The Power of Community from Sea to Shining Sea

“Get a job!” Drivers yelled as they passed by, as if the people holding picket signs and chanting in the streets hadn’t already spent their day scrubbing hospital floors, answering phones, or sweating through double shifts. 

I, too, have a job. After eight hours of filing mind-numbing paperwork at a personal care unit outside of Reading, Pennsylvania, I could’ve driven home, kicked off my shoes, and let Netflix lull me into the evening. Instead, I drove down Route 17 in Paramus, New Jersey, to stand outside a Tesla dealership, because while I have a job, Musk and his billionaire buddies were busy making sure it barely pays the bills.

These gritty grassroots demonstrations across the country are small protests within a growing global movement. Organized by Chris McGowan, the Tesla Takedown is an effort to stop the actions of Elon Musk and protect American democracy.

The March 12 demonstration took place on a strip of grass wedged between the highway and the parking lot. At 4:00 PM, we were just a small group — a handful of determined individuals gripping signs, raising our voices, and holding our ground. As the minutes passed, so did the hesitation of passersby. By five, our numbers swelled to more than 100 — proof that resistance can take root and grow when we take a stand.

Demonstrators were pissed, and they weren’t pretending otherwise. There was a raw, palpable sense of purpose in the air, and chants were loud and unfiltered. “Elon Musk has got to go, hey hey, ho ho!”

Several passing drivers shouted condescending comments — “get a job” or “fuck you” — but the crowd didn’t flinch. Instead, protestors responded with a chant and battle cry: “ain’t no power like the power of the people, ‘cause the power of the people doesn’t stop.”

The movement in resistance to Elon Musk is personal for so many in our communities. “Elon Musk wants to cut Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare,” McGowan told demonstrators, his voice cutting through the noise. “Instead, we should tax him and tax billionaires. We need to support working people.” The words rang sharp and unvarnished, hitting close to home for those around me — teachers with tired eyes, young activists in worn-out sneakers, parents holding toddlers on their hips.

People weren’t there for any reason but because this fight is stitched into our daily lives. When McGowan spoke about Social Security, the older couple beside me clenched their hands a little tighter. When he talked about Medicaid, the woman in scrubs holding a sign that read "Patients Over Profits" nodded, a grim look on her face.

I couldn’t agree more with McGowan. These are real lives, real families, real people who depend on important government programs. I’ve seen what happens when billionaires buy politicians, when they worm their way into policy meetings and turn human lives into budget lines. I’ve watched people ration medication because their insurance wouldn’t cover it. I’ve seen working-class families break apart under the weight of medical debt. Now Musk — fresh off his latest political power grab — is using his billions to bankroll policies that would strip away what little security working families have left.

Others spoke up, too. “My mom’s on Social Security,” said Niamh O'Hara, from Tappan, New York. “I’m worried about Musk dismantling it.” 

“Tesla stock is in free fall, as it should be. The Americans know our nation is not for sale,” said another demonstrator, Abigail. She’d driven from Stony Point, New York, and her words rang with the frustration of a generation sick of watching as their future is auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Musk can buy all the politicians he wants, but at the end of the day, we the people are the ones who have to deal with the fallout. From what I could tell, more and more people were waking up to that fact. “Over 100 people on a Wednesday afternoon, in the middle of nowhere. That’s not insignificant,” Abigail said. Many people honked in support as they drove by — even if they couldn’t attend the protest, they got it.

Janet, a protester from New Jersey, had been holding a sign for hours. In one moment summed up everything, she looked at me and said, “I’m just outraged at what’s happening right now. It’s wrong on so many levels, and I’m doing my tiny, tiny bit that I can to protest.” To her and so many others, this action was about standing up against something that felt fundamentally broken. Even if it felt like a small gesture, it mattered.

More than a condemnation of Musk, the movement represented a rejection of the whole system that allows him and people like him to thrive while the rest of us are left to pick up the pieces.

One protestor was clear about it. “You’re paying for these shoddy cars,” they said. “Elon Musk gets hundreds of millions of dollars from the government, mostly for SpaceX, but he takes that money and puts it into his other companies through shell corporations. It’s a scam, and you’re paying for it.” It’s all intertwined — our taxes, his profits, and the political system that lets him get away with it.

Just a week later, on Wednesday, March 19, I found myself again standing in the midst of people raising their voices for the greater good and standing against American interference in the Middle East. The night before, Israel had broke its ceasefire with Hamas by launching new strikes on Gaza. The air in Asheville, North Carolina, felt thick with energy, and the ground beneath me was pulsing with the weight of the moment.

Downtown Asheville, known for its local businesses and its creative energy, had become something else that day — a battleground of voices and a convergence of grief, fury, and unyielding resistance. Protesters from the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) filled the streets, their chants reverberating off storefront windows and brick facades, each syllable carrying the weight of generations of struggle.

This wasn’t just about a foreign conflict happening in a faraway land. This was our fight too. The oppression, the violence, and the unchecked power is all part of the same machinery that grinds people down — that exploits, that silences. The system we’ve been fighting against in the U.S. that drains our communities, prioritizes profit over people, and keeps us shackled to cycles of poverty and exploitation is the same system fueling the devastation in Gaza.

The bombs falling thousands of miles away were paid for by our taxes, funded by our government in our names. That knowledge makes its home deep in my chest, like a sickness without immediate cure. It is sickening to know that my money, my labor, and my existence as a taxpayer are connected to this massacre.

As the rally in Asheville grew in size and urgency, speakers took turns at the megaphone. Their voices raw with conviction, they called out the billions of U.S. tax dollars funneled into Israel’s military — money that could have been used to fix our roads, rebuild our schools, or provide healthcare to the millions left to fend for themselves in a country that claims to be the wealthiest in the world.

Instead, those billions were being used to fund the bombing of hospitals, the destruction of homes, and the slaughter of entire families. The numbers are staggering, and they are climbing again: more than 400 were killed in the opening hours of this new phase of violence.

There will surely be more death to come. More bodies. More rubble. In the face of this horror, our government looks the other way — or worse, openly endorses the bloodshed.

The U.S. government never hesitates to write blank checks for war, pouring endless resources into military expansion and foreign occupations. However, when it comes to caring for its people — ensuring that no one has to choose between rent and medical care, food, or electricity — suddenly, the money is gone. We are told to tighten our belts and make sacrifices.

Who are the people actually making those sacrifices? Not the billionaires. They see war as another investment opportunity. Not the politicians and bureaucrats. They cash checks from defense contractors while neighborhoods are reduced to rubble.

Gaza isn’t just a humanitarian crisis — it is a mirror reflecting the systemic failures we fight against daily at home. The same forces that allow corporate greed to thrive in America are the ones enabling war crimes overseas. It’s all connected: the erosion of our democracy, the growing gap between the ultra wealthy and the rest of us, and the reality that working people — whether in Palestine or in the U.S. — are the ones who suffer the most. Governments, corporate giants, and billionaires operate with ruthless efficiency to extract what they can, leaving devastation in their wake.

At times, the weight of it all feels suffocating. Elon Musk’s billion-dollar empire, the suffering of an entire population in Gaza, and the relentless decay of our democracy seems too big, overwhelming, and entrenched to ever truly dismantle. In Asheville, however, as freedom chants rose around me I felt the same familiar surge defiance that had hit me in Paramus the week before. The same energy and refusal to accept silence reminded me — reminds all of us — that we are not powerless. Not here. Not now.

These movements aren’t isolated. They are one movement. That’s what I want you, the reader, to take away from this: it’s not just about one cause or one protest, but a collective force and a rising tide of people beginning to connect the dots. Whether we fight against unchecked corporate power, for racial justice, or an end the genocide in Gaza, we are all up against the same machine. We all fight the same system, one that aims to leave us powerless, prioritizing profit over human lives. We are done being ignored. We are done being silent.

“Ain’t no power like the power of the people!” That was the chant in Paramus, and it rang out just as loud in Asheville. The faces were different. The causes varied. The message was the same: we are here. We are not backing down. We are not alone.

These messages are part of something bigger and collectively profound — a movement built on the demand for justice, for fairness, and for a world where people’s lives are worth more than corporate profits and political deals.

We are the ocean. When the sea moves, the world has no choice but to move, too.

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