On Sunday night, August 13, 300 people from a wide range of political perspectives came out in downtown Houston to denounce racism, hate, white supremacy and Trump. A handful of fascists stood across the street watching. The vigil was called by the local Democratic Socialists of America chapter.
Some of the speakers and people more generally talked about how Trump and his government is fascist more openly than they had before. A volunteer with Refuse Fascism read a part of the flyer from the stage, and he got a lot of applause when he called out the regime as fascists, and said that the Trump/Pence regime has got to go.
A few people thought that the call for Nov 4th is crazy, and that people should be focused on electing Democrats; some others expressed fear that calling people out into the streets would only increase the violence of the fascist base.
But mostly people agreed that this nightmare must end, but said they need to checkout refusefascism.org and would think about signing up for the regional meeting.
Almost everyone got a copy of “This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go” flyer. One woman started crying when she read it and said, “finally, I hope this nightmare can end”. Some of the people who came up to get the flyer had a couple of months ago said that the call from Refuse Fascism was too radical, too extreme. An Indivisible activist said that after Charlottesville, he thinks he gets it now – that this regime is not going to stop all this hatred and violence on their own, and people have to stop this fascism, but then asked, can the people be strong enough to drive the Trump/Pence regime out? An older man who wanted to find out more about Nov 4th, said that he was embarrassed to say, but that he had voted for Trump, but now sees how Trump is making all that has been wrong with America to be normal and worse