Between 300 and 400 protesters gathered at Forest Grove’s giant flag Saturday afternoon as part of the nationwide “Hands Off” protest against President Donald Trump and billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk, who leads the Department of Government Efficiency.
Similar protests were held across Oregon, and this newspaper visited three in Forest Grove, North Plains and Hillsboro to ask Gales Creek and Banks-area residents why they were protesting, and interviewed U.S. Representative Suzanne Bonamici.
Looking for more from the Forest Grove & Hillsboro protests? Visit our sister paper, News in the Grove.
Forest Grove
For more than an hour, demonstrators waved signs bearing a wide variety of messages, cheered as cars honked (mixed in with the occasional driver extending a one-fingered salute) and expressed their displeasure with the Trump administration.
Allen Neuringer, who lives between Glenwood and Timber in rural western Washington County with his wife Martha Neuringer described Martha as a scientist, and himself as both a scientist and educator.
“What this country is going through is tragic. I’m 85, I want to leave this world a bit better than it is under Trump,” Neuringer said.
Martha Neuringer said the Trump administration’s cuts to funding to federal programs like Head Start, cuts to funding for research at the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health, and the gutting of the U.S. Agency for International Development were an engineered assault on American values and lives.
“We’re all being made less safe, less secure, and we have to stand up,” she said.
“On Martha’s comment about insecurity, I’ve never felt as worried as I do now,” Allen said. “Over the many years that I’ve been involved with teaching, with politics a little, I’ve never, ever felt as concerned with the future of this country,” he said.
North Plains
North Plains’ protest drew at least 89 participants by 1:26 p.m. according to a count of participants by the Banks Post at, almost half an hour into the protest at the corner of Pacific Street and Glencoe Road.
The protest drew residents from North Plains and surrounding communities, including Gales Creek, Banks, and the Mountaindale area.
“I am protesting our government because I feel as if our democracy is eroding and we need to stand up and have a change,” said Gales Creek resident Valerie Donley.
“No one elected Elon Musk,” she said. “What is he doing? He’s ruining our country, along with the rest of the Republicans that don’t have enough guts to make a change and stand up for what’s right,” Donley said.
“Come out and protest with us!” she added.
Several protesters had gone to North Plains from the Mountaindale area between Banks and North Plains.
Susan Brown, a Mountaindale area resident was one of the the protest organizers.
“I believe in democracy, I don’t believe in autocracy, and I believe that our voices need to be heard so that we can somehow stop this madness,” Brown said when asked why she was protesting.
“We’ve even got Russian people saying ‘Wake up, America,'” Brown said.
“Our people somehow can’t see it, but we’ve got to make our voices heard,” Brown said.
“Democracy matters,” she added.
Also from Mountaindale, a trio of protesters joined in about 15 minutes into the event.
“I’m here today because I want to do something to combat all the craziness going on in politics today,” said Jabke Buesseler.
“I’m here today because I’m just pissed off at the way things are going and there’s a chance to kind of make a statement,” John Buesseler said.
“Our most basic freedoms are being trashed by a couple of crazy politicians, and I want to speak out,” added Glenna Wilder.
“It is hard to keep up with the outrage that is happening on a daily basis,” Jabke Buesseler added. “My sign says when injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty, and the other sign says the greatness of a nation is measured by how we treat the most vulnerable, and I think Trump is completely misfiring on both of those counts,” Buesseler said.
“I am appalled at the direction our country has taken under his direction and want to make sure that I state my dissent,” the Mountaindale resident added.
Hillsboro
Organizers said more than a thousand people were at a protest in Hillsboro; the crowd packed the Tom Hughes Civic Center Plaza at the downtown Hillsboro Civic Center, which seats 700 on the plaza’s amphitheater, and more stood and lined the rest of the plaza during the demonstration.
U.S. Representative Suzanne Bonamici, a Democratic Congresswoman who has represented Oregon’s First Congressional District since 2012, said the rally was the first of the day for her in an interview with this newspaper. She was headed to Beaverton for another protest next.
“The rally here in Hillsboro was amazing,” Bonamici said.
She expected up to 200 people to show.
“This rally was packed full of people who are genuinely concerned about what’s happening with the federal government in our country,” Bonamici said.
She urged those who hadn’t shown up to get involved.
“Make your voice heard in some way,” she said, “Whatever works for you, but don’t ignore what’s happening.”
Bonamici said that she was receiving two to three times as many emails and calls over what was typical from Oregonians concerned about the federal government’s policies.
Cuts to the Department of Education, Medicaid, things happening globally and Trump’s series of tariffs and the associated rise in cost of goods were all concerns she was hearing.
“Please, make your voice heard. This is going to be a ground-up effort to send a message that the policies that the Trump administration are pushing are not what Americans wants or needs,” she said.
Bonamici thanked Indivisible Hillsboro and other local organizers for organizing the protest.
Hillsboro’s protest and others across the nation would be heard, she said.
“People are going to be hearing loud and clear that this administration is raising costs, not lowering costs, taking away opportunities for education, they’re taking away healthcare rights, and I think our country is going to be in a lot more danger from the incompetence, for example, from the people who are in the cabinet, particularly in the national security front,” Bonamici said.
“They’re not people who are there because they’re qualified for the job, they’re people who are there for loyalty to Donald Trump and that’s going to hurt our country, our standing in the world, and our national security,” she said.
Chas Hundley is the editor of the Gales Creek Journal and sister news publications the Banks Post and the Salmonberry Magazine. He grew up in Gales Creek and has a cat.
