MANKATO — Nearly 500 people gathered on the Veterans Memorial Bridge in Mankato to protest the policies and rhetoric of the Trump administration, just hours before President Donald Trump’s campaign stop at the Mankato Regional Airport Monday.
It was Jim Houtsama’s first protest in decades.
The Mankato resident last protested former President Richard Nixon’s ongoing campaign to bomb Cambodia in 1973, a neutral country, during the last two years of the Vietnam War.
“With the circumstances we’ve got right now, this makes Nixon look like a child,” Houtsama said. “It’s way worse now.”
Protest organizer Yuri Hong, one of the founders of the St. Peter/Mankato Indivisible chapter – a grassroots organization with chapters throughout the country formed in response to President Trump’s 2016 election – said they had briefly considered holding a rally near the airport but decided on the Veterans Bridge for safety reasons in response to threats made on social media against the protesters.
It was Jim Houtsama’s first protest in decades.
The Mankato resident last protested former President Richard Nixon’s ongoing campaign to bomb Cambodia in 1973, a neutral country, during the last two years of the Vietnam War.
“With the circumstances we’ve got right now, this makes Nixon look like a child,” Houtsama said. “It’s way worse now.”
Protest organizer Yuri Hong, one of the founders of the St. Peter/Mankato Indivisible chapter – a grassroots organization with chapters throughout the country formed in response to President Trump’s 2016 election – said they had briefly considered holding a rally near the airport but decided on the Veterans Bridge for safety reasons in response to threats made on social media against the protesters.
