No Kings. Only us.

The October 18 protest will not affect power. But will it affect us?

Pavla was twenty when the Velvet Revolution hit Czechoslovakia, one among thousands in a student-led uprising. At fifty-six, she is still a wily miscreant, now part of our dawn patrol crew at the Patch in Bolinas.

Thus, I was not at all surprised that she appeared on the ferry to San Francisco on October 19, witty placard in hand, heading to the “No Kings” protest march.

I am always impressed by the ones who show up alone. It feels exposed. Showing up to a huge event alone is fearless, which is ironic since a large group of like-minded individuals should be the safest place.

But ordinary people are often loneliest in large crowds. And everyone appreciates a wingman.

--

My close friend Kelly and I are political, by which I mean opinionated and sometimes disagreeable. Kelly is preternaturally charming and gets away with it.

We decided to go to the “No Kings” rally for the straightforward reason that both of us, after careful consideration, concluded that a fascist, totalitarian state was a bad idea, and we also both believe it’s essential to show up.

The line for the ferry was satisfyingly long. The Larkspur Ferry - ordinarily one of the most beautiful commuter routes on the planet - is usually surrendered to tourists on Sundays. But not this Sunday. Today was for the agitators.

A gentleman in line behind us was holding court, very aware that his placard, pointing out the similarity of Trump’s neck fat to a woman’s pudenda, was both declassé and titillating.

Waiting in line today is screen time. Our phones defend us from stillness. Occasionally, however, we are released from the stupor of scrolling. This was such a moment. We were assembling with our compatriots, and we engaged.

The proximate cause or perhaps pretense for interaction with Audrey was her perfectly charming yellow knit jumper. A compliment is an excellent social gambit.

“What a lovely sweater!” “Thanks! I knitted it myself.”

Audrey is sixty-five years old, of which sixty-four and a half years were spent as a citizen of the United Kingdom of England and Scotland. She is just now an American. She has impeccable timing. Audrey is delightful, and when we finally find seats on the ferry, we have become a unit, protesting together. Audrey (with her delightful sweater) is no longer a fellow passenger. She is our friend.

When Pavla pokes her head into the cabin, there is a brief moment of recognition, and now we are four.

Pavla and Audrey are immigrants—Americans by choice, not default. Leaving home is not trivial, no matter how opportunistic the departure may appear from the outside. They chose to be here, which means they’ve already practiced the small revolution of deciding where they belong.

—

Pavla recounts her experience as a student during the Velvet Revolution. From November 18 to December 10, 1989, a memorial gathering swelled into protest, a nationwide general strike, and finally, the collapse of a communist regime. Soon thereafter, Vaclav Havel was elected president. We talk about Havel and wonder where poet-leaders like him and Nelson Mandela have gone. I think we stopped deserving them.

Instead, we now live in a world of artless narcissists, the Orbans, Trumps, Modis, and Erdogans, our penance for the leaders of 1989 that we refused.

Pavla has a mask and packed swimming goggles. Fortune favors the prepared.

We were a motley band of accidental compatriots taking our tiny place in the larger organism. We were fully conscious monads acting independently but pre-synchronized by our frustration, helplessness, and hope.

—

In places like Nepal, protests are by and for the young. They are fueled by rage at entrenched structures that strangle the future. Protest is the force of youth tearing down the grotesque order of oligarchy and absolutism. Modern economics demands education, and the educated demand modern society, not calcified tradition.

Youth protests have rage and persistence. The chalice has cracked, and the water flows unabated. Protests that topple governments, even if only temporarily, last more than a few hours and are manned by those with little to lose and no room to yield.

Protest in America could be like that, but not yet.

The youth protests on Gaza were real and persistent. Occupy Wall Street lasted two months, and Black Lives Matter had undeniable power and energy. However, protesting for change and uprooting an order is nearly impossible while a country is in the thrall of endless money.

We cannot overthrow our order because we fear wounding the only God we recognize: the market. Unlike the Czechs, we are too entangled with the markets to strike. Unlike the youth of Morocco or Bangladesh, we have not lived in the abyss, so we can pretend we don’t see it even as we stand on its edge. But it is there, waiting. We will refuse to see it as a society until we lie at its bottom, gazing up its escarpments, our former freedoms only memories.

“It was the perfect age.” Pavla reflected on the 1989 revolution, “Young enough to take advantage of living in democracy and old enough to forever remember how precious it is.”

In our current situation, we won’t overthrow. But we are not lost.

—

Humans vacillate between two modes: zero-sum when fearful, communion when we are not.

Fear makes us predatory; community makes us safe. We need other people, and our healthiest states are ones of deep connection and belonging. We are complicated. We desire things and seek peace in equal measure.

This protest will barely register with the administration or those who fuel its cruelty. Our voice is not yet the demon-howl of exhaustion and oppression because that is not yet our reality.

Our protest is communion.

When we landed at the Ferry Building, a joyous, serpentine muddle of humanity awaited us—more pranksters than protesters, a democratic masquerade. Fifty thousand revelers out to show we were paying attention and that cynicism hadn’t crushed enthusiasm. The ‘No Kings’ crowds stretched up Market Street - dragons, frogs, and unicorns among them.

Audrey’s son and his boyfriend joined our happy foursome at the base of Market Street. We were a nearly complete questing party, missing only a wizard. I would have nominated Pavla.

“It was our revolution,” she texted me later, “I was in college when they beat up students in Prague and we took the country. Sort of incredible now.”

The march was a carnival, not a riot. Inflated animal costumes, spontaneous music, and handmade placards. It was San Francisco, and there was, of course, a naked guy just standing there. This type of protest did not make a stand against tyranny. It was neither violent nor rageful. Most participants reveled in the creation and appreciation of clever signs. People danced. It was sunny and hopeful and glorious.

It was also a protest by the old.

Young people protest when they see no hope. They protest both to bear witness and to express exhaustion and frustration. Our society is broken, but it still renders as a society. The youth may be anxious that they may fail to get a job to relieve their crushing debt, but they are not enraged, and they are not desperate.

This will come.

Older people protest differently. Our protest is a declaration of unity, acceptance, and love. We want a world of wit and delight, which can only happen with community and safety.

Our society is not yet exhausted. The white middle still imagines that a few tweaks will set things right, so there are no general strikes. Many feel obliged to consider protesters like those at Columbia last year as misbelieving or disobedient youth, even though, years hence, they will have been shown to have been absolutely correct in their passion and certainty.

If you want to know who is likely on the right side of justice in a given society, look for which side is being thrown in jail for protesting.

Pavla, Audrey, Kelly, the two young lovers, and I weren’t protesting; we were practicing being the kind of people who show up. We were keeping something alive—not hope exactly, but the muscle memory of solidarity, so that if the moment comes when real resistance is required, we will remember to find each other in the crowd.