Lincoln City Anti-Trump Protest, 133 Days in a Row and Counting

by Brian Bahouth

In early April of this year, Lincoln City resident Jerry Conlogue decided to stand at the intersection of NW 22nd street and the 101 in Lincoln City holding an anti-Trump sign and waving to the many vehicles stopped at the light or driving past. Every day since then, at least four people have gathered at the intersection for a protest. On Friday August 22, standing on the southeast corner of the thronging intersection, I asked Conlogue about the decision to take it to the street. 

“I’m an old guy, 77 years old, and I used to enjoy watching the evening news until November. After the election in November, I felt totally lost and I couldn’t watch the news, got really depressed about what was going on, and I felt I had to do something,” Conlogue said over the din of constant traffic. “Shar (Conlogue’s wife) and I went to a rally in Portland, was a Tesla protest. Then we went to a rally in Salem, and I thought, why not do something here in Lincoln City? I only live a couple blocks away. 

“So this, I thought was the perfect corner. There’s a traffic light. Traffic has to stop here for 30 or 40 seconds. There’s parking around, and on the corner I started on, there was also a bench, so for us all folks who need to sit down, that was there. So I started April 12th. This makes week number 19 that we’ve been here, and I was only here for maybe a week before people started joining me. 

“And I think it’s uplifting for me to hear the horns and the waves. I don’t think we’re the minority that we assume we are. I think there’s a lot of people who feel like we do, but they need some kind of inspiration. I think we’re out here every day, and I think you need every day so you can show them that every day someone’s here. I think it’s great when we have periodic rallies on a Saturday or once a week, but I think you really need someone here every day. 

“So these wonderful folks are out here. I’ve missed maybe six days of the total so far, but there have been at least four people out here every day since April 12th.”

Chris is a retired nurse and stood on the northwest corner of the intersection. She occasionally pressed the walk button and then slowly marched back and forth across the street when the traffic was stopped and she had the walk sign. She said she’s been there almost every day since April 12.

“I’m out here because we have a gangster government, and I want people not to normalize it. On a normal government, if you dislike something, you just dislike it. You know what they’re doing. But this is beyond normal, so we have to behave beyond normal. 

“It takes a lot of chutzpah, and you deal with a lot of, you know, negative folks. We’ve had fire crackers thrown at us, people who have their trucks rigged with their exhaust so they can put up huge plumes of black smoke will do that. I’ve had people like aim their truck or their car at us and then pull away, so I mean, you get a lot of hostility, but more than that, the majority of the people that go by are waving, honking, you know, giving us the thumbs up. So that feels good.”

Shar Walbaum is an organizer for Indivisible Lincoln City and was on the northeast corner of the intersection. 

“I’m out here mostly to support the people that are out here every single day. I come out maybe half the time. 

“There’s two reasons for being out here, or for being at any rally, I think, and one of them is that the people who are out here have formed a community, and they are for each other. They look out for each other. They notice when someone’s not here. They call to make sure they’re okay. Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but a lot of us are older, and I think that’s a really important function of something like this. 

“But there’s another one that’s more maybe fundamental, and that is that these people are showing all of those drivers that they’re not alone, that there’s opposition to Trump’s policies, to what’s and really what’s happening to our democracy. And maybe get derive a little strength from that, strength and encouragement, because we know that on a day that’s just a regular weekday, about anywhere between 750 and 1000 cars pass by here. And so when there are waves and honks and peace signs and so on, all that is great and we’re happy. That makes us happy. 

“But the people who don’t do anything but look, those people are really important, because what’s true in Lincoln City is a lot of people feel scared, feel reticent to make it clear who they are and what they believe. And one of the reasons for that is, I think, the level of intimidation, the sheer amplitude of people who support the MAGA movement makes them think that this place is a very conservative MAGA stronghold, and unless they get evidence to the contrary, why would they stand up?”

I asked Chris about the impact of a public protest, why stand on the corner.

“Any major issue that we’ve had change on in my entire life. And I’m 73, so I’ve been around, was around for a long time since the ’60s and doing protests, every major issue has involved boots on the ground and people getting out and risking their safety to do something about it. And so, I think it’s the only thing that’s going to change us.” 

When asked about the political utility of street-corner protests, Shar Walbaum said public demonstrations can be a catalyst.

“We need to build a resistance. And so the resistance is there, but I think it’s kind of in, I wouldn’t say embryonic form, but it’s there. We can see it at no King’s Day, for example. In Lincoln City, we got, there were 1000 people at the rally here. This city has 10,000 people in it,” Walbaum said. “So there were, and of course, some of them were visitors. A lot of them weren’t visitors. So that’s a lot of bodies, but that won’t be enough.

“We need to not just be at this point. We need to go further, where people are more organized, where there’s more concerted efforts to do things like go to city council meetings, run for office, like any of the offices, school boards, city councils. But there’s also state level offices. There’s showing up at state conventions. There’s lots of ways in which people can be more active in the resistance to what’s going on right now to our democracy.”

Even though most of the passing comments are positive, I asked Jerry if he ever fears for his safety.

“I think this is what’s great about being old. I got nothing to lose. I’m not going to lose my job. I’m not fearful for my job. I can stand out here, and most of the folks who have been negative are just bullies about it, and they never follow through with what they say they’re going to do.”