Between three and four hundred people, most waving homemade signs, lined the sidewalk in front of the Del Norte County Fairgrounds on Saturday. The gathering was part of a nationwide series of events – a day of action, organizers called it – collectively called Hands Off. Across the nation there were more than 1,300 individual demonstrations coordinated by a coalition of groups headed by MoveOn!, and including the likes of the American Civil Liberties Union, the League of Women Voters and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, among others. The events were meant to protest what the participants and organizers see as the decidedly authoritarian bent of the second Trump presidency.
Standing in the shade outside Java Hut, Crescent City Councilmember Candace Tinkler explained why she was attending the event: “I’m here because it’s my job, it’s all of our jobs, to make the world a better place for the next generation, and I’m not seeing it going that way. I’m here not so much for me, but for every young person in this community.”
Del Norte’s iteration of the Hands Off demonstrations began at 11am with a knot of protesters gathering near the site of Keven Bingham’s trailer at the corner of 101 and Cooper Avenue. Bingham sets up his Glen’s Bakery On 3rd food trailer near the intersection every Sunday and sells bags of cookies baked from a decade’s old recipe made locally famous at the now-closed Glen’s Bakery. By 11:30, the crowd had grown to around three hundred – the colorfully dressed assemblage waving, hooting and brandishing signs at passing vehicles in the springtime sun – and Bingham had to move his trailer farther down the fairgrounds parking lot so his customers could get to him. The crowd eventually grew to around four hundred, and Bingham moved his trailer nearly all the way to Burger King to escape the crush, causing both Bingham and many of his customers some consternation. (Click here for a fuller retelling of the Cookie Imbroglio and its peaceful resolution, by Redwood Voice’s Amanda Dockter.)
Retired U.S. government teacher John Murphy, wearing a baseball cap that identified him as a veteran of the Coast Guard, ascribed his attendance to Constitutional reasons, saying, “I’m out here because I believe in the Constitution. I believe it’s our social contract. It’s what’s held our country together for almost 250 years, but the reality is it’s under threat, we’re going down a dangerous road and we will lose our democracy.”
Victoria Graves was pleased by the size of the crowd. “A huge turnout! So amazing!” she exclaimed. Holding up a sign that read “Save the Civil Service – Save the Country,” Graves explained why she was demonstrating. “My husband’s a civil servant and I’m a social worker and I’m worried about the programs for Social Security and Medicare. I’m worried about my husband’s career in the forest industry. That’s why I’m out here.”
Chair of the local Democratic Party Kevin Hendrick was also pleased by the turnout. “What is really encouraging for me,” Hendrick said, surveying the chanting crowd, “is all the new people who are stepping up. I think it’s a momentum that builds, when people are brave enough to show up and stand up, more people are willing to show up and stand up.”
That sentiment was echoed by Del Norte County District 2 Supervisor Valerie Starkey. “The turnout is incredible!” she said. “We did not realize we had so many people who felt like we did here. This is a good showing of that, right? This is a good demonstration that, you know what? There’s more of us than we know, and when we’re bound together we can make big things possible.”
While many passing cars showed support of the demonstrators by honking appreciatively, some other drivers shouted in support of the president, with occasional verbal confrontations mixing with the otherwise peaceful chanting and noisemaking.
It was partially because of this acrimony that Bingham felt he had to move his trailer. “There was a lot of obscenities and just hatefulness,” Bingham explained after the demonstration had ended and he’d reclaimed his spot near the intersection. “Freedom of speech, like I said it’s not a partisan issue for me. If you’re going to protest and stand up for your constitutional rights, just at least be courteous to people that are working, trying to pay their bills and not squeeze them out.” (Again, for the story of Cookie-gate, click here.)
Despite the clear spring sky and the only occasional drive-by cursing, the festive mood at Saturday’s Hands Off protest was tinged with an undercurrent of deep apprehension. Protesters chanted and waved signs that called for an end to oligarchy, to Elon Musk’s unelected rifling through Social Security and the administrative state, to the president’s seemingly senseless alienation of allies. And while the words on their signs were painted in glitter, and the singsong chants mixed with the affirming cadence of friendly car horns, there were some present who weren’t smiling.
Off to the side, in the shadow of Java Hut, holding a simple, unadorned piece of cardboard with the words “Resist – Persist in Love” written in black marker, stood longtime Del Norte resident Patricia Black. When approached and asked why she was at the protest, Black replied, “Do you have an hour? I’m here today because I don’t want to see people disappeared. I don’t want to see people sent to other countries to prisons that claim they can’t get them back. I don’t want to see my friends and neighbors raided out of their houses and dragged out in the middle of the night. I also don’t want to see Social Security [destroyed], that I’ve spent almost forty years of my life working for in one way or another, so I know the good it does for people and in this community, the money it brings into this community, if you’re into money.”
“But really,” Black continued, “it’s about, do you care about those people that will wind up on the streets without their income? Do you care about people that won’t be able to get doctor’s visits, that won’t be able to be on dialysis, that won’t get their transplants, that won’t get their medicine, that will die if they didn’t get their insulin…if you care about them, you should be here!”
“Sorry,” Black laughed meekly. “Once I turn on the button, I can’t stop it.”
After the protest ended at about 3pm, a handful of demonstrators and Democratic party faithful met at the nearby party headquarters for further discussion and a debrief. It was there that the protest’s planners first learned from social media posts about Bingham and the afternoon he’d been having because of the demonstration. A collection was taken, and party chair Hendrick later delivered the money to Bingham to help defray some of his lost revenue.
