OCTOBER 18, 2025 – Blogger’s note: The third and final installment of the series, “Seeing the Past in the Present” will be posted tomorrow.
I’ve heard it said that we live in news and information silos in which we’re fed a steady diet of our own unwavering opinions; that we need to step out of our political echo chambers and “hear what the other side has to say.”
In general principle, I would agree, but when it comes to the current regime and its supporters, I’m no longer any more inclined to “hear the other side” than I’d be interested in hearing an ear-drum-busting band called, “The Sh_ _ Storm.” Today I joined a large crowd of politically like-minded people. Our echo chamber was the intersection of “Main and Main” in the very red city of Hayward (pop. 2,587), in the very red county of Sawyer in northwest Wisconsin. From noon to a bit past 1:30, “red” turned very “blue.” The salient take-away from this gathering was that none of us who participated is alone; lots of people are as scandalized by the Naked Emperor and as concerned about our democracy as I am. When I returned to the Red Cabin after the demonstration, I was heartened further when I heard about the massive turnouts at “No Kings!” demonstrations across the country and elsewhere in the world.
Back in the Twin Cities my wife phoned a little before noon as she was heading to meet up with friends to attend one of the bigger “No Kings!” protests in St. Paul. She wanted to confirm that I knew where the local demonstration would be in Hayward. “Have you made a sign?” she asked. Earlier she’d texted me a photo of her own sign—“We Love Democracy!” in big bold lettering inside the shape of a heart.
“Uh, no,” I said. “I was looking for some cardboard but there’s none here at the cabin.”
After the call, I looked again in earnest for something on which I could jot down words of protest. On the porch I saw just the thing(s): four neatly stacked 18-inch stubs of 2 x 4s that I’d recently cut for my pergola project. I snatched one, dug in a kitchen drawer for a Magic Marker and on the fly, fashioned a “ruler” by marking short vertical measurement lines along the bottom. In neat lettering across the face of the wood, I wrote, “Rule of Law!” At least I wouldn’t be empty-handed.
I arrived at the appointed site right at noon, and already a sizable crowd had gathered on each of the corners of the busiest intersection in town. I parked in the Marketplace supermarket lot close by, and as I walked toward the intersection, I noticed a number of people carrying American flags—big and small. Could it be, I wondered, that here in Trump country, Trump supporters were staging a counter-demonstration? As it turned out, however, all the flag wavers were anti-Trump, and the ones with whom I spoke made it clear that they wanted to “take back our flag, everyone’s flag.”
Interesting. After the demonstration I received a text from a good college friend of mine, Jeff Klenk, who’d attended a “No Kings!” rally in Kitty Hawk, NC. He sent an accompanying video he’d taken of a Trump supporter (self-identified by a MAGA hat)—a middle-aged woman in an SUV—who’d pulled over to the side of the road, hopped out of the vehicle and attempted to forcibly pull a larger flag from the hands of a protester. The people around the flag-bearer swiftly came to his aid and chased the chagrined woman back to her vehicle. As I watched—and re-watched—the video clip, I wondered, what in the world was the woman’s . . . world view?
Her attack over the flag was as low and despicable, certainly as “anti-American,” as Republican condemnations that the “No King!” demonstrators were . . . that’s right, “anti-American.” The irony was nothing short of cartoonish.
The demonstrators in Hayward represented, I thought, a good cross-section of the local population—old, young and middle-aged—almost entirely white, but a few Native Americans (I liked their flags—American flags with the faces of traditional Native people superimposed on the field of stars). The protest signs covered the gamut—protesting everything from ICE operations to cutting taxes for the rich to gutting social safety net programs to the dismantling of scientific research to deploying the DOJ for political prosecution to Trumpian grift to non-release of the Epstein files. It was a spirited crowd, and passers-by in cars and trucks were just as spirited in expressing their solidarity: throughout the demonstration, horns honked nearly continuously. It was also a civil, peaceful crowd—everyday Americans worried sick about what’s happened to our country, and what awaits us if we don’t change course.
I exchanged words of mutual support with many people, but I wound up talking at length with a retired couple from one of the lakes outside Hayward. They’d been active in the life of the town for over 40 years and knew some of the same people I’d gotten to know during the summer of ’78, when I clerked in the law office of Tom Duffy, father of Sean Duffy, Trump’s Secretary of Transportation. Darrel (of the couple I met), in fact, had played on the seniors hockey team with Tom.
When I inquired into Darrel’s background, I learned quite a lot about him—in bits and pieces until I had a remarkable story and moreover, renewed faith in our country. He was five years older than I, which made all the difference during the Vietnam Era.
After two years at the U of MN, he was drafted into the army. He tested well, however, and was given a choice among many areas. Darrel cleverly—or so he thought—chose a field that required lengthy training—52 weeks, five days a week, under the rationale that by the time he finished, the war might well be winding down so that he wouldn’t be deployed to Vietnam. He was clever by half, as it turned out. What required so much training was medical—dealing with wounds of all kinds, amputations, and a wide assortment of diseases. By the time Darrel exited his training, the war still raged. He was shipped off to Vietnam and assigned to a front-line post that dealt with the worst of the worst right off the field of battle. His tour of duty lasted 13 months. He worked triage and was responsible for directing the sick and wounded to M.A.S.H. units. He said that eventually 90% of the people he saw were Vietnamese.
When I asked if he resumed his education after the army, Darrel said that after all that he’d seen and experienced in Vietnam, school seemed trivial, detached from the “real world.” In time he adjusted back to civilian life and developed a work resume that led to a secure income (as a manufacturer’s rep). He and his wife then moved from the Twin Cities to the Hayward area (“Where we could live in the country, build our own house[1], and I could hunt—grouse and deer, but I no longer hunt.”), where they raised their three sons, one of whom is a highly successful subcontractor in Hayward and . . . a Trump supporter. Darrel said they’ve learned not to talk politics and explained that his daughter-in-law is the real Trump supporter, hailing from a whole family of ardent Trumpers.
As a veteran Darrel is appalled by what Trump and Hegseth have done to the military. But that wasn’t the only basis for his disdain for the regime. “Their lack of qualification is stunning,” he said. “It seems that the biggest qualification for serving in the Trump administration is that you have no qualifications.” Before retirement his wife had worked for many years in the Human Services Department of Sawyer County. She was well-acquainted with the needs of people facing all sorts of struggles and understood the demand for social services.
When I checked the time, it was approaching 1:30. The demonstration had met its objective, and I was eager to return to the lake and resume work on my Pergola-on-a-Platform project. Before leaving Hayward, however, I drove a short way down the feeder road from Marketplace and looped back onto U.S. Highway 63 two blocks east of the junction with State Highway 27 and the center of the demonstration. By this time, more people lined both highways, forming an impressive crowd in this red town. On the approach to the intersection and as I turned south onto 27, I honked and gestured “thumbs up.” I felt bolstered by my own enthusiasm for the cause that had brought us all together: defense of democracy against tyranny.
It’s all too easy to slip into despair when alone, reading the latest newsfeed on your smartphone screen. It’s just as easy, though, to find hope amidst a large crowd of your fellow Americans exercising their First Amendment rights and opposing authoritarian rule—loud and clear.
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© 2025 by Eric Nilsson
[1] Darrel was quite the DIYer, who’d built the family home and worked on lots of other projects. When I showed him my “Rule of Law!” sign made from the 2 x 4, he laughed and said, “That’s why you never want to throw away scrap lumber. You just never know when it’ll be of use.”
