Livonia – A month removed from the well-attended “No Kings” protest that air-dropped about 5,000 pissed-off gerontic geezers into the Five Mile and Farmington intersection, the city’s cantankerous elders charged up their hearing aids and hit the streets again for the “Good Trouble” protest.
This time in two locations—Five and Farmington as well as Haggerty at Schoolcraft College—and running consecutively from 1 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., as per usual, the attendees skewed heavily 65+.
And their motivation remained unchanged and constant: deep anger and neurotic derangement over President Donald J. Trump, the man and his policies.
It’s time we all agreed America has a Boomer problem. Six months into Trump 2.0, the nation has now been subjected to a constantly recurring civil-rights era cosplay on behalf of our senior citizens.
It’s getting more than a little embarrassing, if not depressing.
Watching our elders beclown themselves, I’m feeling less pity and more cringe-inducing annoyance—and thankful my old man isn’t taking part in this field trip into insanity.
The protests are named “Good Trouble” after a famous quote by the late congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis. But some unfortunate—albeit hilarious—irony exists deep within the symbolism of Lewis’s legacy.
Setting aside all his achievements—Freedom Rider, present at Selma, his organizing the March on Washington, and over three decades in the House of Representatives—Lewis became a moody asshole in his later years.
“Heresy!” liberals will yell.
But Lewis became so angry and unhinged during his final two decades that even President Barack Obama had to disagree with Lewis in 2008, when Lewis compared John McCain to George Wallace.
An even deeper irony is the inconvenient fact that most of the boomers present for “Good Trouble” were white.
Why does that matter? John Lewis owes his entire political career to Southern white liberals who carried him to his first House seat victory in Georgia’s 5th district in 1986. Lewis was not popular with black voters, who much preferred Julian Bond, an upstart socialist with deep ties to the NAACP. Bond beat Lewis in the Democrat primary, but Lewis prevailed in the run-off thanks to white suburban voters who frowned on Bond’s well-known socialist politics.
Fast forward several decades, and it makes all the sense in the world that aggrieved white suburban baby boomers—desperately searching for one last virtuous moment of self-righteousness would reach back to Lewis’s legacy.
But as with the No Kings protests weeks earlier, all of this is performative bullshit.
Attendees carried the same homemade signs decrying fascism, lamenting the loss of civil rights, and making accusatory declarations of unamerican behavior and racism towards immigrants—omitting the reality of unfettered mass illegal immigration over the last four years.
The fact is, these people don’t really care about the plight of immigrants, legal or otherwise. They don’t have any fear of a fascism, real or perceived. They don’t even really care about civil rights, and it’s quite evident why.
If any of their deepest fears were actualized, and democracy was dying under a tyrannical fascist regime, with their rights being stripped away in real time, the Baby Boomers would be home hiding under their kitchen tables.
How do I know this?
Because during the pandemic, healthy Baby Boomers completely lost their minds, willingly accepted and embraced any and all government overreach, restrictions, and self-isolated away from their loved ones, all while the true victims of the pandemic—children—suffered immeasurable learning loss and mental health decline.
The hubris of the Baby Boomer generation to have the temerity to protest a duly elected president enacting a popular agenda he campaigned on—and accuse him of fascism—after embracing a level of government tyranny unheard of in U.S. history nauseates me as I write this.
Indeed, I traversed the Five and Farmington “Good Trouble” protest to observe a smaller but equally energetic crowd. Like the No Kings rally, their euphoria betrayed the narrative of an oppressed people.
Also similar to the No Kings assembly, the elected liberal echelon of Livonia made themselves conveniently scarce. I spied not one current city official present—clever given the current political tension around a proposed $150 million millage for a new downtown.
However, the more progressive (and partisan) members of the Michigan House and Senate were present. State Sen. Dayna Polehanki was quite friendly to this journalist on the scene but had no comment for Enjoyer. State Rep. Laurie Pohutsky was also present, talking with attendees.
Before the event ended at 7:30 p.m.—just in time for the pensioners to get home for Law & Order SVU—an uncomfortable moment occurred.
A lone counter-protester drove by, parked, and briefly argued with the Good Trouble Gang. He also appeared elderly, wore a hat indicating he was a Vietnam veteran, and also, in fairness, appeared slightly unstable. The anger and venomous verbal attacks from the crowd were instant and startling.
“You’re a loser! You’re a racist! Betrayer!” screamed Boomer Grandmas.
A chill ran down my spine. I’ve seen this before in old grainy footage from the 1960s and ‘70s: Young counter-cultural liberals shouting at soldiers returning home from Vietnam with breathtaking intensity.
The instinctive ease with which boomer liberals instantly erupted in hatred shook me down to my marrow.
Jay Murray is a writer for Michigan Enjoyer and has been a Metro Detroit-based professional investigator for 22 years. Follow him on X @Stainless31.
