Oct. 17th Our Day

Friends, sit with me a minute. I want to talk about a date on the calendar.

Not a holiday. Not a birthday. Just a Saturday in the fall that most years would pass like any other.

October 17th. Leaves coming down. Ball games on the radio. Folks raking yards and lighting the grill one more time before the cold sets in. That’s what it would be in an ordinary year.

This is not an ordinary year. This year, that Saturday belongs to us.

It belongs to the people. Not to a party. Not to a man in a big white house. Not to anybody in a mask or a uniform. It belongs to the folks who pay the taxes, raise the kids, work the jobs, and keep this country running when nobody’s watching.

They call it No Kings. I like the name. It says in two words what this country said to the world 250 years ago. We don’t do kings here. We tried that once. We sent him a letter, and then we sent him home.

That letter didn’t ask permission. It didn’t wait for a poll. It was written by ordinary men who had reached the end of their patience. They put their names on it knowing what it could cost them. That’s where this country started. With people, not with power.

Now look at where we are. This is the fourth time the people have gathered under that name. The first time, millions came. The second time, more came. The third time, in March, they say eight million stood up across the country. The largest single day of protest this nation has ever seen.

That’s not a crowd running out of steam. A tired movement shrinks every time it meets. This one grows. Every time somebody tells it to go home, more people show up.

Here’s what I’ve noticed. Nobody is surprised anymore. Ten years ago, folks couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Today, they’ve had a long time to think. They’ve sat at kitchen tables and in church pews and on front porches, and they’ve made up their minds.

They know where they stand. They know how far they’ll go. They aren’t waiting to be told. That kind of quiet is the most dangerous thing in the world to anyone who thinks he can push a people around.

Now let me give you some numbers. They tell us the immigration force has about twenty-two thousand officers and agents. That sounds like a lot. It’s twice what it was a year ago.

Now set that next to eight million people. Spread those agents over three thousand towns and cities. You get a handful per town. They can’t be everywhere. They can’t stop a country that decides to stand up all at once. Numbers like that don’t get pushed. They push.

I’ll tell you something about how this country has always handled hard times. We wait too long. We argue. We grumble at the supper table. We hope somebody else will handle it. Then one day, we stop waiting. And when we move, we move together.

That’s how we got through the Revolution. That’s how we held the Union together. That’s how the civil rights marchers crossed that bridge in Selma. It was never the government that carried us. It was the people, deciding they’d had enough.

And here’s the part folks forget. When old men move, they never move alone.

A young man watches his elders. He might not say much. He might act like he isn’t listening. But when trouble comes, he looks at the old man standing next to him. He looks right into his eyes.

What he sees there is grit. Determination. A man who has been through hard times before and isn’t backing up. And sometimes what he sees is his own father’s eyes looking back at him. That’s a measure a young man has to meet.

That’s how strength passes from one generation to the next. Not through a speech. Not through a screen. Through a look, on a street, on a day that matters. And if a young man won’t come on his own, well, we used to say he’d get grabbed by the ear. That’s the way it’s done.

So this year, I’m asking every old man reading this to bring somebody with him. A son. A grandson. A nephew. The boy down the road. Let him stand next to you and see what you’re made of. He’ll remember it the rest of his life.

Now here’s what makes this year different from the others. This time, the rally isn’t the end of the day. It’s the start of the walk.

They’re calling it No Kings, Vote Early. The idea is simple. Stand together in the morning, then walk out and cast your ballot. Bring your neighbor. Bring your sister. Bring the fellow who hasn’t voted in years because he figured it didn’t matter.

It matters. A crowd in the street shows strength. A ballot in the box makes it count. One without the other is a shout with no echo. Put them together and you have a country speaking with one voice.

Election Day is November 3rd. But you don’t have to wait. In a lot of places, the polls are already open. Find out when early voting starts where you live. Make a plan. Then keep it.

I don’t know what tricks are coming between now and then. Nobody does. But I’ll tell you this. Whatever they have planned, the people have already thought it through. We aren’t scared, and we aren’t confused. We know what needs to happen.

This country has had 250 years of hard days. Every one of them was met by ordinary folks who stood up when it counted. Farmers. Shopkeepers. Mothers. Old men and young men, side by side.

That’s who we are. That’s who we’ve always been.

So mark the calendar. Set out your good shoes. Call your kids. October 17th is coming.

It isn’t his day. It isn’t theirs.

It’s our day.

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This post was drafted with AI governed assistance and reviewed and directed by Michael S. Faust Sr. before publication.

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