For International Labor Day, or May day, several hundred people gathered in downtown Boise Thursday afternoon to protest the Trump administration. Joining similar events across the U.S., about 800 people met in front of City Hall with signs condemning a broad swath of the president’s policies.
Some called out the actions of DOGE and the billionaire class, while some supported saving public lands, social security and medicaid. Others denounced Trump’s illegal deportations and warned Americans were at risk of losing due process rights. Many drew parallels between Trump’s presidency and nazism.
Alayna Hicks, who works in the software industry and is one of the volunteer organizers, said the goal of the rally was to make sure the working class was properly represented. She called workers the “voice of America.”
“We're the ones everything's running off of,” she said.
Part of the grassroot 50501 political movement formed to counter Trump’s second term in office, this particular event was in honor of unions and workers rights.
“I think another big part of what we're trying to focus on are local items,” Hicks added. “What can we control locally, and what are our representatives doing to represent us and how are they not?”
Retired forester Steve McConnell and his partner Loretta Todd drove down from Lowman to attend.
“There's so many things coming at us, we can't fight it. I don't have any ways I can resist it. Writing letters doesn't seem to help. Just showing up physically just feels really important to me,” he said.
Todd, a retired nurse, said she was particularly worried about the consequences of mass firings at the federal level.
“People have been let go prematurely and without planning and it’s going to be very hard to replace people,” she said, adding that her town relied heavily on the recently gutted Forest Service. “Without that federal workforce to meet our needs, we will all feel that.”
Here to support the LBGTQ community, retired business owner Bob Bolyard said his biggest fear was a descent into facism.
“We need to overturn President Trump's overreach.” he said. “We need the Congress to stand up, man up, woman up, and bring peace back to America.”
Following speeches, protesters briefly walked downtown chanting “lock him up” or “Hey hey Ho Ho, Donald Trump has got to go,” before disbanding in the early afternoon.
