Austin, Texas.

Two weeks ago, a group of Democratic lawmakers fled Texas in an act of obvious political kabuki theatre. Ostensibly, they were preventing a redistricting vote that would grant Donald Trump an additional five seats in next year’s midterms. But it was always obvious they would return and lose the vote, and next week they will do just that.

With their foreordained surrender looming, on Saturday “Fight the Trump Takeover” rallies were held in 34 states to protest Republican gerrymandering. The main protest took place in front of the Austin Capitol, yet it was clear when I arrived that, for all the media coverage, few people were willing to sacrifice a Saturday morning to oppose the return of authoritarianism to America.

A moderately-sized group of protestors, overwhelmingly white and many of them elderly, were clustered around a stage in front of the Capitol steps as “My Humps” by the Black Eyed Peas played on the PA. They held placards that said things like “GOP: Guarding Old Pedophiles”, “Fuck ICE”, “Gutless Orange Zealot Prick”, “86 47”, “Fuck Trump” and (my favourite) “Deport Melania”. The Boomerdammerung energy was strong, but they were not taking things lying down.

The MC of the event, Stephanie Gomez, led the crowd in a chant of “This is what Democracy looks like.” She heads up an organisation called Move Texas which specialises in recruiting 18- to 24-year-olds, although evidently she had forgotten to let her young friends know about this particular protest.

Gomez introduced Dr Michael Waters, who kicked off proceedings with a fiery social justice sermon. We were going backwards, he said, for apartheid was coming to Texas and we had to save ourselves. Subsequent speakers, most of whom described themselves as “organisers”, were less overtly apocalyptic but also painted a bleak picture of racial gerrymandering and rising authoritarianism.

Things brightened a little when Austin congressman Lloyd Doggett said how nice it was to see so many young people in the crowd — though, of course, most people look young when you’re almost 80. But then he referenced the Gestapo, and talked about people being disappeared off the street, and other stuff he didn’t really believe. A more sincere version of Doggett did emerge when he asked the crowd to think about what to do after the booing: they should show up and vote even in the redistricted neighbourhoods — and win.

We were about an hour into the rally before anyone mentioned the Texas Democrats who had fled. It was one of the “organisers”, a guy from the state workers union. We should be grateful, he said, because they had raised awareness of what was happening in the state. True, but they had also raised awareness of Democratic hypocrisy by skedaddling to Illinois, one of the most egregiously gerrymandered states in the union.

A drag queen, Bridget Bandit, came on and mimed to the Dolly Parton song “Go to Hell”. By this point, some younger people had joined the crowd. The speakers were getting older, however, as 95-year-old Dolores Huerta talked about her days as a labour activist, while informing the young folks that she had 11 kids and thought abortion was cool. Gomez claimed that 5,000 people had shown up, which seemed dubious considering that the pathway to the Capitol was only about one-third-occupied. Perhaps that many people had crossed the grounds, but that would have included the woman with the sign inscribed “Let’s go to heaven believing in Jesus.”

After two hours, it was time for the grand finale. Instead of the more fiery Rep. Jasmine Crockett, we got Beto O’Rourke, the greatest loser in the history of Texas politics. He made the second reference of the day to the Texas Democrats who had run away, telling us that we should thank them, and also called for a Palestinian state. Beto is only apparently real: in truth, he is an LLM trained on progressive talking points.

And then it was over. The elderly protestors packed up their sweary signs and shuffled peacefully towards their cars, afternoon pickleball, time with the grandkids, whatever. They will lose this battle. But, unlike their representatives, at least they showed up.

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Daniel Kalder is an author based in Texas. Previously, he spent ten years living in the former Soviet bloc. His latest book, Dictator Literature, is published by Oneworld. He also writes on Substack: Thus Spake Daniel Kalder.

DanielKalder

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