The Hands Off protest last Saturday, April 5, in B.A. Clark Park exceeded all expectations. Ahead of the event, a representative of the Spokane Police Department guessed at a crowd of maybe 2000. After the event, Garrett Cabeza reported in the Spokesman:
Spokane police estimated more than 5,000 protesters gathered on both sides of Division Street and spilled into B.A. Clark Park on Division and Garland Avenue. In Coeur d’Alene, several hundred stood on a strip of grass on the east side of the highway near Appleway Avenue, one of the busiest intersections in town.
Other estimates of the peak attendance ranged as high as 12,000. The experience was uplifting and heartwarming as people recognized among their fellow protesters friends and neighbors they never expected to see at a protest—many of them folks who said they had never attended a protest before in their lives. A minuscule number of counter-protesters (see P.S.) were initially cordoned off but then were peacefully absorbed into the crowd, their bizarre messages diluted to a point of complete insignificance, their American flags blending with American flags of the vastly larger group. The protesters ranged not just from “8 to 80” but from infants in strollers to people, some with walkers, who were well into their 90s. Everyone was overwhelmingly friendly, delighted to see that so many others felt similarly appalled at the authoritarian actions of the Trump administration.
Millions of protesters turned out in more than a thousand cities and towns across the nation and even internationally.
The sound of car horns blasting in support of the protest was deafening.
In my personal media bubble before the protest it seemed like notice of the event was everywhere, and, yet, in groups that I attended shortly ahead of the protest when I spoke up about it I was surprised by how many people expressed surprise that a protest was even happening . Happily, I crossed paths with many of those people at the event. Afterward, I saw numerous posts on social media saying, “I wish I had known” or “I was afraid to go by myself.” The message of the car horns and those posts is this: The crowd that showed up was just the tip of the iceberg of the discontent roiling through our society at the actions of Trump/Musk/Vance and company.
We should be pleased with the front page coverage of the HandsOff protest in the Spokesman the next morning, but disappointed that Spokesman email I receive failed to highlight the article. Worse, if you checked online for Fox News and Newsmax coverage of the protest (as I did), you found—crickets. Instead, I found articles desperately spinning how Trump’s tariffs were, somehow, a masterstroke by the MAGA genius.
What I took home from all this is that many, many people are feeling threatened and dismayed by this administration’s authoritarian actions, people who are relieved and encouraged to find they are not alone, that they are members of a vast community of friends and neighbors who are appalled by what’s happening to our country. We must not back down. We cannot stay home.
Share with your friends and neighbors how you feel about tariffs, about the stock market crash, about extrajudicial renditions, about civil liberties. Share with them an invitation to the next protest and an offer to go with them—and, yes, there will be, there has to be more protests, if not, we will become Orban’s authoritarian Hungary and take the rest of the world there with us.
We cannot just roll over.
Talk up coming protests and—in the meantime—call your Congress people, especially if they are Republicans, and express your dismay. Try out 5Calls.org. It simplifies the effort to learn who represents you and the number to call.
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry
P.S. On April 1, four days in advance of the Hands Off, there was a bit of angst: Northwest Grassroots, a far right organization based in Spokane Valley, posted on Facebook a call for right wing counter protesters to claim the east side of B.A. Clark Park along Division in advance of HandsOff. Below I’ve pasted the poster as it appeared on Northwest Grassroots Facebook page, and shared on the Spokane County Republican Party’s Facebook page. It is hard to miss the call to “Rally” to “Fight, Fight, Fight”. [The Share on the SpokaneGOP page DID add “"Fight! Fight! Fight!" (only PEACEFULLY of course)”.] Interestingly, neither post seemed to spark much interest either in sharing (2 on the GOP site, 4 on NWGR) and only a few (<10 reactions). Still, it was a chilling reminder that at some of these people are belligerent and potentially violent in their support for Trump and company. Notice that the poster conspicuously avoids mentioning the nearly simultaneous scheduling of the HandsOff protest. One must wonder if the tiny number of counter-protests that appeared in response to the poster speaks of an undercurrent of lack of enthusiasm for what’s happening even among Republicans. One can hope.
There was a last minute ripple of angst among some of the many groups and individuals planning for and publicizing the Spokane HandsOff protest. A representative of the Spokane Police Department assured that police would be present to separate the groups to defuse any potential altercations (and complimented the organizers and attendees at other recently organized protests at their peacefulness and refusal to engage with belligerent counter-protesters).
One wonders how many people stayed away from the HandsOff protest for fear of violence—and how many of them will show up at future protests now that a peaceful tone is set.
Finally, it is remarkable to me that the NWGR poster claims that they stand for “equal justice under the law” at the same time as the Trump administration and it’s state police (ICE) demonstrate complete disdain for due process and the rule of law by deporting people legally resident in the U.S. with zero due process, sending them to prison in El Salvador and then claiming there is no way to bring them back.