The Exhilaration of Authentic Patriotism

By Nancy Colasurdo

“Nancy, you’re alive!”

I was met with this joyous exclamation by a young barista at a café I frequent when she saw me after the No Kings march in New York City.

I had to laugh at the sweetness of the expression, but I knew what was underneath the earnest outpouring that turned all eyes on me as I entered the establishment. We had talked about the marches around the country a few days before, as she made my coffee, and she was fearful about potential MAGA-incited violence.

Frankly, so was I.

The Felon-in-Chief has been itching for a fight, mostly shining his nasty light on California, seemingly as a test pilot for a martial law plot point outlined in Project 2025. I was markedly nervous about it, nervous enough that when my friend Susan and I lost other Hoboken people en route and I realized we were sort of “on our own” – among thousands -- I had to take a deep breath and tell myself it would be OK.

And it was. More than OK, in fact.

I came away feeling exhilarated, in community with like-minded citizens, inspired, patriotic, and utterly soaking wet and exhausted.

It’s worth backing up a bit for context. As a working journalist, I could never ethically participate in a protest or march because it was not an objective exercise. I once had a newspaper editor tell me if I joined NOW I’d never write another thing about women’s causes for the paper. A decade later while freelancing at a different major media outlet, I self-policed and decided if I let a certain prominent wealthy woman fly me to Chicago and put me up in a hotel, I could never write about her again.

I take ethics seriously.

But once I started writing opinion pieces in a changing country, one that teetered and landed in a place where so many of our beloved norms are under siege, I decided that self-employed meant I only had to report to myself and satisfy my own standards. I adjusted to the times.

Unless you count the fun Washington, D.C. Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear by Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart in 2010, my first marching experience was the Women’s March in 2017. It was inconceivable that this misogynist, racist man had just been elected to run our country and I had to get out there.

Now here we are in 2025 and he’s back, far worse. On April 5 of this year we had a Hands Off! national day of action and I marched the same route as June 14 – Manhattan’s Bryant Park to Gramercy Park -- only this time there were no signs mocking, ripping, or asking for the dismissal of Elon Musk.

That told me a lot. Did we singlehandedly send him packing? Not with a march. But he’s out of the federal government, where he was doing untold damage in a haphazard manner. His businesses started feeling the pain of our unrest and boycotting. A groundswell made the difference.

It’s like exercise. You don’t do it once and then say, oh look, it didn’t do anything. You keep at it. It’s a layered endeavor.

This time the focus was immigration, and more specifically, what an absolute abomination ICE has become under this administration. No kings, and no bullies wearing uniforms and masks to drag people out of school, church, or Home Depot.

Voices work. Raise them to the rafters. We kicked Elon’s ass to the curb. Young and old. Steady and rickety.

When I saw at this march a woman older than me on a cane, walking with a confident stride and a sign, I was impressed. After two knee replacements, I had shied away from carrying a sign because I didn’t want to overload myself.

After seeing two more people on walkers, I shook my head in awe and had to resist calling myself a sissy. I’m proud I was there, putting one foot in front of the other on storied Fifth Avenue. But don’t you just love when others make you reflect and challenge yourself to try harder next time?

I have seen countless social media exchanges minimizing the marches, questioning what they accomplished. I can assure anyone with similar questions, it is one thing to see The Felon’s sagging poll numbers; it is quite another to see for yourself the enthused, chanting faces behind those numbers. Particularly while his parade – apologies to the Army, but he made it his -- in Washington, D.C. fails miserably.

We encountered nothing but kindness as we forged on in the steady rain in New York City. Good-natured exchanges with people hoisting clever signs as we passed the Empire State Building, its tip invisible in the fog. Police officers lined up against a building near the end of the route.

Peace all around, as excess water dripped off the hood of my rain poncho onto my nose for the 10^th time.

I was indeed still alive.