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It was a beautiful day for a protest. We took public transit (the new B-Line BRT Bus) over to one of the rally points, and then marched from there to the capitol. It took over 45 minutes before we even started walking in earnest towards the capitol. When we arrived, the entire green space in front of the building was rapidly filling in, and by the time the speakers had started it was completely filled in. I greatly enjoyed reading all the clever (“For the Epsteinth Time…”), and not so clever signs that were brought to the rally.

I can’t find any estimates of the crowd size other than the organizers saying it was 200,000 people, and MPR having reported that at least 80,000 were expected. It was quite a bit larger than the previous rallies we had attended.

Being amongst 100,000 of your neighbors cheering and singing and chanting is exciting enough but the lineup of speakers and performers was extra special today, including some big names like Bruce Springsteen, Maggie Rogers, Joan Baez, Tom Morello, Bernie Sanders and Jane Fonda. I’m not sure I’ll ever see anything quite like it again.

There is a popular theory that for a mass resistance movement to affect the government it needs to mobilize 3.5% of the population. In the last presidential election in Minnesota there were about 3.2 million votes cast. If a conservative estimate of the crowd size today was 100,000 people, we’re getting pretty close to that 3.5% number.

3.5% of Minnesota’s 18+ population is 157,500. We’ve got a ways to go until the next election, but everyone needs to get out to vote!