Another protest. A sunny day. More people, in a different spot, lining the road, as has been done successfully in Vermont to protest Vance, and in Maine, and in other places. In a car-driven society, strength is measured in feet and miles. Everything here must be visible on your way to somewhere else and big enough that the duration of the experience lasts. You can’t scroll by reality.

Waving at cars focuses people and reminds them you are real. Many more people were waving and honking today. Maybe people wanted an opportunity to move their bodies in support of something, rather than just their eyes.

The ones who were offended by the signs of resistance lining the road either miserably frowned and had thumbs down, or shouted the name of the current president. One yelled, “Fuck all of you lazy people.”

The older people seemed shocked. They weren’t the enemy. They weren’t lazy. And their response reminded me of the power of propaganda. The people who support the current president have been convinced that they are surrounded by leeches, the weak, the “parasites” that Musk referred to – a word used with historical content removed. But those who know history, know that that is how you make one side have no remorse or compassion for the other side. Hitler and Rwanda came to mind as historical examples. There are so many. And current conflicts use the same playbook to convince that the enemy is somehow sub-human.

One pickup truck turned up their music to play a song whose lyrics, even for the 30 seconds he was stopped in traffic in front of us, were clear enough to hear that the border was being overrun with criminals. Two men in a truck, who I would venture to guess had never even been outside New England, much less near a border. Had they ever even met people of color? Or was it all the promised threat that they were promised they would be saved from?

You may think I exaggerate about the number of people who have never been very far from their homes. This is the problem. This is the danger of cutting programs to encourage science, education, research. This is what they want when they tell the police at the borders to refuse entry to scientists from France, green card holders from Germany.

The other day, I was walking to the T station and I overheard two men talking. One had been to NYC for the weekend. He described the usual theatre and restaurant two-day jaunt. The other man said that he kept meaning to New York, but had never been.

He had never been to a major city in his own country, 250 miles away. Maybe he’d gone to Disneyworld in Florida instead. Who knows. But that is a piece of this puzzle that can’t be overlooked. The fact is that is most of these people have never been outside of their sphere of small town restaurants, trips to Walmart, gardening, golf, landscaping, maybe the odd ski trip or visit to the beach. A concert, maybe. A football game or a hockey match, maybe. The two men talking were headed to work. When I glanced at them, they were dressed in the usual uniform of this area, down vests, button down shirts, boring trousers, shoes bordering on the hiking boot.

The people who expressed their displeasure at the protest this afternoon were predominantly men. The kind of men who when they are turned down by a woman at a bar get nasty. The kind of men who laugh at the women they don’t want, and hurt the men and boys and girls who they deem inferior or strange. The ones they have decided are the other: the smart ones, the gay ones, the quiet ones – the ones who confuse them and the ones they think are weak enough to be easy targets.

These are the people of Trump.

I’d like to think that some of them could be won over, even if it is only by their own uncertainty when they see that their side is losing. The slurs shouted at the group of people protesting were the knee-jerk reactions to the woman in the bar who just turned them down. Words that sound angry on the outside, but reek of the stale odor of incompetence and impotence. And fear.

This is not the time to stop protesting. This is not the time to stop shining light on all the illegal actions that this government is taking, while they try to direct attention elsewhere. This is not the time to accept whatever story the news is telling, because they are not showing the protests. The veterans, like the man standing next to me, who was a Vietnam vet, who at this time in his life, didn’t expect to be worried about losing healthcare, services, respect. This is the time to keep going, because sometimes the people who you thought were weak, and easily impressed and cowed, rise up in greater numbers than you had anticipated.

Keep going, because they are afraid that you’ve seen them for who they are. Weak and greedy people who intend to use the prejudices of their base to enrich themselves, while hoping to impress with their power – stolen, and their money – corrupt.

I saw the men driving by in their trucks, and I saw the fear in their eyes. The fear of the bully, or the man at the bar, when they don’t get their way and no one is impressed. They didn’t expect anyone to stand up to them.

Watch us.