Protesters in three different parts of Oregon on demonstrating against Trump and Musk

This Saturday saw the biggest coordinated nationwide demonstration against the Trump administration to date. In Oregon, Indivisible helped organize protests, among others, as part of the 50501 movement. Many thousands of people turned out in Portland alone, with thousands more out all over the state including in Tigard, Medford, Enterprise other small towns in southern, central and Eastern Oregon.

They protested the dismantling of federal government agencies, mass layoffs and deportations, planned cuts to Medicaid, social security and more. We talk with four Oregonians from three different communities about how the protests they attended went and what motivated them to spend their Saturday demonstrating.

Susannah Graven is a massage therapist in Medford and an unaffiliated voter. Mike Eng is a retired National Parks employee who lives near Lostine in Wallowa County and an unaffiliated voter. And Mary Minor is a retired hospice nurse who helped organize the Tigard protest, along with her husband James, a retired technical writer, both unaffiliated voters.

Editor’s note: Mike Eng’s political affiliation has been corrected to reflect that he is not registered with a political party.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. This Saturday saw the biggest coordinated nationwide demonstrations since the start of the second Trump administration. Many thousands of people turned out in Portland alone, with thousands more all over the state including in Eugene, Madras, Grants Pass, Baker City and dozens of other sites. They came out to protest the dismantling of federal government agencies, mass layoffs and deportations, planned cuts to Medicaid and a lot more.

We’re going to hear about three of these protests today. We start with Mike Eng. He is a former law enforcement officer for the National Park Service; he retired in 2012. He lives near Lostine in Wallowa County and helped organize one of the protests in Enterprise. Mike Eng, welcome to Think Out Loud.

Mike Eng: Good morning, Dave. It’s really an honor to be with you. And just as a disclaimer, I do try and listen to Think Out Loud whenever I can. My wife and I think you’re one of the best interviewers in the business. I think the state and OPB readers, listeners are really lucky to have you, so let’s have some innovative questions.

Miller: I appreciate that … On with the show. What motivated you to organize one of the protests in Enterprise on Saturday?

Eng: Well, I’m a bit of a news junkie, and I read and listen to a really wide variety of sources of news. So I’ve been tracking what’s been happening with the current administration, and all the decisions, the judicial challenges and everything. And I, as many people I’m sure, was struggling with trying to find out what we could possibly do?

You know, here I am, living in rural Wallowa County, what could I possibly do? Many people were searching for something. And I started attending some Zoom calls about people getting organized and what they could do; and when I heard that finally there seemed to be enough momentum to call for a nationwide mobilization on April 5, I thought, “Yes, I think it is time, and I would like to be involved.” At that point I started planning and organizing here locally to have some kind of event.

Miller: Donald Trump won 66% of the vote in Wallowa County in November. What were you expecting in terms of a public turnout?

Eng: That coincides with the figure that I have, too: 66%, 31% for Kamala Harris. Registration here in Wallowa County is 47% Republican, 18% Democrat, and 29% are non-affiliated voters. So we know that we live in a county that voted two for one, for Donald Trump.

So, as we were talking about … I was working with a small group of other folks trying to plan this event. Many of us felt like having a highly partisan anti-Trump, anti-Musk, political, polarized argument would not go over very well here in Wallowa County, because so many folks did vote for Donald Trump. But also because we’re a small rural county. I think we like to be neighborly, and we show up for people, we support each other, we help each other out when someone’s in need. National politics really is divisive and polarizing, and that’s not how most of us here want to live.

Miller: But what is the actual messaging if you are opposed to what the administration is doing, but you don’t want to alienate people who voted for him or who like what he’s doing – what were you actually writing on placards or yelling out?

Eng: Well, it’s hard to completely control a rally when you’re trying to invite everyone to it. There were several different groups working together to try and see if we could come up with a way to work together in convening this rally, but the group that I was working with, we termed it a “Rally for Democracy.” We chose not to use the “Hands Off” messaging that some of the national groups are using because we thought that that was a little aggressive for here.

Now some did, in the larger group that we were working with, but our group said, “let’s rally for democracy,” and if we can, let’s focus primarily on the human-to-human, the humanistic impacts of these decisions from D.C. on our neighbors. So we were trying to focus on, what are the local impacts of these decisions that are being made? And the ones that we were trying to highlight were things like effects on our veterans, effects on Social Security, effects on Medicaid. We have a high percentage of residents who are on Medicaid. So we wanted to bring everything home here.

We’re in a very high wildfire risk area. There are a lot of questions about the ability to respond to wildfires, what’s happening with the Forest Service, etc. A lot of people are concerned, and we wanted to focus on how all of these national decisions in D.C. are affecting us here locally.

That said, people are gonna express what they want to express, and different people have different levels of news literacy and read different things. So we anticipated there would be a wide variety of concerns expressed. And that turned out to be the case, certainly with the signs. And everything that you’ve seen, we saw here.

But we were trying to, if we could, focus on local impacts. And we thought that that was the way that we would have the most leverage, especially with our Congressional Rep. Cliff Bentz, who happens to be on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the Health Subcommittee. He’s also a member of the Rural Health Caucus. One of the real concerns that we have here in Wallowa County is the impacts on Medicaid and on our health care system. We have a nationally recognized, one of the best rural healthcare systems in the entire country, but it’s been based on the expansion of Medicaid and the development of the Oregon Health Plan.

Not only have so many of our neighbors had their health care significantly improved, making tremendous changes in their lives by having access to medical behavioral health care, but our whole healthcare system, our hospital, the clinics that we have, have all developed, based on anticipated reimbursements through the Oregon Health Plan. And with $88 billion slated to be cut from Medicaid, that could have really severe impacts on us. So we think that that’s a good leverage point to work with Congressman Bentz on, and we’re hoping that he can look at some different ways that we’d like to suggest to him, rather than cutting $88 billion out of Medicaid.

Miller: Mike Eng, thanks very much.

Eng: Thank you.

Miller: Mike Eng is a retired law enforcement officer for the National Park Service. He lives near Lostine in Wallowa County. He helped organize one of the protests in Enterprise.

I’m joined now by Mary and James Minor, who live in King City. Mary is a retired hospice nurse. Her husband James is a retired technical writer. They are both unaffiliated voters who helped organize the protest in Tigard on Saturday against the Trump administration. Mary and James, welcome to Think Out Loud.

Mary Minor / James Minor: Thank you.

Miller: Mary, how much have you been involved in protests over the years?

M. Minor: Well, not a whole lot. We raised a large … we had five kids, so I was just too busy raising kids. It was just recently that I got involved.

Miller: Why? What has motivated you?

M. Minor: Well, that’s a spiritual thing for me, Dave. I’m a reader of [Matthew] Fox’s Daily Readings, and one of its readings had a quote from Joanna Macy. Joanna Macy is a big climate activist. She said, “We are so fortunate to be alive right now. We are so lucky to be here. It’s a privilege.” And I thought that … we were chosen. She said, “We are chosen.” I was like, “I don’t want to be chosen.”

So with the onset of Lent, I was just pondering that, what does that mean? What does that mean for me? And all of this started coming up, so I went on a few websites and got involved with indivisible.org. I was so confused. I’m not tech savvy and I’m not real news savvy, either, because I was getting so depressed, for one thing.

So one of them, one of the questions was, “Would you like to host a protest?” I was like, “Yeah, sure, why not?” Then pretty soon I answered questions and there it was on their website, “Hands Off! Tigard.” And all these responses kept coming in.

Miller: James, where are you in this odyssey?

J. Minor: I’m support. Well, Mary is somewhat in error. We were involved in, against the government, actually, in Rocky Flats, when we lived in Denver. We went out and joined several thousand people to try to surround Rocky Flats in the time of the Vietnam War and the rest of it. So we have done our protests, but …

Miller: But that was in the 1960s.

J. Minor: That was a long time ago, yes. So as we progressed, Mary and I have been talking about what’s been happening in the news and the rest of it; and we can’t listen to the news all the time due to the fact that it just tears you down because of the depression. So I was thinking that we needed a leader to gather the people together. And the leader happens to be on the web page under “org,” and “indivisible,” so that’s when she joined that. And it’s up to the people now to actually take care of democracy.

Miller: What were you expecting, Mary, in terms of the turnout in Tigard?

M. Minor: Well, I thought maybe we’d get 50 to 100.

Miller: How many did you get?

M. Minor: Oh, I think over 1,500. I was blown away.

Miller: What did it mean to you to be a part of that? After sometimes watching the news, it seems like sometimes, as you said, being too depressed to take in the news, and then you, almost without too much thinking, said, “OK, I will sponsor this event.” Then 1,500 people show up. What did that mean to you?

M. Minor: Well, when I walked up to Highway 99 and looked at both sides of the street, I was blown away and almost came to tears, because I was like, “Oh, my gosh, look at all these people.” People were smiling, they were energized, we had old people, young people, people in wheelchairs, people with baby buggies. It was absolutely awesome, [with] cheering and a lot of support from the drivers going by. So it was very heartening. It was very invigorating, and I think refueled me to continue.

Miller: What’s the biggest issue for you right now? We heard a number of them from Mike Eng, what about for you?

M. Minor: All of the issues are important, but the most important was, and my sign was, “Save our Democracy.” If we don’t have democracy, forget it, we don’t have anything. So it’s democracy for me.

Miller: James, what about you?

J. Minor: My sign read, “Gaza Concentration Camp, Second Holocaust,” so mine is about the slaughter of people. I got all thanks for that sign. But yes, democracy, there’s so many things that you can pick to fight for. It’s an abundance, and Mary’s right, it was a pleasure to be there. There was an energy it took on its own.

Miller: Mary, we are far from the midterm elections, let alone the next presidential election. How do you plan to keep up this level of activism?

M. Minor: I don’t know yet, Dave. I don’t know. I heard 5051, that’s the day … that was Saturday, was one of three. It started on President’s Day, then it was March 4, and now this one. So I want to contact Indivisible and make sure … I’d heard they’re gonna do them monthly. I think people … I hope they’re energized to come out monthly, whether it’s during the day, on the weekend, in the evening. With summer coming, that would be to our advantage, but we have to keep it up. We the people, it’s “We the People.” We have to speak out.

Miller: Mary and James, thanks very much.

M. Minor / J. Minor: Thank you.

Miller: That’s Mary and James Minor. They helped organize Saturday’s protest in Tigard against the Trump administration.

We’re gonna end now in Medford. Susannah Graven is a massage therapist and business owner there. She’s a volunteer with the group Indivisible and she joins us now. Susannah Graven, welcome to the show.

Susannah Graven: Thank you for having me.

Miller: What was the scene like in Medford on Saturday?

Graven: It was spectacular. I am so proud of my neighbors down here in Medford. I was speaking to our Representative, State Rep. Pam Marsh, and we’re looking at probably around 4,000 people who showed up in Medford.

Miller: Had you seen an event, a demonstration like that in Medford before?

Graven: I have not. We did have the Women’s March in Ashland and that was around 2016. That was very electric. So that was probably the closest I’ve ever seen was that, in Southern Oregon.

Miller: You know, I’m glad you mentioned that because it has been striking this year, that in the first three months or so of the first Trump presidency there were many more large and visible demonstrations than in the first three months of this second term for President Trump. It’s been a lot quieter overall, at least up until this weekend. Why do you think that is?

Graven: Well, in my worldview, this isn’t about party anymore. This is about democracy. And every party, including the NAV’s – not affiliated voters – Libertarians, Republicans, Democrats, it doesn’t matter where you are on the spectrum, it’s about democracy. So this is for everyone.

This is about being able to protect our values as Americans. No, it stopped being about party a while ago when you start getting to this level, this height. So I was really happy to see that I was even seeing people who have been jumping on over, even called up some friends of mine who I know have voted Republican. And I said, “What was your ‘why,’ why did you come?” And I’ve heard various different answers, and one of them was, “Greenland.” That was just a bridge too far for them. That was just what made them make up a sign …

Miller: Out of everything, Greenland is what you heard from people?

Graven: That was one of the answers that I had heard, was the way we went poaching on Greenland, was the “toe across the line,” for this particular friend.

Miller: And these are people who either had voted for President Trump or at least were Republicans?

Graven: Exactly, exactly. So it’s the overreach. I’m really hearing the overreach is just getting way too far for them. And I appreciate the friendship, I appreciated the frankness of the conversations that we were able to have this weekend. So I’m really heartened. I’m really, really heartened because I believe that people’s eyes are starting to see things, focus in a little bit differently.

I’m really proud of Southern Oregon. We’re part of Cliff Bentz’s district. We have very little representation that he will come to Medford and talk to us, so to see that people are actually feeling that lack of representation, I think is starting to really become very clear to many.

Miller: I think you could hear Mike Eng, our first guest for this segment before you, and he talked about not wanting to alienate people who either voted for Trump or were Republicans, of which two-thirds of voters there did vote for President Trump in Wallowa County in the most recent election.

I don’t think Jackson County has quite those numbers, but obviously it, too, is a red county. I’m curious how you think about messaging, if one of your aims is to enlarge a number of people who are demonstrating?

Graven: Where I feel like this is going is to become a lived experience. A lot of people will have lived through something that … whether it hit their 401k too hard, they’re recognizing our public lands are being encroached upon and not being taken care of properly, which is a safety issue here in Jackson County because of fire. We have the Cascade-Siskiyou Monument, which is a checkerboard. People live there. We need to maintain our public lands and it is a safety issue in Jackson County.

So when it really starts to affect them personally, they’ll get beyond what they were getting caught up in, perhaps maybe some rhetoric and some tribalism, and start recognizing that we have gone beyond party. Now, we really need to get to being Americans and being neighbors again, stop with the polarization and get back to being on the same field, because when we all suffer – and we will all be feeling these effects together – I believe it’ll require a lot more heart-based charity. I believe finger pointing doesn’t help anymore. I think a little bit more compassion and a little bit more coalition building is required.

Miller: Did you have a favorite sign from Saturday that you saw?

Graven: “Nobody is illegal on stolen land.”

Miller: Susannah Graven, thanks very much.

Graven: Thank you very much.

Miller: That’s Susannah Graven. She is a massage therapist and a business owner, a non-affiliated voter and a volunteer with Indivisible in Medford. She was a part of our trio of protesters who we talked to as parts of protests all across Oregon, all across the country on Saturday.

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