2 weeks Ago By ANDY TALLMAN [email protected]
It was standing room only on the lawn outside the Missoula County Courthouse on Saturday, as more than 3,000 people gathered to protest Donald Trump's presidency and the actions of special government employee and billionaire Elon Musk. Cheers and the beats of a drum circle echoed in between seven speakers at the rally, each of whom focused on one of the issues that have ended up in Trump and Musk’s crosshairs. People held aloft signs protesting Musk’s cuts to the government and firing of federal employees, along with the Trump administration’s attacks on minority groups.
The flags of America, Palestine, Ukraine and the queer community flew in the wind. The rally, dubbed "Hands Off! Missoula fights back," was organized over the last 10 days by three Missoula activism groups — Indivisible Missoula, Missoula Resists and Stand Up Fight Back — in solidarity with marches under the same name across the country on Saturday. Despite the tight timeline, organizers were prepared for a crowd.
“I kind of had a sense that it was going to be big,” Meredith Printz with Indivisible Montana told the Missoulian. “There’s a sense of joy in the air.” “This is the size of a protest I would see in Denver,” University of Montana student Luke Duntley said.
“That’s really empowering to see,” fellow student Trillium Keith added. In addition to the crowd, passing cars on Broadway honked their support. “Missoula is one of the best places I have ever been,” Stand Up Fight Back cofounder Cyrus Gertz told the crowd.
“We are not only going to fight against things, but fight for each other.” The speakers focused on elections, health care, retirement, freedom of speech, bodily autonomy, education and public lands, which were the top seven issues that Missoula chose to cover during the event in a Missoula Resists online survey. Sue Kirchmyer called for the repeal of Citizens United to keep corporations out of elections.
“The wealthy and corporations have been running the show since 2010,” Kirchmyer said. “Nothing short of a constitutional amendment is gonna change that.” She also called out recent executive orders and the federal SAVE Act, which seek to raise the barrier of entry for voter registration.
Family doctor Tim Caramore expressed worries about cuts to agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Protection and National Institutes of Health. “These agencies are being decimated by staffing cuts and funding freezes,” Caramore said. “And why? Because the oligarchs still don’t have enough.
” Joyce Westerbur demanded that Republicans keep their hands off Social Security. “It’s our money, which we and our employers contributed,” Westerbur said. “Social Security benefits all Americans.
” She also worried that the cutting of disability benefits would kill people who rely on them for survival. Sam Thorstag, who’s the president of the local U.S.
Forest Service union, called for an end to attacks on public lands and civil servants, and for Congress to not sell public lands to pay off tax cuts. “Right now, our public lands and the people who work to protect them are under attack,” Thorstag said. “What this all comes down to is people who’ve never had dirt under their fingernails.
” Boos exploded from the crowd at every mention of Montana's congressmen Tim Sheehy, Ryan Zinke and Steve Daines, who speakers accused of being enablers who didn’t show up for Montanans. But they erupted in cheers for Missoula Rep. Zooey Zephyr, who took the stage to introduce Bridgette Solls Whiteman with Trans Visible Montana.
“If you are part of the resistance, I am your representative,” Zephyr said. Solls Whiteman lambasted the over 20 anti-queer bills introduced this Montana legislative session, and led the crowd in chanting “hands off.” One such bill, House Bill 121, which aims to block trans people from using restrooms aligning with their gender in public buildings, was recently blocked by a restraining order after the ACLU filed a lawsuit.
Chase Hakes, with ACLU Montana, sounded the alarm about the administration’s attacks on the First Amendment on Saturday. “Across the country, we are witnessing more efforts to silence dissent,” Hakes said. “This is not just a legal issue.
It’s a direct threat to democracy. When the government decides whose voice can be heard, we all lose.” Shannon O’Brien, a former Montana senator who ran for superintendent of public instruction last November, emphasized recent attacks by the federal government on schools, both K-12 and universities.
“We can do better and we will do better,” O’Brien said. She said that taxpayer money is being taken from schools to fund tax cuts, and expressed alarm at recent efforts to dictate what teachers teach, both at a state and federal level. UM students Duntley, Keith, Elisha Doty and Mallory Mencas all resonated with the issues the speakers brought up — and not just education.
“My mother pays for the mortgage with my father’s Social Security,” Keith said. “She’s at risk of losing her home.” Doty said both he and his parents only have health insurance through Medicaid.
“Defunding things as a weapon is incredibly scary,” Duntley said. “Especially when other schools are capitulating.”.
