More than 100 people gathered in downtown Logan on Presidents Day to speak out against President Donald Trump's administration and its policies.
The crowd stood outside the Historic Cache County Courthouse to take part in the National Day of Protest rally organized by the Cache Valley Citizens’ Climate Lobby and the Bridgerland Audubon Society. Their goal? To reclaim their democracy, safeguard their freedoms, and protect federal workers and federal lands.
Watershed scientist and community activist Patrick Belmont spoke on the steps of the courthouse in front of a large crowd of people holding up signs – many of them denouncing President Trump and Elon Musk by name.
“We're here not to celebrate, but to stand up, to resist, to demand something better," he said. "Do things feel fine?"
The crowd responded by yelling out a long, drawn out "no."
"Okay, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t the only one,” he said with a laugh. The crowd chuckled along with him.
Belmont criticized much of the Republican Party, saying the planet and the people are being pushed to their limits by a system that continually touts economic growth as the key to prosperity.
“They will lie, they will cheat. They'll do whatever it takes to keep this system going because it works for them," he told the crowd. "These are the same kinds of people who built their fortunes on the backs of enslaved human beings, and who fought a war to keep them in chains. These are the same kinds of people who murdered millions of Jewish people, gay people, immigrants and political opponents … Today they are still at it — marginalizing communities, rigging the rules, co-opting religions, hoarding power. But here's the thing — we don't have to play along.”
Belmont was followed by Daniella Lopez, a Green Canyon High School junior, who began by sharing that she was a daughter of immigrants.
“In today's day and age, the word ‘immigrant’ is often interchanged with the word ‘alien’ — belonging to a foreign country or nation," she said. "And while yes, my parents weren't born here, my ancestors were. This land was theirs before any religion or person came to claim it as their own.”
She shared anecdotes of the fear she had seen in her community, watching attendance drop at her own school, and seeing Latino businesses struggle because of undocumented immigrants avoiding public spaces.
“President Donald Trump's aggressive immigration policies — including mass deportations and increased enforcement actions — are poised to have detrimental effects on the US economy," she said to the crowd. "The administration's plans to deport millions of undocumented immigrants would significantly disrupt industries heavily reliant on immigrant labor, such as agriculture, construction and hospitality.”
Nevin Cullen and his former colleague, Jenny Gan, were also among those that climbed the steps to address the crowd. He explained that, until last Thursday, he had been employed in the Department of Agriculture's Pollinating Insect Research Unit focusing on bee conservation. And he said the staffing cuts had come out of nowhere.
“[For] our laboratory alone, there's hundreds of thousands of research dollars just sitting," he said. "This is research that is dead in the water, efforts wasted. You want to talk about government efficiency? This is not it.”
The crowd cheered their agreement.
On a nearby street corner, Neil Wood stood alone, waving a sign at cars driving by. He was there protesting House Bill 267, which bans collective bargaining for public sector jobs. The bill was signed into law last week. Wood criticized state representatives — and Sen. Chris Wilson in particular, who is from Cache Valley.
“You would think someone representing people here, in this particular area, would stand for teachers, considering the amount of educators we have here," he said, "and they just voted against them. They'd rather have teachers and every other laborer on their knees begging for scraps.”
Jordan Dahle, an incoming Utah State University student, said he had just stumbled upon the demonstration. He argued that, while the display of emotional activism was encouraging to see, it wasn’t enough.
“Everyone needs to understand the actual legal terminology. Everyone needs to understand how the government works," he said. "If we can further educate people, and help people find better arguments for these points, we will have a much easier time winning these discussions than if we just continue operating out of emotivism … You don't win elections off of pure emotivism. If we want to win, we need to improve our understanding and improve our communication of the factual matters of what's going on.”
