I was just about to order my first coffee of the afternoon when my friend Alice the Anarchist rushed into Caffeination and yelled: “Barista, a fresh round of coffee for everyone, it’s all on me!” (The two other customers were elated.)
I changed my order to a double while Alice ordered her usual triple espresso. Asked if she was celebrating the No Kings march we just left, she sipped first, then answered:
“Yes, a great day in the history of anarchism. There must have been 75,000 people marching down Market Street, most of them anarchists, socialists, and anti-fascists, according to Mike Johnson.” (According to other sources who actually attended the march in our city, the party affiliation—or lack of it—of most participants could not be determined. They didn’t wear their affiliation on their coat sleeves; most didn’t even wear coats; the weather was warm.)
I wondered whether the Republican speaker of the House had seen her or anyone else marching in San Francisco.
“Are you doubting the words of Mike Johnson?” she asked, “I suppose I should, too. There were probably some moderate Democrats in the crowd, a number of independents, Greens, two or three Republicans in Name Only. But the day before protesters rallied across the country, Mike Johnson told the press in Washington, D.C. that our marches would “bring together the Marxists, the Socialists, the Antifa advocates, the anarchists, and the pro-Hamas wing of the Far-Left Democratic party.” He didn’t allow that there would be anyone to the right of Emma Goldman or Angela Davis in the crowd.”
I noted that Angela Davis did join us and spoke to the marchers in San Francisco’s Civic Center. She called for all sorts of progressive action. But judging from the diversity of the crowd, the multitude of different slogans and puns on posters, and the range of animal costumes worn, with some people dressed as dinosaurs, frogs, pandas, bananas, the crowd embodied a variety of views. Some of the participants may have thought the event was an early Halloween party, and perhaps it was.
That would explain why so few of the anarchists present wore their traditional all-black clothing and didn’t form a “black bloc;” they were trying out new Halloween costumes.
Alice conceded that Mike Johnson’s assessment was inaccurate; the marchers were not all anarchists, Marxists, or Democrats, although a majority seemed to prefer democracy and Constitutional law to a government by and for billionaires.
We agreed most of Speaker Johnson’s views on the Left and the current government shutdown are questionable, or downright wrong, although he is unlikely to admit it.
Overhearing us, one of the other customers in the cafe, a hot chocolate drinker named Diana, suggested that the MAGA Republican party—which speaker Johnson represents—may deserve thanks for bringing the many different left-liberal-centrist Democrats, Independents, and even-Republican voters into a new movement (“united front”), going forward.
”And they all marched with us today,” said Diana, “who would have imagined that Republicans could be such effective united front organizers?!!”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Alice admitted. She told the barista: “Give the woman another cup of chocolate if she wants it.”
But Alice remained most grateful that the House Speaker had predicted some anarchists and anti-fascists would participate in the parade. Otherwise, her comrades might have gone almost unacknowledged or unnoticed among the dinosaurs, giant bananas and tens of thousands of other marchers carrying signs opposed to monarchs, Mike Johnson’s extremism and Donald Trump’s autocracy.
Joel Schechter has written several books on satire
