Two Parades, Two Visions for the U.S.

If you are a GenX-er like me you may be very familiar with the “Choose Your Own Adventure” book series. Ubiquitous in my childhood and my personal pop culture companion to Schoolhouse Rock, I read every single book in the series multiple times. If you are not familiar, the books were written from the second-person point of view and encouraged the reader to choose the protagonist’s actions. Those choices then determined the progression of the plot and led you to various potential endings to the story, which ranged from positive or downright catastrophic.

You can probably see where I am going with this.

Saturday, June 14th felt like a real inflection point. One that highlights the stark differences between the choices this country has right now. In one 24 hour period of time, the United States was faced with diametrically opposed visions for what this country is, and can be.

On Saturday, millions of people marched in hundreds of No Kings protests across the country, in actions that were overwhelmingly peaceful, filled with calls for democracy and safety, and liberally seasoned with biting political signs. People danced, chanted, and agitated. Here in Boston the event was expansive in size and scope, bringing No Kings participants together with Pride for the People for one big party that took over a good chunk of downtown Boston. Upwards of a million people showed up to march in the parade and take part in festivals from the Common to City Hall. It was a sight to behold.

I marched too. I lead the state gun violence prevention coalition and it felt important for us to show up for Pride. Because when we talk about how all of us have a right to be safe we mean ALL of us. And when we think about what safety looks like it includes showing up for each other, being in community, and standing up for the value and dignity of every single person. A sea of rainbow colors in front and behind us, and throngs of people on either side cheering us on, we marched — and it was beautiful. It was loud, boisterous, super crowded in spite of the rain, and absolutely gorgeous. You all know the chant “this is what democracy looks like”, right? Here’s what I kept thinking yesterday:

Why can’t this be what the United States looks like?

I would be lying though if I told you that my mood was completely joyful. There was the reality of what the No Kings effort represents. There was the fact that Boston Pride’s theme was “Here to Stay”, a message of joyful defiance made necessary by the administration’s systematic attempts to erase the LGBTQ+ community. And then there was the news that hit Saturday morning of the shootings in Minnesota: the assassination of a beloved Democratic lawmaker and her husband, and the wounding of another lawmaker and his wife. That news hit me, and I suspect all of us, like a ton of bricks. It was also the very polar opposite of the path we were charting on the streets of Boston — a path towards safety for every person no matter their identity.

It was a lot to hold. And I think we as a country have to decide what vision for our future we want to hold and strive for.

While all this was happening a very different parade was taking shape in DC. The difference between the parades could not be more stark. A rainbow duck boat rolled through the streets of Boston while throngs of people cheered, chanted, and danced. But in DC, tanks rolled through the streets flanked by sparse and largely silent groups of people. In Boston, Mayor Michelle Wu kicked off the parade along with a number of our elected leaders who danced and ran through the crowds, high fiving and taking selfies with marchers. In DC, an angry looking President Trump sat flanked by the likes of JD Vance, Pete Hegseth, and a yawning Marco Rubio, waiting for the military to pay him homage in an imposed spectacle of waste and excess. As I compared the pictures from the two events, I experienced complete and total cognitive dissonance. Could this really be the same country?

Yes, it absolutely could. What happened in Boston vs. DC on Saturday represents two completely different visions for the United States, and we have some choices to make. We have to choose the next part of our adventure, and we have to challenge others to choose as well. Will people choose the vision that Boston embraced yesterday, one that brought a whole lot of people together in community and celebration? Where No Kings protestors and Pride marchers decided to show up together and for each other? (I’m under no illusion that everything was perfect in Boston and there isn’t still a hell of a lot of work to be done, but that march felt like a damn good start.)

Or will people choose the vision Trump and his enablers are forcing upon us? In that vision, spending money on performative gestures of military might takes precedence over investing in our collective health and safety. An angry and vengeful president sits silently in a city that doesn’t show up for him. A president whose demands for loyalty are the sledgehammers destroying our democratic norms and institutions. Where across the country military and law enforcement use rubber bullets, tear gas, and horses’ hoofs to overpower the protestors who seek to prevent their friends and neighbors from being disappeared. Where our elected officials get shot down in their own homes because that vision doesn’t allow for any regulation of lethal weapons.

All of those things happened on Saturday, June 14th, in the United States of America. In one 24 hour period of time, we were presented with two radically different visions for this country. And now we have some critically important decisions to make if we want to avoid the catastrophic ending to the story.

Which vision will we choose?