Met mostly with supportive honks and a couple middle fingers, more than 150 peaceful protestors gathered at Memorial Park in Wenatchee after work on Thursday, July 17 to take part in a nationwide “Good Trouble” protest in honor of the late Congressman and Civil Rights leader John Lewis aimed at President Donald Trump and GOP policies.
“Right now we are told that there’s not enough money for healthcare, for Medicaid and Medicare and CHIP. We are told that there is not enough money for education for all – not just those who can afford it. We are told that there is not enough money to keep food in the mouths of our children with SNAP and other support,” Zoe Jaspers said. “Meanwhile we triple ICE’s budget to harass and kidnap our neighbors … Meanwhile we can afford to bomb the children of Palestine while shareholders profit from weapons of death.”
Jaspers, a member of the steering committing for the Interfaith Justice Coalition1 who works in anti-racism and justice ministries at the Sunnyslope Church, was one of two featured two speakers at the event.
The other was Reverend Dane Breslin, pastor of the Sunnyslope Church and a fellow member of the Interfaith Justice Coalition. He led a song and then spoke an invocation he called “Good Trouble.”
“Today we invoke the spirit of resistance, the sacred art of refusal to comply,” he said. “We resist fascism. We resist this Republican administration. We resist manufactured despair. We refuse to comply with the destruction of our nation by a pretend con man king and a pitiful collection of billionaires.”
You can watch their remarks in full here:
Dominic and Michael are celebrating their 40th anniversary this year, although they have only been allowed to be legally married for 13 of them. They said they have been impressed by the number of protestors who have been showing up to protest Trump and the far right in Wenatchee over the last few months, and it inspired them to show up to “fight back” against recent attempts to roll back equal rights for same-sex couples.
“I’m here protesting the tyranny of the Trump administration,” Dominic said.
Starting this year, there has been some movement2 at the state level to prompt or promote a case that will allow the Supreme Court to reconsider its’ decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, a landmark 2015 case that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Repealing same-sex marriage also garnered overwhelming support in a vote among Southern Baptists, the largest Protestant denomination in the US, at their convention in Dallas last month. Members endorsed a resolution that would seek to overturn the Obergefell decision3.
It’s a decision Grace City Church Pastor Josh McPherson has identified as a target for political activism, and is something he uses to make his case that Christians are now a targeted group in the US4.
Michael is a former federal employee and he said until the Obergefell decision was handed down, Dominic was not able to be on his medical insurance.
He said the fact that so many folks have been coming out to protest Trump and GOP policies in Wenatchee and other small and medium-sized towns shows that Trump and the GOP agenda are unpopular outside of large cities as well.
“To tell you the truth I think these kinds of protests in a town this size is even that much more effective,” Michael said.
In the 2024 election Trump won Chelan County with 53.4% of the vote, almost a full 10 percentage points over Kamala Harris’ 43.9%5, but this week his approval rating hit the lowest point of his second term so far. According to Forbes, 42% of Americans approve of the job he’s doing while 62% disapprove of Trump’s signature legislation – the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.6”
The relevance of such numbers is certainly up for debate though, as Trump’s highest approval rating ever was a meager 49% in 20197, and such opinion polls haven’t seemed to impact his second administration.
My Two Cents
With the midterm elections more than a year away, on Nov. 3, 2026 to be exact, nothing much is expected to change when it comes to the direction that the government is headed.
And these protestors know that.
A common cheap throwaway line I see online when it comes to protests like this is that they are pointless because they usually don’t affect immediate change in governmental policy. Communicating this often belies a dismissive disinterest in understanding why people are protesting in the first place, but let’s persist with that thought for a moment.
One would be hard-pressed to find anyone in that crowd who truly believed Donald Trump, or anyone in Washington DC for that matter, was paying attention to their protest. No one there thinks Trump’s policies are going to change because of what they’re doing on front of the county courthouse on Chelan Avenue in Wenatchee.
But it’s not about that – not really. At least I don’t think it is. I’ve been covering these protests for years now and I think it’s about finding community – kindred spirits when folks feel isolated and things feel bleak. It’s about finding each other, especially in a region where liberals feel outnumbered – because they are.
It’s also about looking to a future and believing that things can and will get better.
“Today we invoke a more positive future where all people are treated with dignity and respect,” Breslin said. “Where everyone is housed. Where everyone has access to medical care. Where everyone has access to education and a living wage. We invoke a future defined by justice and common decency and fairness.”
It’s funny to look back and think of a time when those sentiments didn’t seem radical, or even that partisan. I was raised to believe that everyone has dignity and deserves to be treated with respect.
Breslin’s prayer wasn’t for hand outs to those unwilling to work. It was for housing and education and a living wage for all. It was for the expectation of justice in a society guided by common decency and fairness.
Funny, because that sounds a lot like the American dream to me.
Sources and footnotes
Interfaith Justice Coalition Focuses On Bringing People Together, Promoting Peace, Dominick Bonny Reports:
Interfaith Coalition Focuses On Bringing People Together, Promoting Peace
The Interfaith Justice Coalition was born in response to a concerning rise in Christian nationalism in North Central Washington, say founding members.
Some Republican Lawmakers Increase Calls Against Gay Marriage SCOTUS Ruling, ABe News: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/republican-lawmakers-increase-calls-gay-marriage-scotus-ruling/story?id=119395181
Southern Baptists Endorse Repealing The Legalization of Same-Sex Marriage In The US, The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/11/southern-baptist-same-sex-marriage-repeal
Conservative Commentator Glenn Beck Interviews Grace City Church Pastor Josh McPherson, Dominick Bonny Reports: https://substack.com/home/post/p-141596981?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
2024 Washington General Election Results, USA Today: https://www.usatoday.com/elections/results/2024-11-05/race/0/washington
Trump’s Approval Rating: Most Americans Oppose Signature Policy Bill In Latest Poll, Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2025/07/16/trumps-approval-rating-most-americans-oppose-signature-policy-bill-in-latest-poll/=
Presidential Approval Highs & Lows, Cornell’s Roper Center for Public Research: https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/presidential-approval/highslows
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