{"id":3053,"date":"2026-03-30T18:51:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T23:51:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/?p=3053"},"modified":"2026-03-30T18:51:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T23:51:23","slug":"what-democracy-looks-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/what-democracy-looks-like\/","title":{"rendered":"What Democracy Looks Like"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhat does democracy look like?\u201d the speaker asks from the stage of the No Kings rally<\/a> in Chicago\u2019s Grant Park<\/a> before an estimated 250,000 protesters on March 28.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what democracy looks like!\u201d they respond.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> Indeed, democracy looks like many other things, depending on time and place and the focus of the public\u2019s concern. I wrote earlier<\/a> about the Chicago Resistance<\/a> to the surge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement<\/a> (ICE) agents last fall. But a quarter of a million people from Chicago and beyond coming to one place on a cool but sunny Saturday afternoon was also democracy. It is not just voting at the ballot box (or by mail). It is also voting with your feet, with your voice, with your insistence on democratic norms and decency.<\/p>\n

It looks like veterans marching with a sign that says, \u201cVeterans Against Trump<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

It looks like Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson<\/a> telling the audience that democracy is about \u201cprotecting every person, black, brown, old, or young. It is about ending the assaults against immigrants and young people.\u201d Next year, in municipal elections, it will also be about Johnson and every candidate challenging him for re-election accepting the results of an honest, fair election, and I am sure they will, unlike the current occupant of the White House, who refuses to accept responsibility for the January 6, 2021, insurrection<\/a> or the results of that election. Democracy is not about finding ways to disempower voters<\/a> by requiring them to register in person with a raft of documents they have never needed before when all research shows that non-citizens voting<\/a> is and has long been a nonexistent problem.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It was about Illinois Lt. Gov. Julianna Stratton<\/a>, now the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, enumerating demands for affordable housing and health care, quality education, bodily autonomy, and other issues to a highly responsive audience.<\/p>\n

It is about the volunteers, medical and otherwise, who near us came to the rescue of an older woman who became nauseous and was on the ground. It is about the cheering and clapping response of those around me, my wife, and our grandson as they escorted her out of the rally to get medical attention. Democracy looks like people caring about other people.<\/p>\n

It is about the two middle-aged African American women from Indiana, whom we met afterwards at Potbelly Sandwich Works<\/a>, who discussed with us the mid-term elections and the future of our nation as we consumed an early dinner. It is about the older guy at the front of the restaurant wearing a t-shirt that read, \u201cEven my dog hates Trump.\u201d His dog sat quietly beneath him, bearing a collar that said, \u201cFDT.\u201d It is about his wry smile that spoke volumes about his joy in participating.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It looks like more than 3,000 other rally sites attracting more than 8 million people<\/a> to say no to authoritarianism and fascism and racism and sexism and many other forms of unfairness and prejudice in America. It is about all the people in the photos I am providing here from the No Kings Rally III in Chicago.<\/p>\n

Jim Schwab<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhat does democracy look like?\u201d the speaker asks from the stage of the No Kings rally in Chicago\u2019s Grant Park before an estimated 250,000 protesters on March 28. \u201cThis is what democracy looks like!\u201d they respond. Indeed, democracy looks like many other things, depending on time and place and the focus of the public\u2019s concern. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3058,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[76,49,243,178,138,368,226,2481,1205],"tags":[2126,383,2486,40,2316,2483,1626,2387,2345,2482,72,475,2484,1214,2485,1956],"class_list":["post-3053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activism","category-chicago","category-civil-rights","category-government","category-immigration","category-personal-history","category-racism","category-veterans","category-volunteerism","tag-brandon-johnson","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-resistance","tag-democracy","tag-donald-trump","tag-fascism","tag-grant-park","tag-ice","tag-january-6-insurrection","tag-no-kings","tag-protest","tag-rally","tag-save-act","tag-veterans","tag-voters","tag-voting-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3053"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3059,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053\/revisions\/3059"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}