Older women front and center in 'No Kings' pro-democracy movement

[UpInArms]

SPRINGFIELD, OHIO — The 2017 Women’s March was Barbara Hartwick’s first-ever political protest. She drove from the exurban community where she lived at the time to downtown Cincinnati, a left-leaning city of 300,000 people that anchors the otherwise conservative region. Still, Hartwick said, she felt too nervous to carry a sign or join in most of the crowd’s chants.

Eight years later, having watched President Donald Trump’s political ascent, Hartwick, 63, has gone from a “hesitant” to an enthusiastic protester. When she joined the several hundred people outside Springfield’s city hall on Saturday — among them many retirees who, like her, took to the streets to oppose Trump’s agenda — she held up a sign that read: “Let the wild rumpus start!” She was inspired by the crown-wearing young boy in Maurice Sendak’s children’s book, “Where the Wild Things Are.” It was, she said, a nod to the “No Kings” nationwide rallies.

Hartwick, a retired teacher, said she had “misconceptions” back in 2017 about what protests were like; she had never been politically active beyond voting. The march revealed to her “the camaraderie, the community of people there.” The crowd was “generally peaceful and positive” as they protested and it helped Hartwick realize that other women like her were also frustrated and disappointed with the direction of the country. She discovered that community spirit again Saturday in Springfield, the conservative-leaning city that Vice President JD Vance put on the map during the presidential campaign, when he made false accusations against the Haitian migrants legally living there to make the case for today’s militaristic immigration crackdown.

… snip …

Rural America is older than urban America, so in Saturday’s small-town and suburban protests, the graying nature of the coalition in the streets protesting Trump was visible enough that it caught the attention of local news outlets. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch posted a video of “senior citizens and others” at a protest in the moneyed suburb of Clayton, Missouri. West Virginia Public Radio reported that at a demonstration in Charleston, the state capital, “all ages were represented, but a large contingent of older West Virginians braved the sun and humidity to attend.” Trump had a higher margin of victory in the largely rural state than nearly any other.

More at:

https://19thnews.org/2025/06/older-women-front-and-center-in-no-kings-pro-democracy-movement/

[efhmc]

1. In small town Belton in Texas, we had a great wide range of people. Someone said it was nice to see lots of older

people here but when I looked around there were lots of people in all age groups.

[Attilatheblond]

2. Seeing more and more young people at protests in my area

We are a population heavy on retirees here, but there are lots of young families. Us geezers have been happily welcoming younger people to protests lately. We have time, but younger people, especially the ones with young kids, are busier and pressed for time. When they join us on the streets, it indicates the expanding resistance to the GOP march to autocracy.