photo credit: Lauren Spates
Protestors in Old Courthouse Square in Santa Rosa gather on February 17th, 2025 for a "No Kings Day" protest against the second Trump administration.

Under a partly cloudy sky in downtown Santa Rosa Monday hundreds of protesters carried signs emblazoned “No Fascism,” “Defund Musk,” and “The only minority ruining the country is the rich.”

One artistic attendee held a poster reading “No ICE in Sonoma County” stretched across a pyramid of three melting ice cubes.

Standing on the edge of the square, along Fourth Street, Jeanette W. rested her tall, two-part sign on the pavers, the top reading “Impeach Trump Now.”

Jeanette, with passersby honking in support, explained why this is the first time she’s protested since opposing the Vietnam War.

“I am scared to death that I'll lose the America that I've known all my life. These people are not upholding the Constitution, and without that, we have no democracy,” Jeanette said. “I can't just stay home watching the news. I've got to do something that I believe in.”

For Jeanette, a retired teacher, that meant talking about the bottom half of her sign: a black circle containing Musk’s name slashed out in red. She thought Musk should be treated as a campus trespasser would have been, back in her day.

“He's got to go. He has no right to be there. He's never been vetted. He's never been confirmed,” Jeanette said. “I feel like a school teacher, 'where's your pass? Go to the office and get one. Otherwise I got to walk them out.' And they should be walking him out.”

Away from traffic, on the grassy square, Deborah D. stretched a large Ukraine flag across her chest.

“The poor working people of this country are just getting royally screwed right now, as well as our foreign allies," Deborah said. "So I'm here to protest and hopefully get [the current administration] out of office.”

Like Jeanette, Deborah hasn’t protested since the 1960s and ‘70s, and while she said the momentum-building is starting to feel similar, “It feels like a different cause."

"It feels more like our country is really in peril right now because our democratic institutions are getting dismantled," Deborah said. "Also the press, they're getting dismantled, and that's like the Fourth Estate. They're our watchdog. So that's very scary to me.”

Deeper into the crowd of hundreds, closer to the speakers, Barb Legato stood with her sister Carol.

“I want to show that we're not actually accepting this, even though we don't have the power of the presidency right now, we have an election, and it didn't go the way we wanted, but it's a lot worse than anyone ever thought, and no one seems to be benefiting except the wealthy," Legato said. "So the rest of us out here, the real people, the everyday people, we actually don't want this. So what can we do now? We gotta find our voice.”

Legato held up a white sign lettered with green marker.

“It says Gulf of Distraction, because people aren't paying attention," Legato said. "‘Look over here!’ You know, ‘Look at this! Let's get rid of the penny. Let's call the Gulf of Mexico something else, and Denali something else.’ And then maybe we won't notice that they're stealing our information, and databases are being deleted, and corrupt people are getting power,” she said. “So let's remember this. Please look, pay attention, find the information.”

photo credit: Lauren Spates
Barb Legato (left) and her sister Carol (right) at the Presidents' Day protest in downtown Santa Rosa.

Her sister Carol’s sign advertised a perfume called “Eww de Musk” — a scent she described as “fresh, wet rat.” The back of her sign riffed on the theme, listing the perfume’s ingredients as those that mix to produce authoritarianism, like the expense of personal freedom.

Nearby, Ed Estrada waved a specialty flag printed with half the American flag and half the Mexican flag.

“I'm a very proud Mexican American, very proud son of immigrant parents," Estrada said. "I served as a police officer honorably for 31 years. And it's not justice for all. It’s justice for him.”

He thinks no one will be safe from President Trump’s policies.

“This guy is not just against people like myself, minorities. He's against everybody. Who are we to tell anyone who they should love and what, you know, gender or sexual orientation that you carry? You know? He's taken away our total freedom,” Estrada said. “And for these people who support him, they're blind to the fact that sooner or later, it’s gonna get them.”

Asked what he thinks will spur this realization in Trump’s followers and the apathetic, Estrada did not hesitate.

“This is going to take, I would say, probably about two years of rallying and protesting to wake up the whole country, and it's gonna start hitting people's pocketbooks,” Estrada said. “That's when people are gonna start realizing we need to get rid of this idiot.”

According to Kerry Rego, that plan would begin with smart organizing.

Rego is a Santa Rosa based social media consultant who specializes in advising governments, member organizations, and nonprofits on digital skills including compliance and risk management, content creation and data reporting.

Rego also sits on Northern California Public Media's Community Advisory Council.

After addressing the crowd over the loudspeaker, she talked to KRCB News about the basics.

“Data security has never been more important," Rego said. "Using secure communications, particularly those that are compromised, like Meta products, are no longer safe to use in any kind of organizing.”

photo credit: Lauren Spates
Ed Estrada protesting in Santa Rosa's
Old Courthouse Square.

Rego said that includes Facebook, Instagram, Threads and even WhatsApp, Meta’s encrypted messaging app. She suggested using Signal instead.

“So if you are making any kind of plans for any disruption, whether it's physical gathering, it is digital disruption, it is anything that the administration wouldn't want you to do; if you are in planning phases and or sharing important information that is personally identifiable, then all of that is dangerous to have in the open air," Rego said. "So you want to be encrypted and learn how to protect yourself and other people, not just physically, but digitally.”

To Rego, organizing isn’t just about demonstrations, but about combining different types of actions.

“The easiest one, of course, is to communicate with your elected officials, talk to other people that protest regularly, and find more, and advanced ways to have an impact,” Rego said.

Her guidance on taking action wasn’t limited to “the people.”

Rego has thoughts for government officials too.

“I would like to see the electeds create a plan of action for stopping rather than simply acknowledging," Rego said.

"They're at the acknowledgement phase that bad things are happening. Great. We all know that bad things are happening. What are you personally going to do about it? I want them to start communicating how they are being craftier about staying inside the law — and that is their biggest concern, behaving," Rego said. "Behaving isn't going to get us very far.”