Anti-Trump protest draws 1000 in Idaho
Coeur d’Alene, Idaho
The average person in the U.S. probably hasn’t heard of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. If they have, they know it as the previous home base of the “Aryan Nations.” In mainstream media, Idaho is often depicted as “far right” and North Idaho in particular as a haven for fascists.
Part of the protest crowd in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, “No Kings Day,” June 14, 2025. WW Photo
According to the Coeur d’Alene media, on June 14, 2025, over 1,000 protesters took to the streets on Coeur d’Alene’s busiest intersection to oppose the Trump regime’s policies, outnumbering the reactionary forces who only managed to muster around 200 people.
While it is true that explicit fascist forces are present in Idaho in the form of neo-Nazi groups and various militia formations, this is by no means unique to Idaho. Dialectically, repression will always lead to resistance, even in places like Coeur d’Alene, as class consciousness slowly begins to take root.
It is important to remember there are only 500,000 registered Republicans in Idaho out of a population of two million people. Twenty-five percent of the population is by definition: rule by a minority. When the people of Idaho actually get to vote on policy instead of choosing between one of the two wings of the bourgeois dictatorship, the “far right” narrative of Idaho’s character begins to fall away.
A decade ago, when Idahoans were able to vote on Medicaid expansion, which would give health care to 60,000 more working-class people, it passed easily with around 60% of the vote.
Looking further back in history, 100 years ago Idaho was a stronghold of one of the furthest left labor unions in U.S. history. Tens of thousands of timber workers and miners joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in Northern Idaho. These workers literally went to war with the bosses, the state and private security firms like the Pinkertons. IWW members dynamited mines and railroads and even assassinated Idaho’s lieutenant governor.
The state cracked down hard, putting thousands of IWW members into concentration camps, but the workers eventually won their demands through solidarity and struggle. History shows that when conditions get dire enough the masses will resist.
