Strategies for a lasting blue wave: The Gettysburg approach
Our protests should be YES to justice. YES to human and civil rights. YES to peace. YES to freedom. YES to the rule of law. YES to reason and rational thought. YES to education. YES to health...
You know the inspiring, rejuvenating No Kings protest in Gettysburg that I wrote about? To my surprise — and relief! — that momentum is still going.
A neighbor I didn’t know invited me to connect with a local Facebook group called Blue Storm Action. This turns out to be the planning “committee” for protests in town. Leadership of the group works long hours, unpaid, juggling full-time jobs, families, official political involvement, church and synagogue activities. And this.
I joined just in time to get an invitation to Friday afternoon’s event.
As rejuvenating as the protest was, the Blue Storm Action meeting was better. The two hour event went beyond chants and waving posters, to thinking out loud about what we wish to achieve, and how we want to go about reaching our goals. Since I benefited so greatly from the exchange of ideas, and from the challenges presented, it seemed reasonable to document them here. If you want to talk to the people I mention here (first name only), please send me a message and I will pass along your contact information. Every community needs leadership like this.
Opening topic of discussion is specific to Gettysburg. Last week I posted a Substack Note about the violence against protesters that the Adams County sheriff advocates. He tricked out his Dodge Ram with “blood” and captioned the photo, “The All-New Dodge Ram Protester Edition.” Despite massive letter-writing, phone-calling, and public objections to Sheriff James Muller’s disgusting antics, the Republican County Commissioner will not take action.
So — step one of ensuring lasting change: Start with issues specific to your locality. It does us no good to “win” on the national level if MAGA controls local politics. With a sheriff like this, Adams County, Pennsylvania has a long row to hoe.
As a corollary to this issue, someone asked whether our immigrant community is safe, whether there’s news about goings-on here. We have to ask, because we have not seen massive convoys of unmarked “ICE” vehicles in town. Angela, our fearless leader, said she had heard a report about a family of American citizens from Honduras that had been arrested by ICE.
The response to that was immediate and fierce. Almost as one, the 30-40 of us gathered asked her to post such reports to the group’s Facebook page, so we can take unified action.
Before diving into serious conversation, we sang a couple of “protest” songs. If you’re in charge of your local 50501 or No Kings or Hands Off protests, I strongly recommend adding a sing-along to your planning sessions and to your protests as well. It lifts the mood in a powerful way.
The next segment took a deep dive into the topics of political violence and de-escalating same. The speaker runs a mediation service in town. She personally serves as a volunteer mediator during protest marches, No Kings, Hands Off, and otherwise. She’s tasked with handling potentially volatile situations. [If your town could use this sort of mediation, let me know and I will put you in touch with Patti.]
Patti’s first handout is entitled “Declaration Rejecting Political Violence.” Following is full text of that declaration.
We, the undersigned citizens of Adams and Franklin Counties in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, given our concern for the current divisive political climate, do hereby declare our unwavering commitment to the rule of law, and to a peaceful, non-violent society, especially in the conduct of our political expression, campaigns, and elections.
Our nation thrives when citizens engage in a civil and robust exchange of opinions in a free marketplace of ideas. We have diverse backgrounds and political beliefs, and we demonstrate our commitment to acknowledging and expressing those differences without fear or intimidation. We are committed to mutual respect, reasoned dialogue, and compromise. We are stronger when we talk to each other, and when we engage with each other with open minds. When our differences seem overwhelming and apparently cannot be resolved otherwise, we pledge to seek a resolution by mediation or in the courts — with brute facts, not brute force.
This Declaration reflects our commitment to supporting a society where political conflicts are resolved without violence and where political actions or disappointments do not lead to threats, verbal or otherwise, or actual harm to persons or property. We encourage all citizens to join with us and to indicate their agreement with these principles by their public affirmation of this Declaration. [© Uniting to Prevent Political Violence, Urban Rural Action, Mediation Services of Adams County, Inc.] — I publicly affirm these principles.
My takeaways from Patti’s discussion.
This is not about who’s right and who’s wrong. This is about keeping the debate civil.
Nothing about the Declaration Rejecting Political Violence suggests that we must seek to ‘find common ground’ or agree with everyone or mask our strongly-held beliefs merely to avoid confrontation. Rather, it’s saying we can be civil even with those with whom we have very little common ground, that we can agree about nothing and still be civil.
This also does not suggest or recommend that we close our eyes to injustice, that we do not step in when someone is acting unconstitutionally or is depriving another of their civil or human rights.
Patti gave a couple of specific examples from the No Kings protest. First, she encountered three very big men wearing MAGA gear. She approached them — not to tell them to leave, not to insult them, not to roll her eyes at them. Rather, she asked them, “Sooo, what brings you out today?” Asked in a friendly tone of voice.
Instead of responding belligerently — which likely would have happened had she told them to leave, insulted them, or rolled her eyes at them — they were caught off guard. “We are here, exercising our First Amendment rights.” They were likely trying to goad her. But.
“Wonderful!,” was her response. “That’s what we’re doing as well. Stay as long as you like! We need more Americans who do just that!”
The second example came from a different perspective. Someone radioed her that there was a skirmish brewing on the other side of the square. She arrived, decked out in her neon orange “Mediator” vest, only to find that it was someone she knew well, who was berating another person.
As she observed for a few seconds before jumping in feet first, she realized that her friend was going at it with one of her friends. No skirmish on the horizon. They were not fighting, they were talking — loudly, animatedly — in their preferred communication mode. Patti did ask them to calm down, since that level of animation could be mistaken and misused to start a conflagration.
Her point: Listen, don’t assume. The goal is NOT to limit free speech. The goal? To encourage free speech without violence.
Then she gave us a quick tutorial in how we can de-escalate, even without becoming a certified mediator. 1) Step up, play the role. 2) Step back, create space. 3) Step in, be curious. 4) Step out, plan exit.
STEP UP – PLAY THE ROLE.
If you’re not ready or able to do the three steps that follow this one, you shouldn’t initiate this step! And note: Every time I write “you,” I mean me.
Conflict resolution requires that you, as peacekeeper, put yourself in between two or more people who are engaged in conflict, even if it’s “only” words. If you’re going to have a chance at preventing violence, you must be willing to listen to both sides. This is hard in today’s political climate. But if a MAGA person and a diehard Democrat are going at it, you can’t take the side of the Democrat if you want to defuse the situation.
It’s critical to listen first. To prevent escalation, you’ve got to take your own emotions out of the equation. If you go in as “peacemaker” and ally yourself with one of those arguing, you’ll only make things worse. It’s better to stay out altogether if you can’t accomplish this step.
STEP BACK – CREATE SPACE.
Literally. Once you’ve stepped up to resolve a conflict, you cannot be in the faces of the combatants. Step back, both physically and emotionally.
Patti recommends silence as a valid tool. “Let silence do some of the work. It feels awkward, yet it can give people room to think and respond with less tension. It’s more powerful than it seems.”
One of my Math professors at TCU taught us to wait at least three minutes before assuming students we were teaching were truly stumped. He noted that typically, teachers and professors wait three seconds before answering a question they have posed. Dr. Addis encouraged us to understand that thinking takes time. Demanding an immediate response kills any opportunity for students to think about their answer.
The same holds true when defusing conflict. Allow emotional space.
And allow physical space. None of us reacts positively if a so-called peacemaker is two inches away from our nose! Patti recommended taking two steps back. You’re still close enough to talk, but not violating their space.
Part of this section: Ask “curious” questions. What brings you out today instead of why are you here. — What do you need from me instead of what the hell are you doing. — Can you say more about that instead of accusing them of not listening.
STEP IN – BE CURIOUS.
Assume you don’t know the whole story. If you demonstrate that you are listening — not just to the person you “agree with,” but in general — and if you turn down the temperature as you ask questions, you can lower their defenses, which in turn calms things down.
This step includes “neutral” body language. Open hands. Palms up. Soft facial expression. Slight smile.
As Patti talked about this, it reminded me of the way that we convince small children and dogs that we are not dangerous. If we tower over them, or hold our hands in a way that makes them fear we’ll strike them, or if we speak aggressively, both dogs and small children will run away. We’ve learned to bend down to their level, to hold our hands out palms up, to wait for them to come to us, to speak softly.
We are quite good at knowing how to deal with dogs and children. Yet woefully awful when it comes to our fellow citizens.
STEP OUT – PLAN EXIT.
“Plan a graceful exit,” Patti says. You may or may not have defused the situation. Either way, the last thing they see or hear should be positive. “Shifting your energy matters as much as your words. They will remember how they felt, not what you said.”
When Patti opened the floor for Q&A, the questions poured like a river. What should I have done about the MAGA guy who kept getting too close to me from behind, no matter how often I moved away? What do we do when MAGA shows up and starts shouting, Fuck you! If we see people not joining in but merely photographing the crowd, how should we handle it?
All very specific examples that had happened to individuals on June 14, 2025.
Then more. What about people ‘on our side’ who show up to our protests with vulgar signage? What about when people endanger our permits by getting in the street or bothering those in local businesses or bringing megaphones to the protest?
Patti sadly had to demonstrate her mediation skills at this point, as one guy — on our “side,” that is, not MAGA!, but an otherwise good guy — hijacked the conversation with a strongly-held opinion that permits should not be voidable. The opinion itself wasn’t controversial. It was the hijacking of the conversation that disrupted the meeting. We watched her put her concepts into action.
I appreciated the woman who answered the pre-hijack questions by saying she tried to inject humor into tense situations. Not “humor as form of political dissent.” Rather, disarming belligerence with humor. If you are good at cracking wise, this could be a good way to defuse a potential bomb.
Patti’s heart-to-heart segued nicely into the final focus of the day: Protests as Art. When Angela announced Tim’s topic, I silently rolled my eyes.
Oh my word! I learned so much!
PROTESTS AS ART
Tim encouraged all of us to be aware of optics, to understand that our protests are visual and visceral. We are players on a stage and non-protesters are the audience. Our goal is to convince the audience to join our cause.
This does NOT mean we should be fake. This does NOT mean we’re putting on a false face. This does NOT mean we’re one thing today and another tomorrow. Unlike a theater troupe, we aren’t play-acting. We are dead serious.
But if our visual says, “We hate people who disagree with us…” If our optics proclaim, “What you believe does not matter to me…” If we project, “You have to agree with us to be part of our America…” If we ignore visuals and optics and projections, we have lost. Not “we will lose.” But “we have lost.”
If we make our protests about MAGA, or about Trump, or about Musk, or anything else that someone on “the other side” may hold dear, we have put up a barrier that will be difficult to tear down. Thank you, Tim, for saying this out loud.
Our protests should be YES to justice. YES to human and civil rights. YES to peace. YES to freedom. YES to the rule of law. YES to reason and rational thought. YES to education. YES to health. YES to democracy. YES to due process. YES to good government.
We’re far more likely to flip independents if we focus on justice, human and civil rights, peace, freedom, rule of law, reason and rational thought, education, health, democracy, due process, good government, than if we focus on anti-Trump, anti-Musk, anti-MAGA.
We should let some things go unsaid so the greater message is heard.
Heartfelt thank-you to Angela and the others who work silently behind the scenes to get permits, defuse arguments within the group of protesters, plan, encourage, and keep tired and angry people motivated. With a zero dollar budget. Their commitment is making a difference.
Edited to add/correct: « … while BSA [Blue Storm Action] has been in the “protest business” for years now, ACDC [Adams County Democratic Committee] is the current sponsor and permit holder for the active protests since April. Thank you for sharing! I hope this inspires more people to come to the meet ups! We work hard to put together engaging and educational (and factual) content! » From P.P. in BSA leadership.
© 2025 Denise Elaine Heap. Please message me for permission to quote or to contact Angela, Patti, or Tim.
Now More Than Ever is a reader-supported publication. To receive email notifications regarding new posts, and to amplify my voice here on Substack, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
If you’d simply like to leave a tip for this specific post, I would be grateful!
This was one of your best (and most universally applicable) posts yet, Denise. Patti’s declaration was powerful. Would that we all could apply these principles in our daily lives.
Interesting... "Sandra" who found this so very funny (!) also blocked me. Brave, isn't she?