Anti-Trump Administration Protests Keep Growing in Portland
By Nancy English
“Resist,” reads the black flag flying in the wind on a street corner by Lincoln Park, at a vigil held on Thursdays at 4 p.m. since May. Bigger anti-trump protests happen every Saturday in Monument Square.
“The signs cover so many issues,” said Angus Ferguson, who has been volunteering to organize the 11:00 a.m. Saturday protests in Portland’s Monument Square whether snow, sleet, rain, or shine since mid-February.
The Second Trump Administration has inspired objections since the President swore an oath to the United States Constitution and soon thereafter renamed the Gulf of Mexico (“All of the Trump Administration’s Major Moves in the First 100 Days,” New York Times, April 30, 2025). While many actions are being appealed in court, the drumbeat of announcements – about reversing diversity programs, raining pardons, firing federal workers, imposing tariffs – has been nonstop.
“Climate change, rule of law, women in the military,” Ferguson said, listing some of the sign subjects. The protests have been successful, he said. “The real effect is getting folks activated.”
People line up to speak. “At almost every protest, a speaker says this is the first time they have spoken in public,” ever or, for example, since the Vietnam War. Lately people tell him they wish to speak but cannot for fear of being identified by ICE, the federal department tasked with deporting thousands every day by the Trump administration.
Anti-Trump Protests Across the State
Rachel Flehinger started the website ActivateMaine.com to collect information about all the many Maine protests and events in one place. Her site’s calendar for June 24th, for example, listed five events around the state including a weekly protest at United States Senator Susan Collins’ office in Lewiston.
“I started it because we all need some hope and some empowerment,” Flehinger said. “I’ve never done anything like this before. I didn’t think it would be so big… I really believe it’s the communities that will make real change.”
Her self-funded site has a donation page. With 8,000 to 10,000 visitors a month and an RSS feed that pulls other sites to her pages, activatemaine.com has many volunteers behind the scenes to keep the calendar up-to-date. Other volunteers are putting their work up front in blogs.
Issues Driving the Protests
The United States Agency on International Development (USAID) took initial blows this past winter, when longtime managers who knew ending programs would result in the deaths of infants and thousands of employees were fired. According to the New York Times (“What Remains of U.S.A.I.D.?,” June 22, 2025), a leaked memo about those deaths led to the highest restoration of aid since the cuts began. Out of an initial $120 billion, 891 programs remain, costing $69 billion.
With the infiltration of DOGE, once run by Elon Musk, into federal agencies like the Social Security Administration, fears spread that basic programs were threatened.
Ferguson’s group and Flehinger’s work are local, but they coordinate with other area groups. Indivisible is a nationwide organization that sets up national protests like Hands Off, to protest against potential cuts to healthcare and Social Security benefits, and No Kings held on June 14th.
United States Senator Angus King spoke at the Hands Off protest. “I’m worried about the courts. And I’m also worried [the Trump Administration] won’t obey a decision if it comes down,” he told the crowd.
Indivisible has 20,000 groups in the country and five in Maine, according to Debra Bellare, a volunteer organizer with Indivisible Greater Portland Maine. She estimated that the No Kings protest held in Lincoln Park on June 14th had 7,000 participants. That is more than double April’s Hands Off event. “It definitely overshadowed Trump’s [U.S. Army 250-Year] parade,” held the same day, she said. National estimates count 5 million No Kings protesters.
Indivisible Cumberland County and Indivisible Southern Maine also helped organize the No Kings event.
No sign of stopping
Indivisible Greater Portland Maine also opposes a referendum question adding voter ID restrictions. Further they oppose the presence of Avelo Airlines at Portland Jetport, along with 30 other cities, because it is under contract with ICE to provide deportation flights.
The failure to allow habeas corpus, a hearing in a court, for people being deported, is another action inspiring protests. Massive cuts to scientific research at the National Institutes of Health and at universities is another. Attacks on law firms and universities is another. Foreign policy actions, like ceasing arms supplies to Ukraine, is another.
The threat of massive cuts to Medicaid buried in a massive tax cut budget bill is another. Ending protections for 58 million acres of national forest is another. National Guard troops in California deployed on the streets of Los Angeles is another.
Protests continue every Saturday in Monument Square at 11 a.m., every Thursday at Lincoln Park at 4 p.m., and at many, many other places around the city and state, with no end in sight. On July 17th another local and nationwide protest will be organized by Indivisible Greater Portland Maine on the anniversary of U.S. Representative John Lewis’s death, to do the “good trouble” he loved.
