What were we saying, Saturday, with that gathering of so many souls and so many signs in so many spaces in this time that feels more like night than day? Were we saying that we oppose a president and his henchmen, who oppose everything we stand for and hold dear?
That we find hateful what they support, and that we support everything they hate, which is pretty much everything our founders risked their lives and liberty for, and that we hate what they are doing to the country we love — all without becoming hateful ourselves?
And that we will resist their relentless negativity without being consumed by negativity ourselves? That we will do our best to prevent them from harming those who are so easily harmed and who do not deserve the current efforts to punish them simply for being who they are?
That we will call out their crimes and injustices, just as the Declaration of Independence did, in clear, plain language, condemning everything we cannot condone?
That we will not be passive in our pacifism? That we will nonviolently obstruct their destructiveness, whenever and wherever we can?
That it is a tall order to be at war with those who first declared war on us, and then on this country, and to defend our country without becoming warlike ourselves? That we will be disciplined and determined, nonetheless, in upholding the values upon which this country was founded, confident that those values are worth risking our lives and liberty to defend?
That we are dedicated to subverting their subversions because they are the reckless radicals and we are the true conservatives — conserving and preserving what is just and good about this country?
That we are the champions of equality against the emissaries of inequality, and we champion democracy against the disciples of autocracy and oligarchy, fascism and racism, power madness and power grabness?
That we stand up for truth against the liars and their lies, and we will find some way to defeat the insidious power that lies have over so many of our fellow citizens — with the full understanding that no one possesses the whole truth and nothing but the truth, even as we take a stand for what we believe to be true against what we know to be lies?
That we will take inventory of our courage and stand together as allies against those who are all lies, that we will forever be allies against those who are all lies?
That we may not have the whole truth, but we do know what this country has always stood for, even when it fails to live up to its creed — that everyone should be judged not by the color of their skin or their country of origin but by the content of their character? That all human beings have rights, unalienable rights, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — not the liberty to impose their will on us, not the liberty to pursue their happiness at the expense of everyone else’s happiness, but liberty instead for all, equality for all, a country for all, not just for some?
That we will never accept anything less than equality, and we will never support their core conviction that human beings are created unequal — and declare that they are convicted by such convictions?
That we reject their New World Order because it is actually the Old World Order, which leads inevitably to World Disorder, because there is nothing new about authoritarianism, which has been tried for centuries and always ends in chaos and catastrophe?
That there is only one New World Order and that is equality, otherwise known as democracy?
That their idea of democracy means rigging the system so they can wrangle enough votes to gain and sustain power? That we believe democracy is based on something far more powerful — the consent of the governed? That we will never consent to be governed by those who gain power through lies and suppressing the vote, and we will never consent to a government led by a pack of rapacious, lying, bullying billionaires, and we will especially never consent to being governed by Elon Musk and Donald Trump who govern by intimidation and cruelty?
That silence is complicit and neutrality benefits the oppressors, as the signs said on Saturday, and we are not neutral and will never be complicit, and that our rebellion begins this day because We the People … Do … Not … Consent to being ruled by criminals and traitors?
And finally, that we dismiss their “Second American Revolution” because we belong to the First American Revolution.
And it ain’t over yet.