No Kings Fort Bragg Stays Peaceful, Productive, and 900+ Strong — Join Our Video and Photo Adventure- Other groups should use the great energy to accomplish local progress
We went back and checked out or No Kings from the past photos and videos and we are pretty sure this one was actually smaller than the other two. Not by too much and there was also an unknown sized event at the stoplight in Mendo. We always do our own counts and we feel its important to give an accurate picture, not the ones organizers of any event want. We both had to work so we had only a brief tour of the event, but we have some good photos and videos for you below.
No Kings and Indivisible now have subsumed Forest and environmental protests, the former roles of CELL, Transition Towns and the food and localization movements. With all the focus on the horrible things happening nationally and internationally, we have pretty much abandoned localization as a cause here. Wall Street couldn’t be happier. Many local non profits are dying on the vine, of old age mostly but all the energy is on this, and its great….
It’s not their fault, they should get the credit for creating terrfic energy. But the reality is the left has largely lost its influence on the Coast and the right is gaining power now and some very creepy stuff is also going on. LIke us, who have to work and are not funded by political interest monies, nor want to be, everybody is too busy to use the wonderful energy of Indivisible. We are not involved in local politics, local farming, local environemntal issues or anything else like we used to be.
And we are all so gullible, I want to just forget it and give up.
Here was what happened when we went out. I like to write whatever I see, not try to create a focused, honed version of reality. We call what we see.
The closest thing I saw to an arrest at No Kings was… me.
My wife said I could go any speed I wanted. Actually… no. That’s not how the law works. Speed — too fast or too slow — is always at the discretion of the officer and the road conditions. So there I was on the Noyo Bridge, slowing down to get a video, when an SUV behind me started laying on the horn like I’d personally offended her religion. The crowd thought she was honking in support of the protest, which only made the whole thing funnier to us.
Then the Fort Bragg Police rolled up beside me and let me know I needed to pick it up because I was holding up traffic. Fine. I sped up. Apparently still too leisurely for the moment, because he told me again. So I went faster yet. Goodbye, video. The officer was doing his job, and the honker behind us instantly found her inner peace – like magic she stopped the moment he pulled alongside.
We even saw a truck in a drive‑through flying a big Confederate flag — and the driver waved, because of course he did – it’s Mendocino About a dozen people revved their engines and a few insults drifted out of windows, but far more drivers honked in support. Overall, it stayed peaceful. The one truly unsettling moment came when two women I know were confronted by a man who pulled over, started menacing them, called them bitches, and inched his car toward them. A man walking behind them stepped in, and the two men jawed at each other while the women — who’ve never had anything like this happen at previous protests — left, shaken by the sheer fury in the counter‑protester’s face. All of them, protesters and counter‑protester alike, graduated high school in the 1970s, which tells you something about how long tempers can simmer on the Coast.
The event felt like the happy reunion of Coasties these No Kings gatherings always are. The crowd looked about the same size as the past two protests we’ve been to — last time, several of us in attendance counted and came up with a range of 900 to 1,500, and this one felt right in that zone. But when I did the recount from the video, it landed closer to 900. We’re also hearing reports of roughly 200 people turning out in Mendocino — can anyone confirm that? People peeled off earlier than in previous years, maybe because the sun was out and the beach was calling, but even with the early departures it was easily a grand of people across the Coast. More were on the west side of the bridge than in the past, though never more than about 50 at a time.
The messages ran the full spectrum — from “Eat the Rich” and “Fuck ICE” (many times) to “No Kings, Just Love.” And then there was the young woman perched on the west‑side railing, legs tucked under her, Buddha‑calm, waving at every car with a serene smile and no sign at all. I wanted so badly to interview her, but duty called.
A little music started things off — low‑key, almost accidental — and then, in true Coast fashion, five bands materialized out of nowhere. Mostly impromptu, of course. Someone pulled out a guitar, someone else found a drum, a couple of old friends remembered they used to play together, and suddenly the whole protest had a soundtrack.
Across the nation, elected leaders joined No Kings events for the first time in many places. That hasn’t happened here. County leadership — especially on the Coast — is largely Republican, with some MAGA‑aligned officials in top law‑enforcement roles, so participation is unlikely.
Indivisible has no goals for after. No invovlement in boosting AOC, say, which would be a great use of the energy, but I understand why they want to be political against Trump but otherwise not involved in any way with politics.
But the right grows and grows in power without a left to counteract it on a local, state or even national level. A left entirely distracted by a needed fight with a Trump regime more openly corrupt than all other US presidential regimes from Washington to Biden were secretly. Trumps corruption is 100x that of all other presidents combined. It’s the propaganda BIG LIE. So big nobody can see it, just like Adolph (or likely Goebbels as ghost writer) wrote. Little known fact- when Hitler coined the term Big LIe in 1925, he claimed it was the Jews who were using it, while Hilter was the one actually using it against them.
But the other shoe has not even begun to drop. Be suspicious locally here on the Mendocino Coast. Be very suspicious.
THINK. THINK CRITICALLY. Ya’ll arent doing that right now.
There is a nationwide movement of foreign-based GOP funding that is targeting the new WordPress type media like Mendocinocoast. news. We ourselves could be a funded agent for right-wing disruption. We are not but others up and down California especially, are, none of which are openly MAGA. In fact, they deal only with the left and posture as their friends and say what they want said. Then there are the legacy papers, zombies that produce nothing but still have most of the audience in a Coast, rich and poor that is still not very wired for the internet, much less everything now layered on top of it. Without any local commitment by the current movement, as would have been the case in the past, we shop global, read global and MAGA and live in an echo chamber. And yet they have made a big impact, sent shockwaves of hope to many by bringing us together to fight evil incarnate essentially. But we have to go out and plant, and shop local and bank local if this is to end well. Every week, find 2-3 items you now buy from Amazon and buy those at a local thrift store. Do without! Localvores like us will be back in style again, the easy way or the hard way (having to surve a collapse created by reckless and intentionally descrutive current leaders.)
In the end, it felt like what these No Kings gatherings always are on the Coast: a reunion, a reminder, a roll call of who we still are. A thousand people, give or take, showing up with guitars, homemade signs, Buddha‑calm wavers, and the full spectrum of human messages from “Fuck ICE” to “Just Love.” A few honks of fury, far more honks of hope. One scary moment, handled by neighbors. Five bands that appeared out of thin air because that’s how we do it here.
And while leaders across the country are finally stepping into these events, ours didn’t — and maybe won’t. But that’s never stopped Coasties from showing up for each other, or from understanding the deeper truth: power follows money, and money follows us.
So if you want to make a difference, start where it counts. Quit the platforms that profit from your exhaustion. Unsubscribe from the systems that treat you like data instead of a human being. The Resist & Unsubscribe movement has already cost the Epstein class $285 million. Add your drop to that tide.
Links below. Photos and video above. And the Coast — stubborn, musical, sun‑drenched, imperfect, and still showing up — rolls on.
Good place to start?
QuitGPT. Chat GPT is Trump’s biggest tech donor and a facilitator of ICE. Enough said.
Come on! Do it!! Here is another chance.
Somebody else took a video, from the sidewalk and the sky!! I would encourage folks to actually count the people in this. They were not blocking the highway and getting yelled at by the police, LOL so they could go slow enough for you to count. There are robots online that will count these too..
