SEQUIM, Wash.—Nearly 1,000 protesters celebrated Labor Day here Sept 1, joining a vast crowd along Washington Avenue holding signs that proclaimed “Peoples’ Needs, not Billionaire Greed” and “Honor Labor, Creator of ALL Value.”
It was another in a daily outpouring of angry protests against President Donald Trump and the MAGA Republican majority in the House and Senate waging nonstop war on voting rights, freedom of speech and assembly, and vicious cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and other benefits. The action, “Workers over Billionaires,” was sponsored by Indivisible Sequim, one of more than a thousand Labor Day protests across the nation.
Flapping grotesquely over the crowd was one of those tube balloons, a caricature of Trump wearing a crown as he flipped and flopped. Many in the crowd held signs, “NO KING!” left over from the enormous crowd of 2,495 people who turned out for the “No King” demonstration in Sequim, June 14, when an estimated six million protested nationwide.
Roger, a retired California aerospace worker, was wearing his United Auto Workers (UAW) T-shirt.
“The labor movement must mobilize with more energy and determination to fight for the rights of union workers, including hundreds of thousands of union federal workers terminated by Trump and the MAGA Republicans,” he said.
One hand-lettered sign reflected the choice workers face: “ORGANIZE OR STARVE.” It is a quote from Mother Jones, the grassroots strike leader beloved of coal miners a century ago.
Lisa and her partner, Ron from Agnew, were standing at the corner, he holding a sign, “Let Gaza Live!” Said Ron, “In Gaza and Ukraine, the people are rising.”
He denounced AIPAC (American Israel Political Action Committee) for pouring what is considered dark money into the campaign coffers of Democratic candidates, including Rep. Emily Randall (D-WA), exerting pressure on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to reject a resolution to terminate Pentagon assistance to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Lisa added, “If people connect the dots, we can create a world that is more just, equitable, kind, all the democratic values we believe in. I’m hopeful.”
Steve Koehler played his banjo, and some in the crowd joined in singing “Solidarity Forever” with the line, “They have taken untold billions that they never toiled to earn/Yet without our brain and muscle not a single wheel would turn…”
Then he broke into Woody Guthrie’s immortal “Union Maid” with the line, “Oh, you can’t scare me, I’m sticking with the union….til the day I die.”
Many held hand-painted signs blasting Trump’s deportations of immigrants—and some U.S. citizens—arrested in dragnet sweeps by ICE agents dressed in black, wearing masks, without identification.
One young man told this reporter he is a war veteran, outraged that even veterans of U.S. military operations around the world are being arrested and deported. He wore a T-shirt with the words “Veterans Fighting Fascism” and held the sign he made with a life-size photo of a thug wearing a black mask and the words “Police ICE” stencilled on his body armor. “UNAMERICAN,” the sign proclaimed with an upside-down American flag and a Nazi Swastika below it. “J6 Retreads… Thugs/Losers,” referring to the Jan. 6, 2021, siege of the U.S. Capitol by neo-Nazis and KKK terrorists. “Hitler’s Brownshirts, Mussolini’s Blackshirts did not wear masks,” the vet said. “But these ICE thugs are wearing masks just like the ISIS terrorists in Iraq and Syria who beheaded people. This is fascism right here in the U.S.”
This neo-fascist menace was underlined by a team of men and women dressed in jet-black uniforms and wearing black face masks and dark glasses who marched through the crowd holding signs that identify fascist terrorism: “ERASING & FAKING GOVERNMENT DATA This is fascism” and “OPPRESSION OF LGBTQ + PEOPLE This is fascism.”
It is an election year, and one woman held a hand-lettered sign that proclaimed, “VOTE Nov. 4 LAURIE FORCE, O.M.C. BD.” One of Laurie Force’s campaigners walked up and down both sides of Washington Ave. shouting, “Vote November 4. Defend our hospital! No privatization. Elect Laurie Force to the O.M.C. Executive Board.”
The League of Women Voters (LWV) had a table and many of their members at the mass vigil. Many in the crowd said they had seen Laurie Force in a debate sponsored by the LWV and were so impressed that they would work to turn out the vote and expected many to vote for her.
Clallam County Democratic Party (CCDP) Chair, Ellen Menshew, was at the vigil with scores of CCDP members, many of them carpooling from Port Angeles, Joyce, and other towns further west. “Today, 1,000 people are gathered here in Sequim for Labor Day. Many thousands more are demonstrating across the country. We, the people, are standing up to defend democracy, fighting back against this fascist regime.”
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