Another Saturday, another protest. Or, as it’s come to be known in certain circles: another aimless group therapy session for people who desperately need hobbies.
This time, it was the “Hands Off” protest at Marietta Square, a bold move, apparently, against the terrifying specter of… democracy? Elections? Elon Musk’s X account? Even after reading the signs, listening to the chants, and enduring the performative outrage, I’m still not sure what these people were protesting. But one thing was clear: they were very, very upset that Donald Trump is popular again, and Elon Musk refuses to apologize for being smarter than them.
According to Fox 5 Atlanta, this loosely defined rally claimed to be about “protecting freedoms”, ironic, considering it was largely filled with professionally offended activists demanding that other people’s freedoms be taken away. Namely, the freedom of Americans to elect a president they actually want, and the freedom of billionaires to run businesses without needing permission slips from campus Marxists.
Organizers claimed they were protesting “extremism and fascism” which, in Left-speak, now includes things like enforcing immigration laws, cutting government waste, allowing parents to see what their kids are being taught in school, and not pretending that men can get pregnant. Brave stuff.
The sad part? These protests aren’t even surprising anymore. They’ve become about as predictable, and about as interesting, as a gender studies dissertation. Same script, different day: handmade signs, dramatic sob stories, chants that sound like they were workshopped during a drum circle, and of course, the ever-present fear that somewhere, somehow, someone with an American flag might be enjoying their freedoms a little too much.
We saw the same thing back in February during the “Not My President’s Day” protest flop, when a handful of sign-wavers tried to convince Georgians that Donald Trump’s reelection campaign was some kind of existential threat. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t. Just like this protest wasn’t. Georgians, by and large, rolled their eyes and went about their weekends, because normal people have lives, jobs, and families to care about.
Let’s be honest: these “Hands Off” rallies aren’t grassroots. They’re astroturf. They’re emotional support gatherings for the chronically outraged, subsidized by liberal think tanks, NGOs, and whatever money’s left in the DNC’s rainy-day fund. They want to sound like the voice of the people, but they don’t even represent the voice of Cobb County.
At the end of the day, the protestors will go home, post a filtered selfie, and wait for likes from the same 12 followers who always hit the heart emoji. Meanwhile, the rest of us will keep working, raising our families, and trying to save the country from the people who think screaming in a town square is equivalent to civic engagement.
So no, I wasn’t going to write about the Cobb protest. And after sitting through the clips and re-reading the slogans “Hands off our rights!” from the people who want to censor speech, disarm citizens, and can’t tell me what a woman is, I realized I was right the first time.
Because nobody cares.
