Amidst the sea of people gathered on Sarasota’s bayfront Saturday for the March for Democracy, there were hundreds of women wearing the perky-eared, pink knit caps that became the symbol of Women’s Marches across the country a year ago on the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration, the largest single-day demonstration in U.S. history.
The hats are, of course, a reference to Trump’s boast on a videotape released during the campaign that his celebrity status made it easy for him to grab women by a certain body part.
I saw two men in the crowd who wore pussyhats too.
In every sense of the words, they were not together.
Dean Anthony stood beside his wife, Valerie, in the open, grassy area in front of the make-shift stage, waiting to hear speakers from some of the 25 progressive groups sponsoring the walk. He wore his loosely, hand-knit pale pink pussyhat stretched over the top of a dark green ball cap, its brim sticking out incongruously.
The Anthonys were reminiscing about their trip to Washington, D.C. last year, to attend the Women’s March that drew nearly half a million people to the nation’s capital. Dean said he isn’t much for crowds — “though I’m willing to overcome it for some things, like this” — so they’d scrambled atop a stack of parade materials to a perch about 10 feet above the massive gathering.
He remembered how people kept handing cell phones up to them and asking them to take photos. It seemed like everyone wanted to have a permanent record of being part of such a historic moment. Valerie remembered how, despite the congestion and the chill of the day, everyone had seemed so friendly, so engaged, so ... united.
Anthony calls himself “way, way left of most people — even the people here,” he said, looking around at signs that read: “Make America Think Again,“ “Grab ’em by the Ballot Box,” and “My arms are tired from holding this sign ... since the 1960s.” For seven years, he had lived in Austria, a socialist country.
“I got to see socialism at work,” he said. “It was the way it should be. Free education. Free health care for everyone. And it was a beautiful, functional country.”
The past year has been a tough one for the Anthonys. Hurricane Irma was “not kind” to them, they’re dealing with elderly parents and they miss their 22-year-old daughter, who graduated from college last spring and is now in New Zealand. Politically, it’s been tough too.
“I have some friends and relatives who are Trump supporters, even now,” Dean said. “I just don’t get it. There isn’t even a way to talk to them. We’ve totally cut off all communication.”
As the speakers began to rally the crowd, Gary Snow stood directly behind the podium, holding a megaphone in one hand, and hoisting a 12-foot pole with his muscular, tattooed other arm. At the top of the pole was an American flag. Directly beneath it was a red, white and blue banner that bore the same message as the one on his fuschia-pink, machine-knit pussyhat: “Make America Great Again.”
As an organizer stepped to the microphone and urged the crowd to “stand up for a world that is equitable, just and safe for all,” Snow waved the pole and began chanting into his megaphone: “He’s still our President!” “Donald Trump for another seven years!” “Hillary lost!”
Those gathered around him reacted swiftly — in shock, in dismay, in anger. A few held their signs higher, trying to cover his face. Someone grabbed at the flag. Others tried to out-chant him: “Love trumps hate! Love trumps hate!”
One man shouted a profanity; another stuck a video camera inches from Snow’s face. The woman next to me shook her head and muttered, “He must have been beaten as a child.”
Just when things threatened to turn ugly, a Sarasota police officer calmly intervened. “I told him the same thing I’m telling you,” he said to the crowd. “Everyone is entitled to an opinion. Just stay out of each other’s faces.”
Someone started a chorus of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land.” As the marchers headed toward the bridge, others joined in and the melody drowned out the scuffle.
Snow fell in step with the chain moving west. Eventually, the people around him began to hang back, leaving an empty gap in the serpentine stretch of bodies across the bridge. “Let him pass,” one said. “I don’t want people to think we’re associated with him.”
When the last of the walkers had made their way back and people were milling around the bayfront, dancing to reggae played over the loudspeakers, signing petitions, buying T-shirts or listening to pitches from local politicians, I found Snow and the woman he’d come with putting away their gear. His green T-shirt, “Don’t be a [picture of a snowflake]” was damp with perspiration despite the overcast day.
I introduced myself as a reporter and asked if he had a few minutes to talk. He turned on the recording device on his cell phone. Why, I wondered, did he want to be here?
“Because this was a march for democracy,” he said. “I am here in support of my president. This is part of democracy. People call me a provocateur. I call myself a patriot.”
Snow told me he’d been a lifelong Democrat who voted twice for Barack Obama. Now, however, he was disillusioned with his former party, which he believed had “morphed into what is now progressive, radical liberalism.”
I thought back to my conversation with Dean Anthony about socialism. I thought about all the marchers I’d talked to along the way who’d expressed hope that activism and collaboration could bridge the partisan divide. I thought of the many people at the march wearing T-shirts with rainbow hearts that said: “We are one people, one nation. We will not be divided.”
Then I asked Snow if he could envision any way that he and, say someone like Dean Anthony, might be able to sit down together, have a respectful conversation and come to some kind of middle ground.
“That’s like saying, could Congress come to an agreement,” he scoffed. “I don’t see it.”
Contact columnist Carrie Seidman at 941-361-4834 or carrie.seidman@heraldtribune.com. Follow her on Twitter @CarrieSeidman and Facebook at facebook.com/cseidman.