there and observed MAGA in its natural habitat, something dawned on me: these people are aching to be seen. Being in a miserable death cult is just a way for them to be the center of attention. Like petulant children, they crave validation through attention of any kind. That attention is fuel for their egos.

As with any narcissist, there’s only one tactic to employ: gray rocking. Gray rocking means becoming emotionally unresponsive and uninteresting to an individual exhibiting toxic behavior. The goal is to present ourselves as dull and unengaging like a gray rock. That deters the narcissist from engaging with us.

My father was a narcissist. He was similar to Donald Trump in some ways. After fighting with him for years, I started gray rocking him. Back then, I didn’t know it had a name. I just noticed when I gave him vague, one-word answers and conveyed the impression I agreed with him, he left me alone and moved onto another victim.

Gray rocking is the move we need to employ with Trumpanzees. We did it at the protest last weekend and it worked. They finally went away and, more importantly, it knocked the gleam of maliciousness out of their eyes.

In review, my takeaways from the No Kings protest are threefold. First, this was just the first of what will likely be hundreds of protests and demonstrations to save our democracy.

Second, not all these events will be as jovial as the one I attended. We’re already seeing incredible violence from the police and counter protestors. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has used horses to trample peaceful protestors, and they’ve shot at journalists with rubber bullets. One protester was shot and killed at a peaceful protest in Salt Lake City; another in Riverside, California was hit by a speeding SUV. We live in a police state, and these protests are likely to get more violent. Remember kids: cops are not on our side. Shun them. Do not trust them.

Finally, we’ll need to become more surgical in our resistance efforts. More specifics to come on that in my next piece. Instead of weekend protesting, we’ll need to move to national sick days and strikes. Rather than protesting in the city and town centers, we need to take this fight to ICE field offices and detention centers. We need to be cogs in the ICE machine. They can’t arrest all of us. Our strength lies in our numbers and withholding our labor.

In solidarity. ✊🏼❤️