Demonstrations aren’t in my comfort zone. I dislike crowds, dread chaos, fear stridency, deplore theatricality and hate drum circles with a burning passion.
But for the No Kings protest in March I was on mission —with my prophet costume on the seat beside me.
On my way to the No Kings protest in Downtown LA, I stopped to let a hippie couple with matching grey ponytails and hand-lettered signs cross in front of me. As they crossed, I found myself slightly annoyed by their cliched hippieness — and defensive about the glance they cast towards me as I waited in my SUV.
“I’m going to the protest, too!” I wanted to tell them. “I’m going to the bigger protest! The real one, downtown, not the light-weight, white bread one here in Santa Monica! I’m more real than you!”
Thankfully, I said nothing.
But feeling my own annoyance at their smug, hippy shtick (okay, I’m doing it again) and my defensiveness, reminded me that even while standing up for democracy, I have strong jerk tendencies — and, more broadly, that MAGA and progressives alike have their asshole sides.
Maybe this is what will bring us back together…
On the highway, I passed a bridge where demonstrators held “No Kings” signs. I wanted to honk in support, but even this small gesture made me feel self-conscious.
I managed the meekest of toots as I passed under the bridge, like what you might give to a lowered El Camino or a lifted Dodge Ram that didn’t move when the light changed. This impulse says more about me than the other people.
As we approached the center of the protest at City Hall, the clamor of the crowd swelled, and the sidewalks choked with sausage vendors. They smelled delicious, but it was way too early for lunch.
Oh, and duty called.
I was there to gather footage for my social media account — and to protest Trump, of course… right, yes, absolutely! That meant putting on my prophet costume, choosing my “The end of Trump is near” sign and talking to people about why they were there and how they saw the future.
To my surprise, almost everyone I approached agreed to talk to me, even though I was going to post it and our conversations instantly attracted the lenses of about a billion other content miners. My prophet costume gave me a way in. There’s a lesson here that I probably shouldn’t learn.
And what the people had to say surprised me.
At the Santa Monica No Kings marches I had previously attended, the mood had been festive. Like a block party might be, if those actually existed. (I’ve never been to one, but they sound fun.) There was music, dancing and a lot of nodding appreciatively at each other’s signs to show that we got the pun.
Downtown, there was no mood. The crowd was a conglomerate of widely different types and vibes.
There were clumps of somewhat similar-seeming people: SEIU union members in matching purple t-shirts, Mexican folklorico dancers (maybe just standers; I didn’t see them dance) in hoop skirts, a cohort of young people in black shirts and possibly Palestinian scarves, a small, sheepish clique in inflatable costumed folk talking to each other and lone wolves swinging for social media stardom in striking costumes, including the Patriotic Harlequin, and I guess, me.
The first person I spoke to was a middle-aged man who said he was there to protect democracy and stand up for the right to organize. He told me that his union had secured a 30% pay increase recently after years without any raise.
“We’ve got to keep the union,” he told me.
Next was a slim smiling man who seemed to radiate benevolence. I’m not sure what he was there for other than to affirm everyone. I was a bit uncomfortable when he hugged me but, you know, it was okay.
I was more uncomfortable when a young woman I approached immediately launched into a fierce condemnation of Israel. I deeply disapprove of Israel’s actions in Gaza, Iran and, now, Lebanon, but her sharp, angry and unapologetic tone was new to me.
I felt an impulse to back away, but then I thought: this is why I’m here, to find out what people think, and this is what she thinks. She has a right to this view. It’s good for me to hear it, even if it makes me uncomfortable
I had a similar reaction when a cool tattooed guy suddenly erupted into a furious, red-faced diatribe directed mainly at Trump, but also partly at me for remarking on his anger. His anger alarmed me... but I got it. Who am I to police his tone? Anger is a valid reaction, maybe a necessary one, even if it makes me uncomfortable. It’s good for me to hear.
That’s when I realized that I wasn’t there just to protest against Trump. I was there to, well, grow as a person. To push back at my limitations: my avoidance of civic engagement, my rejection of displays of emotion, my inhibition about honking, my judgement of hippies. My horror at the idea of putting on a costume and going out in public, for that matter.
This protest was, among other things, an opportunity for self-improvement.
And, yes, of course, I know that the desire for self-improvement is hopelessly dorky and earnest and uncool. But I have a persistent case, and, frankly, so does America.
America’s Self-Improvement Plan
The aspiration to improve has been a central theme to American culture all the way back to the Puritans.
America’s true presiding genius, Ben Franklin, was an inveterate self-improver, and his famous best-selling autobiography was largely a tutorial for improving yourself and getting ahead, setting a pattern which continued from Emerson’s “Self-Reliance,” and Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich” to “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and “Thinner Thighs in 30 Days.”
Americans have always been addicted to the idea of self-improvement, and, hopefully, getting thinner, sexier and richer in the process.
It occurred to me that this is how we should look at this fraught moment in our nation’s history: as an opportunity for personal and national self-improvement.
For much if not all of my life, we have been framing our public projects and conflicts as wars: the war on drugs, on inflation, on crime, on Christmas, on woke, on what-have-you. None of these wars ever seems to have been won, or ended in any way that left anyone feeling any better.
We need a better metaphor, and I think self-improvement could be it. It’s in the American grain and frankly it makes sense. We’re not here to eradicate each other, but to work though the obstacles, internal and external, that prevent us from cooperating and coexisting happily — or at least less happily.
This reframing could lead us to see the other side — whether we define that politically, culturally, or God help us, by immigration status — as partners in a shared project of working though our differences.
It might be uncomfortable, but pushing at our limitations is what brings growth, and growth brings confidence, and confidence makes us more active — which will make us thinner, hotter and richer, both as people and as a country.
To find out more about how reframing our national crisis as an opportunity for self-improvement can make you thinner, hotter and richer, subscribe to this Substack.
