Pretty good turnout in Bothell, counter had over 600 which is a good number given the rain in the morning and the unavoidable timing against Easter. It’s not what we had two weeks ago, but again, conflicts and worse conditions. Still a bit larger than the 2018-era protests, so I’d call that another win.

There were still people on the far downtown bridge, too. There were just gaps in the crowd between us and them.

I’d post pics but I totally forgot my phone, oops. And I actually did, not “lol no phone oops” did.

There was one (1) counter-protestor/heckler on the ground; he didn’t like my “NO KINGS” signs at all and started ranting about how Biden was the real “king” they got rid of. He didn’t have a sign himself and stayed pretty far back; I came across him accidentally while walking around testing our FRS radio range.

(As an aside: FRS handheld radios are f’real, team. Consider getting some and getting practice with them. No license needed, they’re channelised so can’t be used against you as “police scanners,” the range is shockingly good, and even with prices going up they’re super affordable. Ignore the only review on that Best Buy link; those are the exact model we bought. If you want to spend a little more you can get the T30 version, which has a headset and I think is rechargeable, but is otherwise pretty much the same radio and only comes in black. We specifically wanted replaceable batteries for extended-blackout reasons. Just remember: they are NOT private. Just relatively obscure.)

As with every other protest here, we had overwhelming support from the vehicle crowd. Hundreds to one in favour, easily, just like in person. I even got support from a presumably embarrassed Tesla driver.

I don’t know if there were more Bothell PD out this time, or if it just felt like there were. Might’ve been a difference in crowd to cop ratio, might’ve just been the escalating situation, might’ve just been where they were standing. But I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

Keep on your toes. Even here, the cops are Trump’s friends.

Anyway, that’s it for this week’s report, I hope your protests went well. Remember to save the date for May 1st, and to turn out at your local Tesla Takedown or similar before then, too. Momentum is everything, and we need to keep it.

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April 5th went really well. Here’s Shoreline News coverage, here’s the Seattle Times front page, here’s Seattle’s KING-5 coverage. I posted a bunch of photos here, here, here, here, here, and here. Also, it was loud, in a good way.

Now we need to build on the momentum. The next national protest – the next April 5th – is weekend after next, April 19th. ETA: 50501 were calling for a national, but watch for local efforts and join up with them – this one may end up being regionally variant.

Local groups are starting to fill out their data, particularly in New England. (It’s the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord in the American Revolution.) But be as ready as possible, and go ahead and reserve the day now.

And if you can make a Tesla Takedown protest before then, do it.

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Here’s a page with a bunch of Hands Off!-specific protest signs for this weekend. If you don’t have one you can print those and paste them onto foamcore or similar to have some signs to carry around.

Signs are good, I recommend them.

Here are a couple I made – I was thinking I might just use one of the two I already had, but the ones that weren’t super-specific to Musk are kinda small, so. Honestly they’re not really my best work, but if you don’t like the Hands Off! ones you might give them a look. I do like the Trump-as-Disney’s-Prince-John cartoon, I must say.

If you haven’t found a protest near you yet, here’s where you can find them. Go to the web site, find a protest – and for the gods’ sakes, show up.

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