Several dozen demonstrators marched through downtown Vancouver on Friday evening to protest Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric and victory in the presidential election Tuesday.
Roughly 75 people joined the march — which started at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church on East Fourth Plain Boulevard, then headed down and back up Main Street — with a few others joining along the way.
As they marched, holding signs decrying Trump and his policy proposals, they earned intermittent honks and cheers from passing cars and bystanders, and occasional hoots of disapproval.
Owen Snoey and his wife, Peggy Sue, helped organize the march.
For Owen Snoey, the march was less about protesting the results of the election than the message he’s heard from Trump and his campaign.
“I think this has been such a contentious election process. To me, we really need to kind of get about that, and look at, really, what the principles of this country are all about,” he said.
Equal protection under the law is a pillar of American democracy, Owen Snoey said, so when candidates start talking about deporting large groups en masse or discrimination, it’s worth it to take to the streets.
The latest results from the Clark County Auditor’s Office show former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton defeated Trump in the county by 241 votes; 88,507 to 88,266.
Vancouver, Peggy Sue Snoey said, has a voice, and there’s a tradition dating from the civil rights movement of speaking up if something needs to be exposed and healed in society.
“Young people deserve to have a muscle memory in standing up for what they believe in, and the only way to do that is by having the adults in their lives show them how,” she said. “This is one way to do it.”
Jessica Swanson brought her two young children along; it was their first demonstration, she said.
“I want them to have a bright future without bullying, where they feel safe in school, and where they can help other people feel safe,” Swanson said. “And we’re not sure that’s going to be the future right now.”
Vancouver Public Schools board member Kathy Gillespie joined the demonstration. She said she was there, in part, to show solidarity with those who feel anxious about what a Trump presidency might mean for them.
“I’ve just heard from too many children that they’re afraid. They’re afraid because they’re brown, they’re afraid because they’re LGBTQ, they’re afraid because they don’t know what’s happening,” she said. “They’re hearing things on the national stage, if they were to say those things, their parents would punish them.”
Gillespie ran, unsuccessfully, as an independent Democrat in the race for the 18th District seat in the state House.
Along with the late arrivals, a handful of Trump-supporting counter-protesters showed up and followed behind for a good portion of the march.
Michael Armistead, who sported a red “Make America great again” cap, said he’s a passionate Trump supporter. He decried what he saw as rampant mischaracterization, or twisting, of Trump’s proposals and words in the culture and media, and how that’s further filtered through sound bites and headlines that obscure the meat of what he’s saying.
It will take time to address that, Armistead said.
“I think that Trump is going to have to spend his first six months really proving to everybody that he wants to bring the country together, because people are divided right now, and he has to prove it to them, not just say it, but prove it,” he said. “He has a hard road ahead of him.”
