What’s a conservative? What’s a liberal? These No Kings Protesters were both. Check out the scenes in Fort Bragg, Point Arena, Boonville, Gualala, Willits and Ukiah!
William F. Buckley, the best known conservative of his time, said a conservative was the one who arrived in a room of people intent on changing the world yelling “STOP.”
I thought of that watching my friend Janet Ashford walking through protests carrying a sign saying “NO.”
The local “liberals” sponsored a “No Kings” protest that spanned the east side of the Noyo Bridge in an unbroken line that led from the south side of North Harbor Drive to the north side of Boatyard Drive. You could also say the local conservatives held the protest, as liberals and conservatives are one in the same in 2025.
There is no contradiction between liberal and conservative. The opposite of conservative is radical. Radicals are those who wish to upset the established order.
When Roe versus Wade became law, it was a radical move. But repealing, against decades of legal precedent, was equally radical
Trump is almost entirely a radical. Black Lives Matter was also radical. I believe this is important because we all need to be conservatives today, but we can’t if we don’t know what that means. Conservatives like Janet, and the bulk of the community are out there upholding our traditional, liberal values, like Justice, due process, and “We the People”
The most striking thing to me about Saturday’s “No Kings” protest was the parking places. Brutus, Caesar and I had to park out on the headlands. Indivisible Mendocino had asked all involved to park out at Mendocino College, so as not to take up any parking for local businesses along the protest route. A big string of people walked up the sidewalk free road from the college to the highway, many of them in their 70s-80 years old +.
As myself and my two dogs emerged from the trail into the parking lot of Noyo River Grille, I was immediately struck by all the parking places in the parking lot of the business. At every crossing on the east side, I was encouraged by monitors appointed by Indivisible Mendocino to keep moving. Anytime someone tried to go around the line and walk in the road beyond the bridge itself, someone would admonish. When my friend Michael and I were talking on the edge of the driveway into the coffee kiosk, Carol Becker asked us to move completely out of the roadway back into the crowd.
The only bad behavior I observed was two men who ran across the highway, one carrying a sign. NO! As Janet might say.
Someone lost a sign in the gusty winds, and it was floating.
I had a debate with several people about a group of quite attractive ladies on the north side of the bridge who had a “FXXK Trump” sign. I don’t really feel this was the spirit of the America I love, although Sam Adams and Patrick Henry would surely have approved, Mr. Washington would have reigned in bad banners if he were there. I liked best those who dressed up to be funny and make fun, that’s the spirit to challenge this National Monty Python episode we are living through.
Overall, these liberal conservatives are true Americans following common sense, common decency, and the rules of civilized behavior under a president who does none of the above. They still believe in the Constitution!
Everybody had one question for me: how many people are here? I had made a block count estimate of 1200, but was not sure it was reliable, as I like to follow a method I learned way back when at Humboldt State from a journalism professor who said false and exaggerated counts were the bane of the news media. (LOL. That’s the problem? That professor had no idea that the entire journalism profession would soon be flushed down the toilet.
My old friend Bernie MacDonald, who had the brain of an engineer, would also count, and we would compare numbers. Organizers sometimes got angry at both of us for not promulgating exaggerated numbers they were sure were correct..
I am a conservative.. Have always been one and am horrified right now by the bad behaviour of the conservative-conservatives far more than liberal-conservatives who believe in the Enlightenment and science like Benjamin Franklin did, or engage in protests like Sam Adams and Patrick Henry.
I went back and forth between the protest and the awesome car show in downtown Fort Bragg. Two groups of conservatives. We need them to see each other as lovers of our town and country to save us all from this mess.
I saw many people at both events. Anyway, I was trying to do my estimate but the long, fast-moving line and the dogs jerking my arms while I tried to take photos. Then I ran into Wade Gray, a man of science like Bernie. Gray had counted 1225 people on the south side of the bridge (where 90 percent plus of the protest was) and this matched what had been counted. Of course, I talked to everybody I could, as usual, much to the chagrin of the dogs. I met a tourist from Italy who was firing away on his camera. “This is great. This is America!” he said, probably having learned more about the American Revolution in school than many of us did.
Gray’s count was close to my 1200. And people came and went all day, so the total was probably 1500, including my tourist friend, who gave me his name and email, but I couldn’t get it written down, being pulled in all directions by the dogs amid a sea of people and honking.
Gary Levenson Palmer reported from Point Arena and sent photos.
“Report from someone in Gualala – 500 people. For Point Arena 200 people. These pictures are Point Arena. There are lots of Facebook pictures and reports from Gualala.”
Rick Childs was working the Mendocino Indivisible table and like all others I interviewed, saw no bad behavior or even counter protests, which would have been welcomed in the American spirit
Childs said “ I wound up walking the entire distance — it went from 100 ft S. of the Todd’s Point traffic light all the way to the Chevron station – a good half-mile. I brought a donation jar — protesters donated $696 to our local Indivisible chapter. Nice”
The Willits Facebook page thst i belong to banned all mentions of the protests, based on their stated purpose to be NOT about politics. But folks, you are way off. This was an actual event. I totally understand not wanting to have your community page drowned by trolls arguing about national politics; they did that to my newspapers also, but you have to make exceptions. The Anderson Valley Advertiser had an excellent overview of the county protests, including photos from Boonville and this from Willits:
George Dorner (Willits)
“Just got home from the Willits No Kings march. Schmoozed with a surprising number of fellow Vietnam vets, as well as members of Willits Indivisible. We marched at ten am from Babcock to Recreation Grove, Stars and Stripes leading. It was an all ages crowd at the park, with a heartening number of mobility impaired included. Clumps of marchers kept showing up at the Grove for over an hour, as the March stretched on.
Captain America appeared, clad in armor and equipped with shield, bugle, and bullhorn. A spectacular array of ingenious protest signs elicited horn honks, applause, and cheers from most passing motorists as the Grove crowd grew. I have no talent for estimating crowd size; I’ll just guess hundreds.
Counter-protesters? A lone goat roper in a pickup gave us the single finger salute.”
There were a few of those in Fort Bragg but many more honks. The honks were not as common as at the first protest.
MendoFever had an excellent story on the Ukiah protests. Just click on the link, it goes into the meat of why people were doing this protest.
I am appalled that many of my right-wing friends have made incorrect statements about how the protesters are a bunch of no-job freeloaders. I saw retired people, yes, but mostly all the rest were working people. I myself had to leave the protest to work at the hospital.
Trumpers and anarchists alike. If they are locals putting their shoulders to the plow of the community, I’m with you. I support local businesses, jobs and the railroad. I also support criticizing all local institutions including your reporter; that’s American too. But if you are a liberal who won’t shop at a local store because you don’t agree with the politics of the owner. You missed the boat. You missed the entire planet if you shop Amazon instead.
I love the name Mendocino Indivisible. That’s what we need to be to survive. I’m not even providing a link to the national protests. You can search the internet for that.
The social media and national right-wing and left-wing media will both lie to you. I watched Fox News and they were falsely stating the parade in Washington was some sort of long planned celebration of the 250th birthday of the U.S Army. It was that, as well as being president Trump’s birthday But the Fox liars failed to mention that AMERICA DOESN’T DO military parades. Dwight D. Eisenhower would not allow any such parade unless it celebrates the veterans, not the might of the army. Big penile missiles and goose step marching was for the Nazi’s, China, North Korea and Stalin, not a country as great as America. The left-wing media often made it ONLY Trump’s birthday. It’s true, Trump has wanted a parade for his glory for many with tiny hands to waggle giant missiles like HItler and Stalin. But in the Facebook liberal media groups you would have to work pretty hard to find out that this was the 250th birthday of the U.S Army.
Trump is saying 250,000 people came. The crowd looked more like the size of the one in Fort Bragg. Too bad Bernie is not around to have done one of his careful, block counts, accounting for moving people and the average distance between people. Trump would have declared him “fake news.”
Fox also lied by not pointing out how rare this Trump parade was in American history, something for glory of the biggest big government we have ever had, not the warriors.
Lies and more lies by omission.
When Eisenhower was asked to hold a parade to match those strutting missiles in the Soviet Union, he said there was no need for the mightiest nation on earth to do such a silly thing
He believed the might was from the people. Being mighty because we are us. WE THE PEOPLE is the statement of American conservative liberalism.
Janet Ashford had a quote after the meeting that I liked as well as NO!
“It was wonderful to be at the protest yesterday and see so many people and great signs. I saw many familiar faces, but also many people I’ve never seen at a protest before. Also, I saw families with children, and Hispanic people for the first time. It was a wonderful event and I feel proud to have been a part of what was a nationwide effort.”
