“We, the People” marched, shouted, sang, honked, hugged and high-fived in more than 2,600 cities and towns across the country on Saturday.

My husband, some friends and I chose to head to Old Saybrook, rather than Hartford, because a small local crowd has a different kind of visibility than does a large urban one. The GOP too often dismisses city protests because, you know, that’s where all the bad people are. Still, we were nearly 2,000 strong in Old Saybrook, a town nationally known more for Katharine Hepburn than anything else.

So, who, exactly, is protesting?

Recently, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller dismissed the anti-Trump “No Kings” protesters as a bunch of “elderly white hippies.” At that same Washington, D.C. press conference he also characterized the preponderance of protesters as “Communists” and “stupid.” And on several occasions, the Trump White House has characterized the resistance as “violent” and “dangerous.”

How accurate is Miller’s characterization? Let’s break it down.

Accusation No. 1: “Elderly.” Depends on where you live. Connecticut skews older (it’s the seventh oldest state, with 18 percent of its population over 65, and a median age of 41). Suburban towns historically skew older than do cities. So, yes, most of the folks I marched with Saturday had gray hair. However, in places where the median age is younger (around 38 in both New York City and Portland, Oregon, for example) the crowd was predominantly young.

And let’s pretend, for a moment, that all the protesters were old. So what? Many of us older folks are willing to take a hit to our reputations, even risking physical assault and arrest, if it means our children can remain safe, and our nation can survive this authoritarian takeover. I have a friend in her 80s who was arrested three times last summer protesting the fossil fuel industry. Stephen Miller, at the tender age of 40, probably can’t imagine being that brave.

And The Alliance for Retired Americans urged its members not to be offended by his remarks, saying, “Don’t let yourself think that he doesn’t understand the power of older Americans getting together and mobilizing.”

On to adjective No. 2: “White.”

Again, this gross characterization is only partially correct. People of color did, in fact, turn out. But the very question of their participation needs to be examined. More than 92 percent of Black women voted for Kamala Harris and Black women led the charge across the country in preserving voting rights against orchestrated voter suppression. Have they earned the right to kick back a bit? I think so.

And when ICE agents are clearly targeting Black and brown citizens, one cannot blame people of color for fearing the worst. While it’s too early for definitive demographic data on this weekend’s “No Kings” rallies, historically, Black and brown citizens have protested at disproportionately higher numbers than their slice of their overall population would indicate.

In 2020, for example, a PEW Research Center survey reported that 17 percent of Blacks protested in race-related campaigns, while they composed just 14 percent of the general public. And 22 percent of people of Hispanic heritage protested in such rallies, despite making up just 19 percent of all American adults. In comparison, while white Americans make up nearly 64 percent of the population, fewer than 46 percent participated in a race-related protest.

Accusation No. 3: “Hippies.” Well, guilty as charged, if by “Hippy” Miller means someone who values peace over violence, justice over injustice, creativity over conformity, environmentalism over destruction of the planet, community over capitalist greed, and the best rock music of all time over whatever drivel plays in his poor tormented head.

No. 4, his broad umbrella of “Communists.” Well, many of the folks marching Saturday were U.S. Veterans. One of them, a Navy guy from Lyme named Pete Lang, said, “I’m here because I fought against everything that’s happening to our country.”

My friend Jane Cavanaugh of Deep River, whose husband is a veteran, unfurled the  enormous American flag given to her by the government upon the death of her father, who fought in WWII. While the White House insists there is a shadowy underground called “Antifa,” they are too stupid to (or deliberately obtuse) to acknowledge the 16 million men and women who served in WWII were the original Anti-Fascists.

And I imagine that the families of the 416,800 soldiers who died fighting the fascists are struggling to understand why those deaths have been officially disrespected by the U.S. government.

No. 5: “Violent and dangerous.” Um, when did we protestors go from “snowflakes,” “woke,” “cat ladies” and other monikers suggesting frailty, to, in Miller’s words, “a vast domestic terror movement?” If he’s afraid of people in frog costumes, a bunch of Portlanders riding nude on bicycles, and American-flag wavers singing “We Shall Overcome,” no wonder elderly white hippies are cause for concern.

Unfortunately for Donald Trump and his staff, once again, the facts don’t support their claim. Following the shooting of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk, PBS did an analysis of political violence in America. They said, “Based on our own research and a review of related work, we can confidently say that most domestic terrorists in the U.S. are politically on the right, and right-wing attacks account for the vast majority of fatalities from domestic terrorism.”

Now, let’s look at “stupid.” From the ebulliently zany to the gravely dignified, I’ve met and talked with lots of protesters. I can’t think of one I’d characterize as stupid. Heartbroken? Yes. Indignant, fearful, and furious? Of course. But ignorant of the facts? Nope. Unaware of the fascist takeover and indifferent to the loss of our democracy? Not on your life.

Stephen Miller is a puffed-up little rooster who has forsworn his heritage in order to orchestrate the Trump regime’s anti-immigration stance. He wouldn’t be here had America not opened her Ellis Island gates to Wolf Glosser, Miller’s maternal great-great grandfather on January 7, 1903. Glosser was fleeing anti-semitic Russian pogroms, and followed a path not unlike that of many foreigners who emigrated to America. The difference is, the rest of us are proud of our ancestors, and many of us protest in their name. So while Miller has conveniently forgotten what he owes to immigration, we have not.

Finally, Miller is under the wrong impression that we “elderly white hippies” will “all need to go home and take a nap because  (we’re) all over 90 years old.”

We’ve lived through economic travails, assassinations, wars, illness and hardships he can’t even imagine. We’re not napping, we’re fighting back: loudly, proudly, and without end, for as long as it takes until Trump and his defenders are swept into the history books along all the other dupes and toadies who put the cult of personality over the Constitution.

No, we’re not napping, Stephen Miller. Our eyes are wide open, and we see you.

Christine Palm served three terms as State Representative in the Connecticut General Assembly. This summer, she launched The Active Voice, a journalism and civics program for young environmentalists.