Lilith and I walked in Waikiki yesterday evening, she with her sandwich sign "DOGE" (with the E crossed out) and I in my Jack Smith fan club shirt (though it was my Cards cap that earned me a fist bump from a deluded tourist, who thinks they'll be good this year). We were mostly older people who remember. In response to a sign welcoming Canadian tourists, a couple stopped to talk about tariffs and to say they feel for us in the USA. An Australian woman who missed her dog, displayed on her phone, said she's sorry for us.
And then: the tall young white man who walked down the line of protesters yelling "pussy" in their faces.
More young men, telling us to clear off the sidewalk as the police came, at least a dozen of them. "How many policemen does it take to change a light bulb in Waikiki? All of them." The young ones, and they were mostly young, look like my son. I want to hug them.
A woman who looked at Joe's sign, which included an image of Musk saluting fascistically, and said he'd done that out of love. Her face wrinkled with concern. She'd seen it on tv. (Joe said he had, too.) When we got to her claim that Obama had done it, too, we knew we were in deep--nay, shallow--water, and she wandered off.
A man who yelled at us about government fraud and waste. When I told him it was my turn to speak and said, "Musk is just taking our money," he responded, "Musk doesn't need your money." "Oh yes he does," said Joe.
A woman with a red-capped husband and small blonde child, dressed in a red wrap of some sort, who chanted "TRUMP" and waved her fist in the air. She tried to get her child to do same, but the little girl did not. I saw her from the back, this confused child, and felt some tenderness toward her (as I do for Musk's small boy).
A man who said Trump is wonderful (two shakas worth) and makes America strong in the world. I said "Europe doesn't seem to think so." "I'm European he said; you should try living there. It's turning Muslim." "I live here," I said.
The security guard who told A. there should be no cussing, because children were around.
A, who at dinner said of the woman who served us burgers, "she didn't vote. She can't. She was a felon."
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