Fewer than 100 people gathered Saturday along west Newberry Road in Gainesville to protest changes to federal healthcare programs and other initiatives of President Donald Trump’s administration.
Hard by the highway in front of the Oaks Mall at 10 a.m. it was hot, pushing 90 degrees. But there was something of a chill in the air.
“People are afraid,” said Stephanie Parks, who partially covered her face with her protest sign while having a picture taken for this story.
“My husband is scared, I’m not,” said Parks, who drove with several friends from Inverness to join in the demonstration. “He worries someone will hunt me down or something if I’m too public. So, when I go to events like this we decided to just say ‘I’m going to therapy.’”
The large block letters on Park’s homemade placard read, “JOIN US. IT’S CHEAPER THAN THERAPY.”
Saturday’s protest was dwarfed by the June 14 “No Kings” rally in Gainesville where more than 2,000 demonstrated against President Trump’s policies when he observed his 79th birthday and the Army’s 250th anniversary with a military parade in Washington, D.C.
Activists say the throngs at “No Kings” events nationwide were spurred largely by the debate leading up to the military parade and by immigration raids that prompted civic backlash — most notably in Los Angeles where the president deployed the national guard over the objections of the governor and mayor.
Monique Costantino, with the group Badass Feminists of Gainesville, was attending her 24th protest of the year Saturday. She sees the Gainesville “resistance movement” as a glass half-full.
“We have actually seen a gradual increase in participation since we began,” Costantino said, without offering specific numbers. In a play on Richard Nixon’s “silent majority,” Costantino said there are many who oppose the dramatic actions and policy shifts at the state and federal level but aren’t “the type who go to demonstrations.”
Gainesville Mayor Harvey Ward told Mainstreet he would have been at the Saturday protest but was in Cleveland attending a meeting of the Democratic Mayors Association.
“You can’t read too much into the attendance numbers at a protest in the late July heat,” Ward said, but added that he measures his responses to state and federal actions carefully in the current political environment.
“I’m very careful not to throw stones,” Ward said. “I’m very much aware of who has the power at the moment, and it’s not me.”
Ward said the city will cooperate, for instance, with the newly created state department of government efficiency (DOGE) as it audits the city in the governor’s quest to lower taxes by eliminating what he views as waste and abuse.
“We’ll see where it leads,” Ward said, adding that he’s prepared to play hardball if the governor moves “unlawfully” against Gainesville’s best interests.
Ward said he came away from the conference in Ohio this weekend convinced there is no malaise in the opposition.
“There’s plenty of fight left in America’s mayors,” Ward exclaimed.
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine-Cava, however, has been loudly criticized — even on billboards erected along city expressways — for not doing enough to challenge the governor’s seizure of county land for the “Alligator Alcatraz” immigrant detention camp.
Levine-Cava told Mainstreet she hasn’t taken the governor to court over the pop-up prison in the Everglades because she fears losing her job.
“We have a law in Florida that requires counties to cooperate with immigration,” Levine-Cava said. “The governor could remove me from office if I interfere. I think it’s not a good law, but I have to follow the law.”
Donna Turkey of Gainesville said participating in Saturday’s protest required some personal courage.
“I’m scared. I’m absolutely afraid of being targeted, I’m afraid of posting on social media. It’s fearful,” Turkey said. “Look at Stephen Colbert. Is South Park next?”
The Saturday protest in Gainesville was organized by Families First to advocate for restoring cuts to healthcare, safety, education and food programs in the federal budget plan approved this month, the so-called “big, beautiful bill.”
Tonya Camaratta, active in the Alachua County Democratic Committee, said married couples and families have reason to join in the protest.
“Millions of Floridians will see big increases in their Obamacare (ACA) premiums — big increases — January 1st,” Camaratta said. “More than 1.2 million people in Florida will lose their Medicaid coverage if it’s not reversed.”
For Mary Kilgore, the Saturday protest was personal. The 84-year-old Gainesville resident received a Ph.D. from Harvard University and spent an entire career working in developing nations for USAID. The Trump administration has dismantled the aid agency and is attempting to strip her alma mater of billions in federal funding.
“The last time I got out on the street and protested anything was against continuing the Vietnam war,” Kilgore said.
She said she will take to the street again next Saturday.
Fearful of Trump? DeSantis?
This is America, home of the free and land of the brave.
If we surrender to fear, fear will win. I’m 71 and at No Kings, I almost got run down by a couple, who then after I jumped out of the way of their speeding car(they sped up to hit me)emphasized their anger(not sure why they were angry)by giving the one finger salute. Many people witnessed this. Here’s the deal, I’m not personally angry at anyone, nor do I hate anyone. I do fear for our country, but that’s not gonna keep me from voting, or protesting, or resisting. What is happening is a disgrace, and good people from all walks of life should seriously be thinking about the direction we are headed. Hate, anger, racism, these things do not make us better. They never will, they never have.
You should debate the issues and how to solve them, but monologues are used instead.
Pretty sure trying to run over someone is a crime UNLESS you were in the road blocking traffic then you were breaking the law. If this actually happened and as you said there were”plenty” of witnesses, why didn’t you press charges? Sounds like a lot of gaslighting to me! Also, I find it funny that you and others protest “no king” in a country where you have the right to protest. Seems like an oxymoron to me. Real kings make you do things like sign up for health care you don’t want, confine you to your home, deny your right to attend Church, pick a candidate that no one voted for for the nominee for president, and force you to stick an experimental drug into your body against your will. That’s what a real king does.
My mother told me when I was 4 or 5, “Don’t play in the street.” Follow that rule and you should be OK.
Free speech means debating and solving issues, not being paid to stand outside for placard monologues. Both sides should talk about how to solve problems. But one side depends on furthering problems to “justify” their NGO’s existence. That’s why nothing got solved for the last 65 years.
I was there and I didn’t get paid. Who do I talk to about getting paid? Seriously, you negated your credibility and point by bringing up a false narrative about paid protesters. One won’t see the value of protesting by looking at it as an individual monologue on a placard. You will need a broader understanding of dialogue and relationship building that happens during protests.
Pick an issue and start debating with me.
Go on Nextdoor and look me up. I’m debating there every day.
jeffk are you holding my check? Hand it over brother, it was hot out there!
I was there and I didn’t get a whiff of fear. And it was really, really hot. Fewer than 100 is factually correct, but 50 to 75+ and growing every week is also accurate. I met at least 4 protesters who came for the first time that day. They sounded like they would be coming back next week.
And yes there were some negative responses from the cars passing by, but far more honks & thumbs up!
If any of the Thumbs Down folks would like to pull into the parking area and stop for a conversation, please do. I’d love to hear what you have to say, and I’d hope you can listen to my concerns as well.
There are many people who are protesting who have overcome any fear they might have because the danger to democracy is the most important issue in their lives.
Could you please explain specifically what danger to democracy we are facing right now? If you can, I’ll join the next protest!
I’m not sure I can post a link to Amnesty International but you can Google “President Trump’s First 100 Days: Attacks on Human Rights, Cruelty and Chaos”
Apart from that:
1. Threatening to take a 3rd term without elections defies the Constitution he is sworn to protect and uphold.
2. He’s accepting bribes from foreign leaders.
3. Listen to his words. If a US Citizen doesn’t agree with him he calls them bad people and encourages his mob to go after them. or before taking office “More specifically, Trump has pledged to toss reporters in jail and strip major television networks of their broadcast licenses as retribution for coverage he didn’t like.”
4. His attack on the 5th Amendment – – A throughline of President Donald Trump’s second term in office is that his administration believes it can act with impunity when it comes to the law and to the U.S. Constitution. In a recent interview, President Trump responded to a question as to whether he had to uphold the Constitution with, “I don’t know.”
GNV Ken, I could go on and on. How do you not see and acknowledge his words and actions?
Thank you, Dave, for patiently responding. First, as a former Democrat of many years, I’d like to say that I voted for President Trump the first time because I believed Hillary would have been worse. The second time, when Biden won, I voted for Trump because I saw Biden obviously having cognitive impairment, and I didn’t believe he would be making decisions. This seems to have been a correct understanding. The third time, against Harris, once again I saw Trump as the better choice. I was bewildered by the Democrats putting up yet another very shaky candidate for president. But this was the first time I was also positively voting for Trump: I believe his true character, his courage, and his regard for the American people was revealed by the way he responded to being grazed by a bullet.
Know that I sometimes cringe at Trump’s ways of speaking and seemingly trivial bugaboos. He isn’t perfect, but a two-party system means binary choices, and it’s way, way better than a one-party system!
Regarding your concerns borrowed from Amnesty International, an organization I regard as having become a purely Leftist organ, to the first, Mr. Trump was clearly trolling the press and the more gullible opposition voters. BBC, as of May 4, 2025, reported without reservation that Mr. Trump was not seeking a third term.
Bribes from foreign leaders? This is a very awkward way to spin a jet offered to the US Govt. on behalf of our President.
As for calling opponents “bad people,” I cringed when Hillary called Trump’s voters “deplorables” and Biden called them “garbage.” This alone never made me feel they were threats to democracy (though many other of their words and actions have).
Finally, I don’t know how Trump has violated the Fifth Amendment.
Now, would you call Tulsi Gabbard’s report regarding Clinton’s dodgy campaign research being used to accuse a political opponent and President of the United States “a thread to democracy”? Would you call mutating two expired misdemeanors, already not seen as worth charging by the US DoJ, into 34 felonies to once again attack a presidential candidate “a threat to democracy”?
Look me up on Nextdoor and look at some of my recent posts which provide an abundance of factual evidence.
“Democracy” to Dems means getting paid by the govt to pacify you, so you won’t protest or form militias. That’s all.
Mr. Nelson, while I am glad more journalists are getting involved with MSDN, please consider your headline in this case, using “FEARS” as the lead-in. I expect an opinion piece to reflect the writer’s bias, but please don’t fear monger and gin up anxiety as a projection of your own inner turmoil. Is it logical to claim some vague threat of…What exactly? Doxing? Cancelling? Showing up and making noise in neighborhoods at night? Doesn’t nearly 100% of coverage the past ten years suggest that supporters of the current administration are not involved in such harassment, that Progressive agitators pushing (in some cases unwittingly, perhaps) for authoritarian Marxism are much more likely to dox, cancel, and harass?
Here are two quotes from your own piece that contradict your assertion that anti-Trump protests are being “chilled”:
‘“We have actually seen a gradual increase in participation since we began,” Costantino said, without offering specific numbers. ‘
‘Gainesville Mayor Harvey Ward told Mainstreet he would have been at the Saturday protest but was in Cleveland attending a meeting of the Democratic Mayors Association.
‘“You can’t read too much into the attendance numbers at a protest in the late July heat,” Ward said…’
Sorry, but the quote or two you provide of attendees feeling nervous seem to be selectively chosen (hopefully not shaped). Did you interview the others that seem confident and focused but not fearful?
I’m from South Florida too. I don’t like the traffic there, and I don’t like illogical, hysterical reporting or editorializing. We had a once-decent print paper in this town that is little more than a memory at this point. Please add some common sense, balance, and grace to your MSDN contributions.
Thank you.
GK
Florida is a stand your ground state. That means standing up to those who would threaten peaceful protesters.
But who is threatening “peaceful protestors”? Could you please give examples? I wish Mr. Nelson would have included some documented cases of anti-Trump protestors being harassed or threatened by somebody. Such examples would have made the article more compelling while generating sympathy.
The whole idea of “feeling” threatened is specious. Imagine if every time I see a person of an ethnicity different from my own I “feel threatened.” Would that be fair? Would it be rational?
I was among the protesters. I didn’t sense that people were generally afraid about being there. The administration wants us to be afraid to speak out, as do some of its supporters, a couple of whom tried to intimidate the crowd. They want us to be afraid, but we are not. The people there should be described as strong and courageous.
Sure, the crowd was dwarfed by the numbers on No Kings Day. But that was a highly publicized national event. Saturday was a very hot day during a time of year when many people aren’t in town. The fact is that significant numbers continue to protest regularly, all over the country.
I have participated in over a dozen protests in Gainesville. I have never been afraid. However, I do have a lawyers phone number in case bad actors attempt to cause trouble! Our country is in peril & everyone needs to participate in fighting for our constitution in whatever’s way they feel comfortable!
Immigrants certainly have good reason to fear. And given the violence of some of the ICE raids going on nationwide, I’d say there’s reason to fear. Given, too, Trump’s EO’s forcing viewpoint compliance with him and his policies onto universities, agencies, media. But rather than talking about fear, let’s talk about courage.
if Colbert was making money instead of losing around 50 million a year, they wouldn’t be cancelling him.. nothing to do with Trump.
Your source? FoxFiction? Colbert has the platform to speak up! RESIST FASCISM!! trump is a bully! Gives it but can’t take it!
WE THE PEOPLE WILL NOT BACK DOWN!
WHAT are they protesting?
UNDOCUMENTED immigrants need to be sent back to their own countries. This will reduce costs to taxpayers that a lot of these people protesting AREN’T and it opens jobs for real AMERICANs. Most of these people protesting are n’t concerned about jobs, they are living off the Government.
Dennis, what are the jobs that undocumented people are taking from you? How are the protesters living off the government? I think you may be misunderstanding facts or just making stuff up.
Well if you are here illegally then you should be fearful. Otherwise WHAT are these people fearful of?
Abolish ICE says one sign. Sir you are wrong and in a small MINORITY of Americans.
To my fellow senior citizens. You are protesting the wrong people. Congress did not touch our Social security or Medicare. In fact if you pay income tax you will get a tax break becuase your social security is no longer taxed and without this bill your income taxes would have increased.
On the other hand your hero, Harvay Ward, wants to raise property taxes 14 %, Now that means that businesses will have to pay more and they certainly won’t be able to absorb that but pass the increase on to YOU. THat means grocery stores will increase prices and hospital ,nursing homes and assisted and independent living facilities will either have to reduce services or raise prices to YOU. and if you rent, your landlord will pass those increases on to YOU.So why aren’t you protesting the Gainesville City Commission and the Mayor?
Dennis taxes pay for necessary services.
When you say that “businesses will have to pay more and they certainly won’t be able to absorb that but pass the increase on to YOU.” I think you must be thinking of the foolish tariffs imposed by this administration.
It’s like owning a house. If you don’t do the maintenance you’ll save money in the short term, but eventually it will catch up with you when you have to replace your roof and repair all the damage done to the rest of the house by the leaking roof.