Saturday afternoon hit many of the notes of a holiday celebration: crowds filling spaces downtown blooming with early summer wildflowers, live music, flags, and spectators cheering a parade down Main Street. Mayor Tom Morphet even had his trumpet out.
Passers-by wouldn’t have been remiss to think they had wandered into last month’s graduation celebration. Only this time, it wasn’t a town coming together. Instead, community members were split into two camps, one up the hill on Third and Main, and one down the hill at the harbor. And while one of the camps said they were indeed gathering to celebrate a holiday, Flag Day, the other camp, which planned its event first, had timed it to coincide with president Donald Trump’s military parade in Washington, D.C.
That anti-Trump demonstration, part of a nationwide day of mass protests titled “No Kings,” drew somewhere in the realm of 100 Haines residents.
Simultaneously, at the harbor, about 15 vehicles and a few dozen people gathered in what they described as a celebration of the flag and the country, but also a pro-Trump counterpoint to the demonstration up the hill.
For a brief few minutes early in the afternoon, the two groups met.
As the No Kings protest began, the harbor group drove their vehicles up the hill and past the anti-Trump protestors at Third and Main. Then they turned around and drove by them once more on their way back down to the harbor. Each vehicle flew an American flag, as well as a handful of Trump flags and flags with Christian crosses.
Despite the close quarters, interactions between the groups remained limited. The pro-Trump group never stopped their vehicles, and the anti-Trump group didn’t approach the vehicle parade. Some individuals waved at the other side, not to anyone in particular, and some passing vehicles revved engines.
Afterwards, participants in both groups spoke about boiling-over tensions elsewhere in the country, like the president’s order earlier in the month deploying National Guard troops and Marines in Los Angeles.
In a community with a reputation for bitter disagreement over policy issues, tensions could have risen in Haines as well. Pro-Trump demonstration organizer Sean Arnold said he considered it.
“I had originally wanted to do a counter-protest, get riled up,” Arnold said before the Saturday demonstration. But ultimately, Arnold decided not to, citing the First Amendment. “That’s not the right thing to do. They’ve got their venue, let them do their thing.”
The fact that all protestors remained restrained did not mean they were taking the stakes lightly. “Our democracy is beginning to crumble,” said No Kings participant Molly Smith. “There are a lot of people who don’t get the kind of authoritarianism that is taking over this country, and because of that we’re at risk of losing so much we hold true: freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, to write what we want, to marry who we want. It’s all on the line.”
Meanwhile, Arnold too believed values were eroding, but a different set of values. “In my lifetime, I’ve seen a destruction of the core values of God, family and country,” Arnold said. The nationwide No Kings rallies, he added, were part of that. Particularly the phrase “no kings,” and a protest logo depicting a crossed-out crown.
“The crown they cross out and say ‘no kings,’— as a Christian, I know what the crown means to me,” Arnold said. “It’s part of the father, son, and holy spirit. So you want to do away with the father?”’
Participants in the No Kings protest said “king” referred to Donald Trump, and what they believed was Trump’s desire to rule without checks on his power. Protestors referenced an image posted by the White House in February of Donald Trump wearing a crown, captioned “long live the king,” as part of the basis for that.
Whatever the specifics of the No Kings logo, the issues raised by all demonstrators went far deeper than just symbolism. At the harbor, pro-Trump participants spoke of seeing disrespect toward the flag, which they universally said was a symbol of national values in general, but especially military sacrifice.
Some of the examples demonstrators gave were national in scope.
“The flag is the military and our freedom, and a lot of people died for this country so that we could have the right to assemble,” said Scott Brewington. Brewington said he had been “sickened” watching videos of people elsewhere in the country burning American flags.
“There are a lot of those people that should be put in jail for being traitorous and seditious,” he said.
Other protesters spoke of issues closer to home.
“It’s our flag, it’s been our flag, our parents have gotten killed supporting this flag,” said Charlie DeWitt. “When I was a kid, we had a veteran who went to (Haines) school every morning at 6 a.m. to put up the flag. Today you go past the school, and sometimes the flag is up, sometimes it’s not. There’s no respect.”
Up the hill, No Kings protestors also widely flew American flags and supported some of the same principles as their counterparts down the hill — namely free speech. But beyond that, the issues were different.
Like at a similar large anti-Trump gathering on Third and Main in early April, participants spoke of Trump administration cuts to services, government funding, and what they said were administration attacks on the rights of marginalized groups.
One speech, from organizer Patty Brown, talked about looming harm from Medicaid cuts currently pending in Congress, citing the 33% of Haines children on Medicaid.
In contrast to past anti-Trump protests, protesters this time focused more on the administration’s methods, calling policies like deportions without due process authoritarian and fascist.
Despite the dire stakes expressed by both pro and anti-Trump groups, the protests assembled and dispersed quickly. By mid-afternoon, downtown was back to ordinary, filled with cruise ship passengers wandering in and out of Main Street stores.
In the wake of the protests, some, like No Kings participant Nene Wolfe, said they were uncertain what would come next. “What does this end up doing? That’s the part I’m not sure about,” said Wolfe.
Largely, No Kings organizers and participants said their intended audience was local. Some of that was practical; Sue Libenson said she hoped the event would motivate community members to recognize the impact they could make with their votes.
But more of the talk among No Kings participants was about finding community. “I think it strengthens backbones, seeing community members out here,” said Suzanne Blue Star Boy. “It shows people that what they believe, what’s important to them, matters to other people too.”
It was a strikingly similar message at the Flag Day demonstration, where people also hoped to strengthen backbones. One participant there, Toni DeWitt, said she felt people were afraid to show support for the (American) flag because of what she said was retaliation around the country. “I hope (the Flag Day demonstration) will allow people to say they love our country without being ashamed of it,” DeWitt said.
DeWitt’s fellow Flag Day demonstrators also expressed a practical message, of showing up, they said, to prevent anti-Trump protests from getting out of hand.
“It’s human nature to push your boundaries until you bump up against pushback,” said Dan Hauser, who said the National Guard was called in too late in Los Angeles this month. “So you show up to say, we respect what you have to say, but just understand, there’s a little bit of tension so don’t go crazy – don’t go blocking traffic or throwing rocks or anything.”
At the same time, Hauser said it was a different dynamic in a town the size of Haines, where interacting with anyone generally means interacting with neighbors.
“That person who might not like you because you put the Trump flag up, all of that fades when winter comes, and you’ve got a big ol’ pile of snow, and your neighbor helps you dig out.”
That closely echoed comments from Blue Star Boy at the No Kings protest.
“It’s not like we’re enemies. We just have different points of view,” she said of neighbors with different politics. “We have dinner with them. They drop off some crab for us. I think we do change minds, but that’s the only way we can do it.”
Still, even if residents agree on how to coexist as they move forward from this weekend’s protests, deep divisions remain.
Speaking as the No Kings protest wrapped up, Blue Star Boy condemned the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, informed by her own background. “I’m Native American,” Blue Star Boy said. “To me, everyone’s an immigrant.”
Down the street, Hauser had spoken of his family background and had a different definition of the word immigrant. “Everybody says, everyone here is an immigrant,” Hauser said. “I’m not. I come from colonizers – I know that’s not a wonderful thing nowadays – but people came here before this was a country.”