No one expects to find Democrats — especially liberal, progressive Democrats — in Alabama. We know we’re here, and we might even spot a bumper sticker every now and then or have a few blue friends we commiserate with, but we’re quiet. We know we’re outnumbered, and we know to keep our heads down for the sake of living a peaceful existence.

Trump carried the state on a 60/40 split, but we are here. And now we’re angry. And we’re not keeping our heads down any longer.

Some of you may have seen the quick mention on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee that the tiny town of Mentone, Alabama, had its own sister March on Washington, bringing out 50 of its 360-ish residents to oppose Trumpism. Birmingham had over 5000 marchers. Even Mobile, which takes the blame as the city that gave Trump his big ego boost in the primary, gathered at least 1000 to march.

My presence in DC for the main march was met with surprise by pretty much everyone I met, but Alabama sent nine charter buses to the DC march — nearly 500 marchers. Those nine buses were organized by the official state chapter of the WMW. All sold out and ran waiting lists. Many more AL residents organized their own transportation.

In just the last week, we’ve had WMW postcard gatherings, grown our Facebook groups and organized within them to coordinate phone calls to our CongressCritters and arrange meetings with members of the state legislature. We’re vetting Democratic candidates for 2018. Sen. Shelby’s office has already let it be known to us that he won’t “have the time” to meet with constituents during February (snort), and we’ve inundated Sessions’ office with calls to protest his AG appointment.

There was a protest against the not-really-a-Muslim-ban-I-promise-EO at the Birmingham airport today and no international flights even land there.

All over Alabama, we are organizing. We are resisting.

But tonight… wow.

Tonight was the kickoff meeting to organize resistance in AL-5 using the Indivisible handbook. Organizers expected maybe 50 or so attendees.

Nearly 400 people showed up.

AL-5 was reliably blue from Reconstruction until the Tea Party revolution of 2010. NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center is here. So is Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, and Northrop-Grumman. It’s heavily military, defense, and high-tech. UAH is one of the top engineering schools. We have a lot of foreign nationals, a lot of veterans, and a lot of government workers.

Mo Brooks’ seat isn’t that safe. Riding on Trump’s anti-science, xenophobic, burn-down-the-government wagon is a risky play here. Four hundred people showed up tonight and vowed to make the next two years really painful for poor Mo.

So don’t write Alabama off just yet. I’m not saying we’ll turn the whole state blue in the next election, but the resistance is rising here, too.