Protesters, both for and against Trump administration, line Baker City’s Main Street
Published 4:13 pm Saturday, April 5, 2025
Sheila Holman of Baker City holds a sign during a protest of the Trump administration in downtown Baker City on April 5, 2025. (Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald)
Bob Butler, right, holds an American flag during a counter-protest on April 5, 2025, in downtown Baker City. (Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald)
Signs protesting the Trump administration during a rally in downtown Baker City on April 5, 2025. (Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald)
Signs protesting the Trump administration during a rally in downtown Baker City on April 5, 2025. (Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald)
Ben, left, and Kat Potter of Vale hold signs during a Trump administration protest in downtown Baker City on April 5, 2025. (Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald)
Main Street in downtown Baker City served as a political dividing line as well as a thoroughfare on Saturday afternoon as about 150 people gathered on the east side of the street, centered on Court Plaza, to protest the Trump administration.
People carried signs with slogans such as “When tyranny becomes a threat rebellion becomes our duty,” “Hands off public $$$” and “Laws justice ethics over kings.”
Directly across Main Street, about 50 people congregated for a counter-protest, with signs including “Baker County Loves President Trump” and “Tesla Lives Matter.”
The Rev. Cynthia Wunder of the First Presbyterian Church in Baker City, speaking to the group protesting the Trump administration, said “the power of the people will always be greater than the people in power.”
“We must love our country,” Wunder said. “We must protect our country from that which would destroy it.”
Alice Trindle, a lifelong Baker County resident whose family has been in the county for four generations, said she’s concerned that the administration’s effort to shrink the federal government will affect “so many people that are truly in need.”
She said she’s also worried about cuts to arts funding, including public broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Trindle, who carried a sign reading “Resist,” said she believes “there’s probably fraud in every aspect of the government,” but she opposes the Trump administration’s methods for dealing with it.
“Going about it in a carte blanche attitude is not the way,” she said.
Police cars regularly drove Main Street but as of 4 p.m., with groups remaining on both sides of the street, there had been no altercations.
There were chants of “USA” from both sides of the street.
Trump administration protesters sang the “Star-Spangled Banner.”
Sheila Holman of Baker City brought her dog, Skybow, who was clad in a sign reading “Dogs for democracy.” Holman, who worked for the Forest Service and was a wildland firefighter for 30 years, said she’s worried about the administration’s effects on public lands and natural resources.
“I’m concerned about everything,” she said, citing as another example Head Start, the federally funded education program for preschoolers that she has volunteered with.
Holman said she also opposes Trump’s plans to accelerate logging, mining and oil drilling on public lands.
“I’m afraid he might get away with it,” she said.
On the west side of the street, Bob Butler of Baker City wore a “Veterans for Trump” hat and carried an American flag.
Butler, an Army veteran, said that after hearing about the planned protest a few days earlier, he posted on Facebook asking people to gather for a counter-protest.
Butler said his goal is to “show that Baker County isn’t represented over there,” gesturing across Main Street.
Trump received 72% of the 9,790 votes cast in Baker County in the November 2024 presidential election.
Butler said he emphasized to counter-protesters that they should be polite and not “engage” with the protesters.
“Everyone is entitled to their own views,” he said. “They have every right to stand over there and espouse their beliefs.”
Butler, referring to signs criticizing Elon Musk, head of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, noted that Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was the federal government’s chief medical official during the COVID-19 pandemic, was, like Musk, an unelected official.
Butler said Trump, in seeking to reduce the size of the federal government, is doing what several of his predecessors, including Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, vowed to do.
Ben and Kat Potter drove from Vale to participate in the protest against the Trump administration because there was no similar event in their town.
Ben Potter, who was holding a sign reading “GOP grow a pair,” said the “chainsaw reconstruction of the federal government by Musk and his co-president, Trump, is the most obscene thing that has happened to the U.S. government since 1800.”
“I have never seen any administration so dumb in my entire life, or heard of it.”
Potter said he believes there is waste in the federal government, but he thinks the solution is to make cuts “surgically” rather than with a “bulldozer” as he contends the Trump administration is doing.
Jeanie Zebrak of Baker City, who coordinated the protest, one of hundreds planned nationwide on Saturday, said she was “blown out” by the turnout.
Slogans chanted from Trump protesters included “Defeat Trump today” and “Dump Trump.”
One counter-protester responded with “You’re not Americans, get out of here.”
Jayson has worked at the Baker City Herald since November 1992, starting as a reporter. He has been editor since December 2007. He graduated from the University of Oregon Journalism School in 1992 with a bachelor's degree in news-editorial journalism.
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