From 72,000 to 5.2 Million in 60 Days

The Resistance is rising. What's next?

Photo by Ethan Hoover on Unsplash

5.2 million protesters demonstrated at 1280+ cities yesterday.

5,200,000 stood against hate.
5,200,000 stood against greed.
5,200,000 stood against fascism.
5,200,000 stood.

Every number represents a life, and each life a story.

In the We (the People) Dissent’s chat, I posed a question, “What is your why?”

The answers were a mix of fear, hope, and resolve. Kara captured the heart of several comments when she wrote, “Because ‘democracy dies in silence.’"

As I read, I noticed another chord repeated—people did not march for a why, but for a who.

Ali marched for their nieces and nephews. Susan for her grandchildren. Thea shared, “To bring my father, who has been anxious for weeks about the state of this country, to his first protest since he marched as a student against South African apartheid. To remind him that people are still organizing and that he and we are NOT ALONE.”

Our why is a spark. It burns within us, urging us to take action. It wakes us in the night. It sears our conscious again and again. Eventually, we are unable to ignore it and we rise. When united those millions of sparks become a flame, one that has the power to sweep a nation.

And it has.

That fire started on February 5, when a grassroots movement organized 50 protests in 50 state capitols, or as it would come to be known the

The 50501 Movement

. About 67 protests took place that day with crowds ranging from a few dozen to hundreds, totaling around 72,000.

By President’s Day, February 17, the number of protests had tripled. Local Indivisible chapters and other groups joined the movement. Dozens of marches grew to hundreds while crowds swelled from a handful to hundreds or thousands.

Then came March. Backed by the Resistance Rangers, hundreds of groups rose to defend our public lands on March 1. Two days later at over 200 locations, protestors stood in defiance of the President’s State of the Union address. On March 7, thousands made their voices heard in the Stand Up for Science movement. The next day, 280+ cities celebrated International Women’s Day. Hundreds of thousands protested. And that was merely week one.

And then there was Saturday, April 5. Five-point-two million, 1.97% of adults in the United States, stood. Sixty days was all it took to go from 72,000 to 5,200,000 or from 67 to 1280 cities—from a spark to blaze.

Even these numbers cannot begin to capture the breadth of our work. Take Carson City as an example. The quiet town of 58,000 set in the high desert is the capitol of the Silver State. On February 5, a few hundred protested. On April 5, seven thousand rose.

Then there’s Boston. On February 17, about 1,000 protested on the steps of City Hall, battling the elements to proclaim, “No kings!” On Saturday, 100,000 gathered.

The dissent has spread beyond our streets and into our homes. Every day, millions are engaging in micro acts of resistance. A phone call to a representative, an hour volunteering, a Ukrainian flag hung from a window—each of these are an act of dissent.

Tomorrow, we start again. We will persist.

When you are hopeless, exhausted, or scared, remember, in 60 days we have grown from thousands to millions. Imagine all we will accomplish by our Independence Day in just 90 days more.

P.S. 50501 has announced a national protest for April 19, Resistance Rangers are planning an Earth Day protest, and dates for May are being discussed.

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As always, happy dissenting.