It struck me when looking at photographic roundups of last weekend’s No Kings protests how inhospitable much of the U.S. is to protesting. I’m not referring to any kind of violence or public pressure, but the actual geography of where people assemble. Yes, there are lots of photos of people meeting either in large urban centers that are accessible by mass transit like Boston, Chicago, New York and so on. We also see some protests in traditional town centers, such as in front of a state capitol or in a local ‘urban-ish’ park.

But many of the protests are just people meeting up at street corners or standing along the side of the road–and I’m pretty certain these protests are not well-served by mass transit. But people showed up anyway! Good job America!

But when we read that 4-6 million people attended–and remember that D.C. intentionally wasn’t in the mix*–it’s all the more impressive because the U.S. landscape in many, if not most, parts of the country isn’t conducive to protest, or traveling to the protest. And these still might have been the largest protests in U.S. history**.

No idea what the future holds, but Trump et alia aren’t popular.

*A few hundred people did converge on Lafayette Park, but that’s just another day for the park akshually.

**It’s unclear at this time if the Women’s Marches in 2017 were larger.