500 protesters launch counter-offensive to Trump rally

Published 9:41 pm Monday, August 17, 2020

MANKATO, MINN. — Nearly 500 people gathered on the Veterans Memorial Bridge in Mankato to protest the policies and rhetoric of the Trump administration, just hours before President Donald Trump’s campaign stop at the Mankato Regional Airport on Monday.

It was Jim Houtsama’s first protest in decades.

The Mankato resident last protested former President Richard Nixon’s ongoing campaign to bomb Cambodia in 1973, a neutral country, during the last two years of the Vietnam War.

“With the circumstances we’ve got right now, this makes Nixon look like a child,” Houtsama said. “It’s way worse now.”

Protest organizer Yuri Hong, one of the founders of the St. Peter/Mankato Indivisible chapter — a grassroots organization with chapters throughout the country formed in response to President Trump’s 2016 election — said they had briefly considered holding a rally near the airport but decided on the Veterans Bridge for safety reasons in response to threats made on social media against the protesters.

“We decided to organize a demonstration and a rally that would be safe for our community, where they could come and voice their opposition and stand up for the things that they believe in in a way that was safe and constructive,” Hong said.

By 11:30 a.m., protesters lined each side of the Veterans bridge, waving at passing vehicles and carrying signs in support of immigrants, environmental causes, universal healthcare and campaign signs for local, state and national Democratic-Farmer-Labor candidates.

Ben and Peggy Januschka carried duplicate signs in support of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris that read “Unity over division.”

“We wanted to show Trump that Mankato is about love, not bullying, not hate and not putting people down,” Ben Januschka said.

Peggy Januschka felt the country had lost its reputation as a leader in the global community under Trump.

“I used to teach seventh-graders,” she said. “They have more class than that man does in regard to how he treats people. I just want this country to be respected, because he’s not doing it for us.”

Nearby, others carried signs that read “I’m proud to be an American and I want to be proud of my president” and “Make lying wrong again, vote for decency and respect.”

Halfway through the rally, a motorcade of Trump supporters revved their engines as they crossed the Veterans bridge, with their vehicles adorned by Trump 2020 campaign flags. While there were a few heated moments — in a couple instances, Trump supporters stepped out of their vehicles to argue with demonstrators — the event was peaceful.

After the motorcade passed through, Gwen Rohwer, of Mankato, noted the diversity of the protesters.

“Look at the crowd here, this is democracy,” Rohwer said. “We have people of all colors, all nationalities. You look at the people coming from the other side and they’re homogenous. We are inclusive and we are what democracy looks like.”

North Mankato resident Andrew Judkins said the president’s rhetoric has been especially jarring.

“The bottom line is that there’s something wrong with him as a human being and we shouldn’t have someone like that as president,” Judkins said.

Kurt Witbeck, of Mankato, said he’s seen both the good and the bad in every single president since Kennedy, when he was old enough to be aware of politics, but that Trump is the first president in his lifetime where he couldn’t find a single positive attribute.

Zach Sproles, of Mankato, said he was disturbed by what he called anti-science rhetoric when it came to issues like COVID-19 and climate change. He wanted people to know that not everyone in Mankato is a supporter of the president.

Jojo Earle, who said she was horrified by the images of immigrants in cages along the Mexican border, also wanted to demonstrate her opposition to the president.

“I don’t want him to think that the people who are supporting him speak for everyone in Mankato,” Earle said.