Dispatch from the corner of Summer and Center

Salem, Oregon, February 17, 2025 – The sky was the color of a week-old bruise, the kind that makes you wince but not quite enough to warrant ice. Rain was in the forecast, but it never really arrived—just a persistent Oregon sprinkle, the kind that doesn’t require an umbrella but still finds its way into your bones.

By noon, a crowd of about 250 had gathered at the corner of Summer and Center Street, just across from the Department of Revenue building—a location that, come spring, will explode in a riot of cherry blossoms, but today was a sea of protest signs and determined faces.

By the time the rally reached full steam, over 1,000 people lined the streets, stretching all the way down to McDonald’s. A tide of bodies, voices, and hand-scrawled declarations. Stop Musk. Stop Donald Trump. Fuck Donald Trump. If the Oligarchy Wins, We All Lose. No One Voted for Elon. And my personal favorite, a piece of cardboard defiantly scrawled with Elon, Keep Your Cyber Dick Out of My Data. A poet among us.

The energy was electric—love, solidarity, and the kind of collective frustration that makes your pulse quicken. Horns blared in approval from passing cars; a few thumbs-down emerged from rolled-down windows, as if a small finger gesture might neutralize a thousand voices. There was flag-waving—American flags mostly, held aloft in defiance, some dipped a little too low, kissed by the occasional bumper of an unsuspecting sedan.

There were veterans, too—U.S. Marine Corps, Army, Navy. You could spot them by the way they stood, shoulders squared, some wearing old service jackets, others blending into the crowd until you caught the patches, the insignias. Their presence felt significant, like an anchor amid the storm.

Dogs. There were dogs. Some in sweaters, some with their own little protest signs strapped to their backs, their messages slightly crumpled from the damp but no less valid. A pug in a tiny coat carrying a sign that reads Resist is, frankly, the kind of energy we need more of in this world. Another sported Dogs Against Doge, a play on D-O-G. And then, a gem: Who Let the Doge Out?

Vendors showed up late, hawking flags and stickers. Capitalism never misses a beat, even at a protest against, well, capitalism.

The words kept coming, the energy didn’t wane. A group near me held signs reading Stop the Coup. The sentiment was unspoken but clear: This wasn’t just about one man, one issue—this was about the whole damned thing.

I looked around at the faces, some young, some old, some hardened by too many of these rallies, others fresh and wide-eyed. A collective organism, fueled by coffee, indignation, and the promise that, if they stood here long enough, maybe something would shift.

The rally ended as these things do—gradually, people dispersing in ones and twos, voices hoarse, signs drooping at their sides. But the feeling remained, hanging in the crisp air like the echo of a shout in a canyon.

I don’t know what comes next. None of us do. But for today, for those hours on that street corner, under the heavy sky, we were something bigger than ourselves. And that counts for something.

And, what exactly is a cyberdick?