What was projected as the largest single-day protest of the Trump administration nationwide on Saturday also was what some officials called the largest protest they’ve seen at the Alaska State Capitol, with participants spilling out beyond a full city block in front of the building for an hour of speeches and songs.
Protests were scheduled in about 1,200 U.S. locations, a number the Juneau event appeared to easily exceed in total participants. Demonstrations also spread to other countries including Canada, Mexico, Germany, France and England following a particularly tumultuous week that saw Trump wreak havoc with global markets by imposing widespread tariffs Wednesday, leading to a record $5 trillion wiped out in the stock value of S&P 500 companies during the next two days.
Collette Costa leads the crowd in a closing song during an hour-long protest against the Trump administration in front of the Alaska State Capitol on Saturday. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)
People gathering in Juneau spoke, sang, held signs and wore emblems expressing a range of grievances that have become common since President Donald Trump returned to the White House for a second term in January. Those objections include revoking policies related to matters such as tribal sovereignty and foreign aid, mass federal employee firings and funding freezes, eliminating LGBTQ+ rights, and detaining and deporting people who are in the United States legally.
“Let’s face it— we don’t agree all the time on every single political issue or policy, because we’re from Juneau,” said Claire Richardson, a retired senior staff member for multiple Alaska governors who served as emcee of Saturday’s local protest. “But right now we must harness our enormous collective power to support and defend this imperfect idea of democracy, the foundation of our country.”
Richardson said afterward more than 1,500 people were at the Juneau protest, based on an overhead photo taken by a participant.
The White House, in an official response to the global protests, stated “President Trump’s position is clear: he will always protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for eligible beneficiaries. Meanwhile, the Democrats’ stance is giving Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare benefits to illegal aliens, which will bankrupt these programs and crush American seniors.”
Protests by various groups in front of Alaska’s Capitol are common during the legislative session — largely seeking action on matters lawmakers inside the building can act upon — but several Trump-related protests have focused on both general discontent as well as specific subgroups such as refugees and fired federal employees.
“If it feels like there have been a lot of rallies lately, that’s because there has — not yet counting today — there’s been at least 67 unique protests across Alaska, and that number is probably low because that’s just what I’ve been able to track,” Supanika Ordóñez, a Thai and Guatemalan resident who works in early childhood education, told the crowd.
“As a survivor I live with post-traumatic stress disorder so the last couple months have been distressing to witness this constant bombardment of financial abuse, coercion and gaslighting, and it pains me to see these bad examples out there for our youth. Speaking up against it takes courage and I continue to find hope in all of the positive examples that are out there.”
Sizable protests also occurred during Trump’s first term, including the 2017 Women’s March (and a subsequent march the following year that drew more than 1,000 people, according to figures provided at the time to the Empire) and Black Lives Matter in 2020 following the police killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.
Heidi Drygas, executive director of the Alaska State Employees Association, told the crowd Saturday that as an official working on behalf of organized labor for more than 20 years she’s been to a lot of rallies.
“I think this is the largest crowd that I’ve ever seen in Juneau, and that is so incredibly moving and important,” she said.
Heidi Drygas, executive director of the Alaska State Employees Association, addresses the crowd during an anti-Trump rally Saturday in front of the Alaska State Capitol. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)
Among Drygas’ objections was an executive order by Trump eliminating collective bargaining rights for what some federal union officials say is more than 1 million federal employees. As with unilateral actions by his administration firing tens of thousands of federal employees, the executive order is being challenged as illegal.
Protesters also targeted Alaska’s all-Republican congressional delegation for failing to check Trump’s expansion of executive branch authority, with Sen. Dan Sullivan and Rep. Nick Begich III particularly singled out for their nearly universal support of the administration’s actions. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, while supporting most of Trump’s declared policies and nominees for key positions, has also gained national notoriety for being one of the few Republicans to openly criticize the methods by which Trump is pursuing his agenda.
With limited options to influence or rein in further Trump actions in the coming months, some of Saturday’s speakers urged those gathered in Juneau to continue to support each other.
“This America is somehow worse than the one I grew up in, ” said Lauryn Franke, who told the crowd she feels under threat as someone who is LGBTQ+, a person of color, an educator and a library professional. “This America is actively persecuting brown and trans people. It is questioning tribal sovereignty. It is destroying our education and information systems. It is destroying our environment.”
“But there is one thing we can have hope in and that is community. We can continue to show up and stand up for one another on a daily basis. We can take a stand to protect, love and support those in our lives who are brown, queer, educators, federal workers and so many others who are being harmed in this administration.”
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
People holding signs and wearing emblems expressing opposition to a wide range of Trump administration actions — including confrontational acts involving Canada, mass firings of federal workers that have largely been found illegal by courts and deportations of people in the U.S. legally — gather in front of the Alaska State Capitol on Saturday. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)
