Tell Me What Democracy Looks Like

Standing across the street from where we stood on line awaiting entry to our event, were a handful of people, 20 maybe. With their signs and their flags. Praising DOGE, supporting Mr. Trump and everything he preached.

As we walked into this theatre, hundreds upon hundreds of us, what we gazed out upon were the stark reminders of the reality that brought us here to attend the rally for "No More Kings." Here on our side of the street, our side of the political universe, our side of reality, were chants of "tell me what Democracy looks like. This is what Democracy looks like." Words I had first heard as I marched with a teeming mass through lower Manhattan on our way to Occupy Wall Street.

Once inside, we listened as a host of folks, some politicians, others singers, religious leaders and even a college student spoke of the absolute urgency of the moment. Of the urgency to act, in some capacity, against the tide that threatened to swallow our very democracy. Against those who hoped to silence our voice. Against those who, in their relentlessness, had disoriented us, had depressed us, had made us fracture rather than coalesce. The time was over to lick our wounds. The time to fight back was not tomorrow but today.

I think, as one, we understood the demand in their words, the requirement that if we were not destined to fall, we had to take a stand. Not to agonize but to organize. Not to hold our head in our hands but to hold our head high, to stand upright and resolute. Not to give up but to get moving.

We were given a history lesson how the people of Massachusetts fought back against tyranny 250 years ago. How acts of courage and bravery do have meaning, do matter far beyond what one might expect. That we must meet adversity with passionate opposition and intensity.

As the rally ended, the echoes remained throughout this theatre. Imbuing us with the strength to carry on, to battle against the headwinds.

I only hope that the future for America was in this theatre today, not across that street, that enormous divide separating our vision from theirs, our passions from theirs, our purpose from theirs.

Tell me what Democracy looks like. If this nation is to survive, we in the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield are what Democracy looks like. God help us all if we are not.

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