Gainesville Protest Report - 7/12/25

A peaceful little get together.

Mrs. BikerJedi attends her first protest. Wearing my hat.

I woke to a symphony this morning. Badly tuned and sounding horrible, my joints and back all popped and groaned out some horrible song as the alarm went off. Why am I up early? I don’t have work today. Oh yeah, fascists. This sucks. Shower and coffee first.

My son who has been going to protests with me didn't feel up to it this morning - he over exerted himself at the gym. Mrs. BikerJedi went with me instead. She is shy and introverted and has a hard time with stuff like that, but she decided to go today for her very first protest. I’m very proud of her, even if the heat got her and she had to tap out early. She also just isn’t the type to stand there and chant and yell, so it wasn’t really her scene, but she went and did it. Good for her. Another anti-fascist, grumpyeric.bsky.social, and his wife rode up with us. Eric is an older guy (pictured with a fuzzy hat below) who loves to go and raise hell at these things. He truly gives no fucks. They have been protesting for many years now in multiple places.

I hate living in Florida, but the drive up 441 is beautiful, so that is the way we went to avoid morning rush hour on the interstate. Mrs. Grumpyeric had never been that way and appreciated it. Arriving in Gainesville, it was in the low 80’s. Standing on the sidewalk in the sun it was more like mid 90’s. No rain, but a decent breeze.

Today's protest was a regular weekly protest put on by The Badass Feminists of Gainesville. I worked with them during the Tesla Takedown protest a few months back to provide security after a bunch of MAGAts got riled up about it. Bob Rose, the local “conservative” talk radio show host, apparently didn’t sick his followers on us today though. It was small and pretty chill, capping out at just under 40 of us today. With the threat level being so low, I was free to protest and actually carry a sign for the first time ever. Lol. Gainesville leans pretty left in a lot of ways because it is a college town, so it isn’t as intense as Ocala can be.

We had no problems with counter protestors or anything. I counted three people who flipped us the bird, two thumbs down, and three cowards who drove by yelling out their window at us but we couldn’t even hear them. One old man in a motorized wheelchair and missing a leg came rolling past us and was grumbling at us under his breath. Someone said something about deportations, and he selfishly said, “Yeah, they aren’t going to deport me.”

Excuse me - Trump is threatening to strip citizenship from American citizens he doesn’t like now. NO ONE IS SAFE. I don’t care how white, Christian, or conservative you are. Everyone is now vulnerable, including the fervent MAGA loyalists. We’ve seen that - he is deporting the spouses and other family members of his voters, and they are so shocked about it. Why are these people shocked? The White House is literally saying they will detain you for not being white. They also said in that article that they don’t need probable cause to do so. The fact that you consider yourself “one of the good ones” says a lot more about you than it does the Nazis deporting you.

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For only 40 people, we had a lot of support from passerby. We spread out on two corners to be seen. Lots of honks, some friendly conversations as people were stopped at the light, a few took pictures and waved, etc.

Someone drove by and told us we were wasting our time. I mean, I’d like to be wasting my time. I’d like to be at home, drinking coffee and playing video games, or working in the garden or something. But no. Not only are innocent migrants being rounded up, American citizens are being kidnapped and disappeared. Children are treated like high risk prisoners. And as I’ve been warning for months, people are now violently resisting, and they are doing it in more than one place. I won’t condemn their actions, but I will say that if it continues, Trump and his regime will HAPPILY declare martial law. At that point, Trump can do ANYTHING he wants with no checks and balances. The only thing to stop him will be a heart attack or a bullet.

Violence might be the only way out, but I sure hope not.

Back to the point, we are NOT wasting our time. Being seen resisting is so important. So many people are afraid to speak up for what is right. So many are terrified in fact, paralyzed with fear and overwhelmed with all the news. And that is what they want. That is why ANY AMOUNT of protest and resistance is good. I’ve had some of my subscribers write and tell me that my being out there has inspired them to protest in their own ways. Myself and the other organizers from OBD have talked to folks who said they started showing up after seeing us out there - we gave them courage. Me being out there to protect others gives them courage as well. So I protest - 40, 400, however many show up I’ll be there with them.

Here is how I know we are putting pressure on them. Gov. Ron “Puddin” Desantis recently was talking every chance he got about how it is legal to run over protestors here in Florida now. Of course, the memes with bloody trucks hit the right wing spaces immediately. It is why our local cops fenced off the area we normally stand for protests last time - they were also worried someone might run us over. Desantis wouldn’t be talking all that shit unless we were getting to him. Trump is literally raging about protesters now. Violent protest has a history in this country going back to the day it was founded - fuck you, Trump.

We are definitely under their skin. Ideally, the protests and other pressure we are putting on the Nazis in power will result in a couple of fumbles we can turn into a win for us. In 2026, we have an opportunity to take back the Senate and the House. Then if they actually have the balls to impeach, convict and remove him from office, the Trump nightmare goes away. Of course, I say that in the face of this:

Listening to all those morons with their ridiculous theories about Italian satellites changing votes, the “2000 Mules” conspiracy, and all that other crap they threw out there. Then there was Mike Lindel who supposedly had hard proof, and a tech guy looked at it and proved it wasn’t 2020 election data. All their whining and crying, and not one bit of proof.

Strangely, WE have proof, as pictured above. Trump himself seems to have admitted it. So I don’t know if we will ever have another election that is clean or not. I’ve seen a few different charts from other parts of the country like the one above, and it sure as fuck looks like someone rigged something. If the GOP wins everything again despite all the outrage and protesting in the streets today, I think the country melts down at the plain cheating. There is no way the GOP wins fairly in 2026, and I think there will be mass violence if they cheat.

It’s nice to think this all might be over in three years no matter what. That simply isn’t true. Fascism and racism are always there, it’s just a lot more “mask off” than it normally is, because they are in power and now have an ICE budget bigger than the Russian or Chinese military budget. Those people are already being turned against us.

Finally, Trump isn’t the problem. Project 2025 isn’t the problem. Fascism and racism are the problem. There will still be a Republican party. It will still largely be run by extremists, even if we have our own Nuremberg Trials, and even if Trump goes to prison and dies there. There will be another useful idiot like Trump to prop up as POTUS so they can continue stealing from us like they just did with the BBB and have been since at least Reagan.

As always, long term, the solution is education. That’s a different column.

RESIST. ACAB. 161. Fuck DJT.

#22ADay #Slava Ukraini! Heróyam sláva!