Commentary by Jim McCraw

I didn’t expect very much. After all, The Villages, the world’s largest retirement community, with some 150,00 people (including the added developments of Middleton and Eastport), located in central Florida, is about as Republican as you can find anywhere, with a huge military, police, fire, EMT and nursing population in Republican Ron DeSantis’ state, represented by Republicans Rick Scott and Ashley Moody in the Senate and Daniel Webster in the House. Trumpians all.

But I was wrong. Old Mill Run, Morse Boulevard, and Stillwater Trail, three major arteries in the Lake Sumter Landing part of The Villages, were, by 1 p.m. Saturday, mobbed with 5,000 sign-carrying, t-shirt-wearing Hands Off! protesters of every political stripe, probably because of Trump’s threats to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans Administration health system.

Sumter County sheriffs cruised through the area every 10 minutes or so just to show a presence that wasn’t needed. Sympathetic drivers honked their horns, waved their arms out their car windows, showed thumbs-up and/or camera phones all afternoon long. As I roamed around the area, I saw more and more truly clever and smartass t-shirts and homemade signs, and I felt a bit like I was back in Washington, D.C. in 1970 when Vietnam was raging and we were all pissed off. It felt really good, really inspiring to see so many concerned citizens exercising their First Amendment rights. Yes, there was one guy circling in an SUV with Trump World signs and American flags on it, but all he got was The Finger every time he came by. What a day. What a downright historic day.

McCraw is a contributing pundit for The Hustings. He lives in The Villages, Florida.