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Benjamin Wilson, 67, marched out of the crowd and threw a fist in the open window of a truck Saturday morning. The drivers were idling at a stop light, shouting curses, throwing straight-armed salutes and rolling loud clouds of exhaust onto protestors gathered for Jackson’s ‘No Kings’ rally. Two young men got out of the truck, and threw Wilson to the ground. Protest organizers pulled the three apart, dusted Wilson off as the men lept back into the truck and sped off. Organizers told Wilson, a longtime Jackson ski icon, “we’ve got to stay peaceful” and “you’re going to make us all look bad, you can’t do that.”
“We need somebody’s hands on it, don’t we?” Wilson said.
It was the only instance of violence at Saturday’s protest aligned with the nationwide movement, No Kings. No one was injured. The Jackson Police Department responded to several calls reporting the fight but said it didn’t have enough information to investigate.
Over 500 people gathered on the square on Saturday morning. It was Jackson’s largest anti-Trump administration protest of over four held this year. Looking back at live recordings of the square, Jackson Police Lt. Russ Ruschill commended protestors for being mostly on the sidewalk and out of traffic.
Over 500 people gathered around Jackson’s town square making it the town’s largest anti-Trump administration protest of over four held this year. (Sophia Boyd-Fliegel / KHOL).
“It looked like a fantastic first amendment event,” he said. Wilson’s interaction exemplified an escalation in tension at the protest from similar but smaller protests this year advocating against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the firing of federal workers and the first ‘No Kings’ protest in April.
While most cars that drove past honked in support, a good number taunted the crowd, trading obscene hand gestures and curses.
One young man danced mockingly out of the sunroof of his family’s car as they rolled passed. His sweatshirt had a stylized photo of Trump with a MAGA hat.
The teasing didn’t bother everyone.
Wayne Glass, an 80-year old veteran said he thought about 20% of cars rolling past indicated they opposed the message.
“Well, good, that’s the way it should be,” he said. “They need to hear us and we need to hear them.”
Proctors held signs and shouted slogans now familiar to the anti-Trump scene, concerned about issues like immigration policy, insurance premiums and the Epstein files. But the common theme was fearing Trump’s influence on separate powers like the courts and Congress.
“The American political system is in real danger. Checks and balances are at the heart of our system,” Glass said.
Wayne Glass held a sign with a swastika circled and crossed out. (Sophia Boyd-Fliegel / KHOL)
But many were so broadly frustrated, they had trouble putting it into words. Asked why she was protesting, Kathi Quinn, of Victor, Idaho said “because, because, why? There’s like, how many reasons are there? It’s horrible what’s happening now.”
Paul, a student at Jackson Hole High School, was one of the younger members of the crowd, which skewed older. He did not give a last name for privacy. His sign said “ICE is the new Gestapo.”
“Our country is kind of just going down the same chute as Nazi Germany did during World War II,” Paul said.
The presence of ICE in town earlier this year interrupted learning, he said.
Some students “stopped coming to school for a little bit because they were so scared that ICE was going to come and kidnap them and take their family,” he said.
Protestors cleared out by mid-day with tourists back to photo-taking under the antler arches.
