Longview 'Hands Off' rally draws 1,000 marchers to protest Trump policies

Peaceful, 90-minute protest not matched with any counter-demonstration

I’m reposting this story because an unproofed version somehow got sent out earlier. Here is the cleaned-up version.

Toting hundreds of signs and accompanied by a steady support of honking and beeping motorists, an estimated 1,000 citizens marched in circles around Longvew’s R.A. Long Park Saturday as part of a nationwide protest against Trump Administration policies

Marchers protesting the policies of the Trump administration ringed R.A. Long Park in Longview on Saturday afternoon.

Most marchers carried signs, a smattering of them laced with profanity. At times the marchers — walking clockwise two or three abreast — almost completely girdled the perimeter sidewalk of the 5.5-acre park.

There was no counter-demonstration, and the rally broke up peacefully about 90 minutes after launching at noon.

It was one of thousands of anti-Trump “Hands Off” rallies planned nationwide Saturday to protest the budget, tariff, immigration, foreign policy, health care, consumer protection, free speech, social welfare and other controversial policies of the new administration.

People of all ages participated in the Longview event, though the clear majority were middle-aged to senior citizen.

A sampling of the signs:

“We don’t need a stinking dictator’

“Traitor Trump and Moron Musk must go.”

“Tariffs are a tax.”

“Hands off Social Security and Health Care.”

“Elect a Clown, expect a circus.”

“The First Amendment is not negotiable.”

“Trump is the National Emergency.”

“Trump is a Russian ASSset.”

"Republicans — Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.”

Supported by mid-day warmth, sunshine and the turnout, the marchers were notably upbeat and ebullient.

To the rhythm of beating tribal indian drums, protestors periodically chanted “Hands Off. Hands Off. Hands off.”

At times, the cacaphony of honking cars was continuous. Some motorists repeatedly circled the park, which is located in the heart of the city’s civic center, in support of the event.

Several protesters noted that the attendance is a sign that Democrats are shaking off the shock that followed Trump’s election in November and his blitzkrieg attempt to dismantle the federal government and disrupt the world order.

The size of the turnout was surprising in that Cowlitz County has veered quite far to the political right in the last couple decades. However, Longview’s politics are more centrist.

Marchers in Longview’s “Hands Off” rally target multiple Trump orders.

Jeff Stewart, a Longview computer technician, said he’d never attended a political protest before. He participated Saturday because he fears Trump and Elon Musk — head of Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)— are trying to establish a fascist system.

The turnout gave him an emotional boost. ”I cried a little.”

“My neighbors are both Trump supporters. Seeing this from the town that I love so dearly is fantastic,” said Stewart, 38.

Kathy Thompson , 72, of Longview said she was marching “because I love democracy and I am appalled by the current administration.”

Her husband served in the Vietnam war for 18 months, thinking then that he was defending American freedom, she said. He did does not, Thompson said, want to lose that freedom, and she’s worried she might lose Social Security.

”I paid into it for 55 years. I hope I can keep getting it.”

Some local Democratic leaders joined the protest. One of them was George Raiter, who has served as a Cowlitz County commissioner and Longview mayor. He toted a sign that said “Mein Trumpf,” linking the president to Adoph Hitler’s Nazi manifesto, Mein Kampf. (“My struggle”).

“What’s happening now is scary,” said Raiter, because the Republican party is unwilling to challenge their own party’s president. And he worries that Trump will not obey court rulings that invalidate his orders.

“The guardrails of representative government) are not working,” Raiter said. “I’m worried. I hope events like this are enough to flip the House” to Democratic control in the fall of 2026.

American flags — and a Canadian and Ukrainian flag or two — rippled and whipped above and among the marchers. Longview resident John Andrechak toted the yellow and blue flag of Ukraine, where he traveled in February on a civilian mercy mission, to show support.

He noted that a Russian daylight attack on a civilian target in Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky, killed at last 19 people earlier this week, including nine children.

“Slava Ukraini” (Glory to Ukraine) he shouted to fellow marchers, using the Ukrainian national salute and symbol of Ukrainian sovereignty.

Ukraine, he said, has to know America is not abandoning it as Trump tilts American policy toward the Kremlin, despite Ukraine serving as a bulwark against Russian expansion into the West.

“They (the Ukrainian people) are fighting for us,” Andrechak said.