Several hundred Vermonters, including Yours Truly, gathered at the corner of State and Main in downtown Montpelier for a Saturday morning protest against Orange Hitler and his gang. It was a lively event, and impressive considering that it was apparently organized at the last minute. (We’d been monitoring the 50501 website for events in the area, and we didn’t see a Montpelier rally on the schedule until late in the week.) Also considering that it started raining about halfway through the scheduled hour-long honk-and-wave. Most people stuck it out until noon, although some of their signs looked a bit worse for wear.
We got an encouraging response from passing vehicles, many of which honked their support and got enthusiastic cheers in return. It was a beautiful thing.
Do gatherings like this matter? Do they make a difference? I can’t prove that they do, but they’re better than the alternative of not doing something.
The Vermont Political Observer. 
I agree that demonstrations like this are better than “not doing something” in the sense that they let people who are fearful, depressed, traumatized, or worse know that their neighbors (and neighbors around the country) care about them and about what Trump and Co. are doing to our country.
That said, I think the residents of our “Brave Little State” could and should do something much larger and more courageous— a statewide walkout during a weekday, led by union workers, K-12 students and their parents, government workers and their elected officials, business owners and their employees, in short everyone! It doesn’t have to be a long workout that would harm our local business owners; it need only be an action that shows how truly widespread the opposition to Trump is in our brave little state.
It’s a great idea. I think it would require a more robust movement infrastructure. Right now, I believe the Vermont chapter of 50501 consists of seven or eight people. It’s a shoestring operation, and miraculous that it works as well as it does. See my “Doing Something” entry for Sunday 4/20.