PORTSMOUTH — Colleen Pilat stood at the corner of East Main Road and Turnpike Avenue Saturday with a sign carrying a photo of her father, who died when she was 18.

Private Edward R. Townsend was a tail gunner in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. He fought in the Italian Campaign, and even witnessed Benito Mussolini’s body after it was hung upside down in Milan, following his execution in 1945.

“My father risked everything to defeat one dictator. Now it’s my turn!” read her sign, which was one of many displayed during Portsmouth’s own “Hands Off” protest that coincided with the nationwide demonstrations April 5 against the administration of President Donald Trump.

“I’m here for my dad, and I’m going to fight,” said Pilat.

The protest in front of Clements’ Marketplace and BankNewport drew somewhere between 150 and 200 demonstrators carrying signs bearing slogans such as “Dump Trump,” “Democracy Over Oligarchy,” “Resist,” “Deport Elon Musk,” “Created in 250 Yrs, Defaced in 70 Days,” and “Immigrants Are Not Criminals, But Trump Is!”

The rally targeted a number of Trump administration policies, including global tariffs; rollbacks on LGBTQ+ rights; potential cuts in federal funding for education, healthcare, Social Security, and other government agencies; what they perceived as growing authoritarianism and dwindling democratic principles; and more.

Mary Lorusso-DiBara held one of the more unusual placards, which featured a zombie-like figure above a sign that read, “I Was Your Democracy America, But Look What Trump Did to Me … Sad.”

“There are many things that we can protest, and I feel that it’s very important for us as citizens. The very democratic ideals that our country was founded on? We’re losing them. My call is to make America, America again,” Lorusso-DiBara said. “What I’m nervous about, and what my friends are nervous about, are some of the terrible cuts that are happening, particularly potential cuts to elders, with Social Security and Medicaid. There are a host of other issues.”

Valerie Smallenbroek attended with her friend, Rosemary Conboy.

“I’m the mother of a trans child, and I know it’s not their fault and they can’t help it. I’ve never thought I would be in this situation, but I see how my child is happy now,” said Smallenbroek, who was holding a rainbow-colored “Hate Has No Place Here” sign.

The Trump administration’s targeting of the LGBTQ+ community, she said, “is going to be life-threatening to a lot of youngsters who don’t bother anybody, but who want to be themselves. As a mom, I get it now.”

A quiet counterprotest

While there was no organized counterprotest, a few Trump supporters made their feelings known by yelling out their endorsement of the president or by flashing small signs out of their car windows as they drove by.

After one female passenger yelled, “Yay Trump!” to protesters, one of them responded with, “How’s your 401(k)?”

Wearing a red “Make American Great Again” hat, Mark Joaquin was one of the few Trumpers who made himself visible, milling through the crowd but not causing any disturbance.

“I came here because there’s a bunch of lost souls here,” said Joaquin, who framed Trump’s rise in Biblical terms. “These people have so much hatred in their hearts that they can’t hear the truth when it’s talked right to them. The Lord came and saved all of these sinners with his blood. When President Trump stands up and speaks, as the Lord spoke, the whole world shakes. The whole world is shaking right now. Is it because of Trump? No, it’s because the Lord’s spirit is in Trump.

“They’re welcome to their opinion, but when they’re sitting in hell, they’re going to realize that they made the wrong decision.”

‘Not qualified’

Joaquin was in the distinct minority on Saturday, however, at least at this intersection.

“The current administration is unqualified; that’s it,” said John Vitkevich, a longtime Trump rejectionist. “If I was going to have brain surgery, I would want to make sure that the surgeon was qualified to do brain surgery. This guy’s not qualified to do anything. How do you bankrupt four casinos? Somebody’s got to tell me that.”

Bill and Mary Lou Krol said they were both pleased by the strong turnout. “It reassures me that democracy will prevail,” said Bill Krol. “We’ve been very upset by the whole process, but this makes us feel better. We feel so many folks feel the same way."

As a retired civilian employee of the U.S. Department of Defense, Krol said he was outraged when several key Trump advisers recently shared details of a planned attack against the Houthis in Yeman on Signal, a commercial messaging app — and did so while inadvertently including a journalist in on the chat.

“Seeing how those in charge are not (being held) responsible for treating top-secret information as if it were public information, that really is appalling,” he said.

“I saw a great sign: ‘I didn’t think I’d spend my retirement fighting tyranny.’ That fits for me,” said Mary Lou Krol. 

There’s not one Trump policy in particular that upsets her, she said. “It’s all of it. It’s insane. We were going in the right direction, and we just needed a little more time.”

Rep. Terri Cortvriend told a two-person documentary film crew that state lawmakers are in a state of confusion with the “chaos” happening at the federal level.

“We don’t know much federal funding we’re going to lose,” she said. 

‘Means I’m not alone’

The self-described “instigator” of the local rally, 84-year-old Carol Anderheggen, wandered through the crowd to greet people and hand out flags. She deemed the event a rousing success.

“I am thrilled with the amount of people that are here and the wonderful signs that are here, and the way they spread out all over the place,” she said. “I wish had had ordered 150 flags. I only ordered 50 flags and gave them all away.”

When asked what the protest meant to her, Anderheggen didn’t hesitate to reply.

“It means I’m not alone,” she said. “It means I stood up for what I believe in, and that gives me a solid ground to stand on with myself.”