No Kings In Woodland

Pica and I today went to the No Kings protest up in Woodland, our county seat, which is a town of 62,000. We didn’t know what to expect, but were heartened by seeing people marching when we were approaching to find a parking place. This was a short march of about 4 blocks from the new courthouse on Main Street, to the old courthouse one street to the north, a building with a proper plaza in front of it. The energy was very good at the demonstration. People kept arriving from all directions, and cars driving down Main Street were honking and waving at us. We only saw one truck come past with a Trump/Vance sign; they were roundly booed.

This year I have been to two protests at the State Capitol in Sacramento; the one today felt perhaps more connected to the surrounding community than the ones in Sacramento. The space in front of the capitol building is large and protesters seem to disappear into the space. Also, Sacramento is a city with very little life in it on weekends. The protest today would have been difficult to miss by anybody headed into downtown Woodland this morning. I’m seeing an estimate of 3700 people all told today at the Woodland protest. What I am most hopeful about is how there were protests today all across the city from the largest cities to the smallest towns. There were 170 protestors today out of a total population of 912 in Bodega Bay, the fishing village on the Sonoma County coast where Pica’s mum used to live.