by Mick Rhodes | editor@claremont-courier.com

My mother was 25 in the summer of love, but instead of protesting against the Vietnam War or tuning in and dropping out, she was busy raising her 3-year-old son on her own. She had no time for activism, let alone LSD.

Aside from the assassination of JFK eight days after I was born, I didn’t hear much from mom in the way of politics. The Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam, the later assassinations of RFK, MLK, Malcolm X, and others shook the country, but she was busy trying to make a living in sleepy and very conservative Glendora, where as far as I could tell all that stuff was happening inside our black and white TV.

I later saw her get excited about Bill Clinton, and later still, Barack Obama, but she wasn’t strident or vocal like her loudmouthed son.

That was until Trump began his first run for office around 2015. She hated that guy. He was everything she disliked in a man: arrogant, stupid, vain, cruel, racist, and gleefully misogynistic. He embodied the type of person she warned me about: ugly inside and out, a malignant, toxic narcissist with vibes-a-creepy. Stay away!

Mom lived to see him elected. She had been sick, and refused treatment at the end, preferring to die at home. Before she left us though she was clear about one thing: she loathed that man. I miss her every single day, but there’s one thing about her death I’m grateful for: that she didn’t live to see what he has wrought.

Mom wasn’t an activist by any means, but I suspect the current state of affairs would have moved her to action. She always said she loved America. I know she’d be outraged about what Trump and his cronies have done to it.

And while I wish she were here to speak against whatever this is (Late stage capitalism? Authoritarianism? A coup? All of the above?), I also don’t wish this anxiety on anyone, least of all my saintly mom. But I have to admit it’s a point of pride that the only real political anger I saw out of her was directed at the current occupant of the White House. She chose wisely.

If she were here I know she would spend her 84^th birthday with me this Saturday, March 28 at the corner of Indian Hill and Foothill boulevards for the 2-4 p.m. Claremont No Kings rally, raising her voice in opposition to the administration’s unhinged, violent rampage through our country and the rest of the world.

I will do it for her.

And to those who sneer at protesters out in the streets waving signs and communing around their grief and anger, I offer this: recent research by Harvard University political scientist Erica Chenoweth found that if just 3.5% of a population engages in nonviolent civil resistance, the government either capitulates or disintegrates. The U.S. population is roughly 345 million, so if this formula holds it would take a little more than 12 million of us to shake something loose and get some relief from our nakedly corrupt government. I don’t imagine the so-called “Christian” idealogues have any intention of stepping aside if that magic number is reached, but I love that it would no doubt be reported on by our ever-shrinking stable of uncompromised mainstream U.S. news organizations. That might just leave a mark that can’t be ignored.

And though Trump and his cronies hold all levers of power, both parties have been limp and ineffective in standing up for regular Americans’ (and immigrants’) Constitutional and human rights. With few exceptions, Republicans who aren’t cheering this on and nearly all Democrats are hiding in their offices too timid to speak up for fear of angering their true bosses, their corporate and special interest benefactors, with AIPAC at the top of that list.

I’m hearing Saturday’s protest may be the largest in U.S. history. I sure hope so. If things are to change, we — the millions of us who stand against Trump and his corrupt, regressive, and corrosive regime — need to be the engine of that change.

This is a serious moment, and our elected representatives are failing us. The only way forward is for regular people to be in the streets in massive numbers, loud, insistent, and of course nonviolent. We need our righteous anger to be focused, unified in its messaging, and so pervasive and abundant that they won’t be able to ignore us any longer.

The tagline for Saturday’s protest, organized by Indivisible Claremont/Inland Valley, is “No thrones, no crowns.” Who can’t get behind that?

“When our families are under attack and costs are pushing people to the brink, silence is not an option,” reads the event description at mobilize.us/nokings. “We will defend ourselves and our communities against this administration’s unjust and cruel acts of violence. Bring your signs and energy to peacefully express your resistance. On March 28th, rise up, take to the streets, and say it loud: no thrones, no crowns, no kings. We’re not watching history happen — we’re making it. Join us.”

Right on, Indivisible. See ya there.

More info is on Indivisible Claremont/Inland Valley’s Facebook page at facebook.com/groups/795791730568186.