LOGAN – To borrow a quote from Major League Baseball legend Yogi Barra, the anti-Trump protest here on May 3 was like “… déjà vu all over again.”
If you had attended a previous protest at the Cache County History Courthouse on April 5, the rally over the past weekend featured much the same people, the same signs and the same rhetoric of resistance against Trump administration policies.
What was missing, however, was the crowd that packed every square inch of the courthouse square during the April 5 gathering. Instead, the local protesters on May 3 – estimated at about half that of the previous mass of attendees – hugged the periphery of the square, sheltering under the shade provided by surrounding buildings and trees along Main Street.
Largely absent from the gathering were university students and faculty, Utah State having graduated its Class of 2025 just days earlier. The courthouse rally was also competing against Cinco De Mayo festivities at the Cache County Fairgrounds.
The protest was organized by a group calling itself “We The People of Cache Valley,” a self-proclaimed non-partisan, pro-democracy group that professes to support freedom of the press and the integrity of government institutions.
The local event was part of a National Day of Action across the country, with rallies in big cities like Washington, Philadelphia, Chicago and others in more than 1,000 communities both large and small. The nationwide gatherings were timed to commemorate May Day, honoring the historic struggles by workers and the labor movement.
The protest a month ago had featured largely local speakers, including former Democratic political candidates Mary DeSilva, a retired nurse, and USU professor Nancy Huntly.
But the event this past weekend imported Candida Duran-Tavernas, the senior director of community engagement for Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, as its main speaker.
In her remarks, Duran-Tavernas railed against Trump administration attacks on women’s reproductive freedom, including a $2.8 million budget cut in Title X funding which has forced PPAU to close its clinics in Logan and St. George.
A representative of Students United for Reproductive Freedom at USU, Tia Lawrence, also spoke of the invaluable service that was provided to her by the now shuttered PPAU clinic in Logan.
Local philanthropist Art Heers, a retiree from Campbell Scientific, condemned the futility of tariffs being imposed on other countries by the Trump administration.
Locals who oppose the policies of President Donald Trump will hold a weekly vigil from 5 to 6 p.m. each Friday in front of the Cache County Historic Courthouse at 199 North Main Street in downtown Logan.
Organizers of the weekend protest rally also say that they plan to make similar gatherings a monthly event here in Cache Valley.