Boise May Day rally for workers mostly targets Trump’s actions | Opinion
The list of grievances was as varied as the signs were creative.
The arbitrary firing of federal workers. Attacks on public lands. Illegal deportations. The flouting of court orders.
The signs read: “My great-grandfathers didn’t fight in WWII for America to become the Fourth Reich,” “Cleanup on aisle 47,” and my favorite, “Truth is not fake news.”
And chants of “Do your job,” directed at Congress; “Lock him up” and “Impeach Trump,” directed at President Donald Trump; and “Vote them out” sprang up spontaneously from the crowd of about 800 people who attended the May Day Strong rally Thursday at Boise City Hall.
The noon rally started with speeches on the front steps, continued with a march around downtown and ended back where it started.
I spoke to a half-dozen attendees, representing places ranging from Mountain Home to Payette and towns in between, asking them why they came to the rally.
Aside from the firing of federal workers, I don’t think any two people gave the same answer.
Other reasons included a destructive foreign policy, harmful tariffs, attacks on free speech at universities, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s comments about people with autism, inflation, tariffs, a slide into fascism, the leaking of war plans on an unsecured, compromised messaging app, Trump’s attacks on the judicial branch and more.
But they all had the same target: Trump and his administration.
“Trump has obtained two out of the three branches of government,” said Mike Griffith, a 28-year Air Force veteran who was holding a sign that read, “I am a military veteran. I fought for freedom not fascism.”
“Now he’s going after the third branch with his attacks on the judicial branch.”
May Day Strong events
The rally in Boise was part of a nationwide series of demonstrations to oppose the Trump administration and what organizers say are his billionaire allies, including Elon Musk, who has led the Department of Government Efficiency in making willy-nilly and often harmful cuts to the federal workforce, with little to show for its work.
The rallies were part of the International Workers’ Day, May 1, which highlights issues such as labor rights, public services and immigrant safety. More than 1,000 events were planned in more than 1,000 cities.
The protests focused on resisting what organizers called a “war on working people.” They accused the administration of defunding schools, privatizing public services, attacking unions and targeting immigrant families. The protests were a call to action against the perceived billionaire takeover and aimed to build a future that prioritizes families over corporate profits.
Boise’s rally was a bit of a mish-mash of interests and speakers. It started with a union representative and included a social work graduate student, a library district candidate and a former school board candidate who advocated for an Idaho People’s Legislature.
Wide range of problems with Trump
So varied and so disparate were the speakers and the complaints, though, I began to wonder what the point was.
The issues were so deep and wide-ranging — poverty, affordable housing, being kind to one another, the gap between rich and poor, hunger, the environment, inflation, even capitalism — that I couldn’t help but feel like the rally suffered from message creep, seeking to solve all the world’s problems. Those problems exist no matter who the president is.
The parts of the rally that drew the most enthusiasm from the crowd were when the attacks were more focused on the target: Trump and his administration, and the actions he’s taken in his first 100 days in his second time around as president.
The most effective rallying cries came when speakers talked about Trump’s harmful tariffs, Congress giving up its power to the executive branch, the folly of trickle-down economics and regressive tax policies.
‘Warning signs’
I thought the best speech of the rally came from Chris Ross, who identified himself as an independent voter from Eagle.
He compared Trump’s patterns of abuse with those of King George that led to the Revolutionary War (there were plenty of “King Trump” signs throughout).
He cited Trump’s bypassing of Congress with executive orders, threatening courts, trying to overturn an election, denying due process for deportations, stoking divisions and calling the free press the “enemy of the people.”
“These are not missteps,” he said. “These are warning signs. Signs that we must not ignore. The founders of this country knew: Silence in the face of abuse is complicity.”
I caught up with Ross after his speech and asked him what he thought the purpose of the rally was and what good would come of it.
“I think it shows our politicians that there are people who are not happy with what’s going on,” he said. “Politicians live in a bubble and listen to their donors and don’t listen to opposing views. So I hope a rally like this gives them courage to do what’s right.”
That would be nice. Courage seems to be sorely lacking among our representatives these days.
This story was originally published May 1, 2025 at 4:28 PM.
