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Michael Dunne: I'm Michael Dunne. This past weekend in cities large and small, millions of people hit the streets to demonstrate at the third No Kings rally locally. Springfield was the epicenter of our community's main event, and 1000s of people massed together in protest of the Trump administration today on the show, you'll hear from one of the leaders of indivisible, Eugene Springfield, and learn what it takes to put on such a huge event and what they hope becomes an inflection point for our community, state and nation. Then towards the end of the show, you'll hear from a reporter with The Oregon Journalism Project about a concerning trend happening in our state right now, high earning people of a certain age are leaving the state, and they're being replaced by younger people with much less income. Stan Taylor, a leader with Indivisible Eugene/Springfield, Stan, thanks so much for coming into the studio and talking with us.
Stan Taylor: Thanks for having me.
Dunne: This this weekend was the very big No Kings rally that happened throughout the nation and certainly here in our community. Give us an overview of how you think it went?
Taylor: Well, of course, nationally, I think it went amazingly well. They're talking over 3,300 events. That's 3,300 and over 8 million people out nationwide, which makes it the largest single day protest in the history of the country. Wow, which is pretty amazing. And locally, I think it went very well as well. You know, we had a different objective this time around than we've had in the past, and that was to broaden this work into the Springfield area and to create partnerships, in this case, with safer, the Springfield alliance for equity and respect, so that we could reach more into the Latinx community and the working-class communities and have them speak in their own voices for themselves.
Dunne: Okay, how did you and your team or the folks that you worked with define success? What did you think about before the event happened? Oh, it will feel really good if this happens. And then did you achieve that?
Taylor: Oh, yeah, I think we achieved what we hoped. You know, as I said, Our objective was a little bit different. So, this time around, we were willing to sacrifice some numbers, okay, in terms of people showing up in order to create the relationships that we wanted to create. Okay, you know, the coalition, the activist coalition of Eugene Springfield, which is organized the hands-off rally last April and the previous Oh, well now all three, No Kings events. We are a coalition now of 26 different organizations in Eugene, soon to be 27 I hope, or 28 with a couple more from Springfield joining us. And we have as a mission to not only resist totalitarianism, but also to build a local social movement that can exercise power and to build a movement through networks and alliances. So, this time, we really focused on the alliance aspect.
Dunne: I know lots of people who went to the no kings rally, and I know lots of people think something like that happens organically. Someone says it's going to be this time and this date show up. Talk about the logistics of putting something like this together. You talked about these partnerships. Talk about how you're able to activate those partnerships. And what are some of the you know, the challenges of getting 1,000s of people to show up. How do you work out logistics, permitting communications to take us through kind of the 30,000-foot view of something like this.
Taylor: Well, it's an interesting question. You know, a year ago in March, when Indivisible and 5051 called for the Hands-Off rally, I was a brand-new leader for indivisible here in Eugene Springfield, and I realized right away that it was mid-March and they were calling for a massive rally on April 5, that we didn't have the capability as a single organization to do it. Okay, so I put out a call to. Two organizations in town that I had connections with, and the following Monday, we had 14 different organizations together coming together to organize for the Hands-Off rally. We started with 14 organizations, and now we have 26 so we are meeting on a regular basis as a coalition, because we recognize there are things we can do as a coalition that we can't do in our separate silos.
Dunne: Okay, what's it like working with the cities or the police departments? How does that kind of happen? And maybe take us through how you helped sort of build that bridge, if you will.
Taylor: Well, those bridges are interesting. Bridges, okay? You know, one of the things that happens, if you look at successful social movements is that they call for civil resistance that takes place outside of institutional frameworks. Okay? So, there's a kind of natural separation that takes place, or independence that takes place with social movements and the sense that they don't want to get too cozy or work too much through institutional frameworks. That said, this time around in Springfield, we were very concerned with safety, and we approached the Springfield Police Department, and they were very cooperative with us. They helped us to block off streets and to make the space for the event safe in the sense of making, literally making space where we could occupy space, have a march, and so forth. So that was really interesting process. We sat down with several members of the Springfield Police Department and hashed out what we hoped to do, and they cooperated. And to their credit, I have to say they deserve some thanks for what they did.
Dunne: I kind of want to taking off on what you just talked about, especially with regard to safety, because obviously, not only are there 1,000s of eyeballs of people participating in the event, there are even more eyeballs looking at it from whatever media reports and whatnot. And certainly, some people, if some folks get out of line, some people are going to try and whip that up into a big deal. And it might be, I'm not sure. But you know is that one of the concerns, because obviously, you personally can't patrol the behavior of everybody who's there at an event like this. But obviously, if something happens, especially if people get hurt or something that could cast a pall over it, how do you go about, I don't know, kind of trying to make it both impactful and civil disobedience, but yet safe.
Taylor: You were asking before about the logistics of what it takes to put on an event. So, for example, in this event, getting ready for the no kings three, we had nine different committees, and chief among those is the safety and de-escalation team. Now we realized, back on the hands-off rally when we were doing the first round of organizing, that we didn't have as strong as safety and de-escalation team as we needed. In fact, there wasn't much going on in Eugene around those areas, and so we began to build that. And out of the original protests, original organizing, a team emerged that calls themselves the community de-escalation, team of Eugene Springfield, and they now do debate de-escalation for lots of events. So almost any protest or event you're seeing, you are seeing parts of the de-escalation team there trying to create safety. So, we have a de-escalation team. We also have a medics team, so experienced medics volunteering, ready to help in any circumstance. And of course, no kings, by its very nature, is nonviolent and aces the activist coalition of Eugene Springfield, we use nonviolence, not only as a strategy, but as an ethic as well. So, when we plan, we plan for nonviolent events, and we do everything we can to create an event that will be safe for the participants.
Dunne: Were you surprised how big these events have been, both here in our community, but also nationally, has it surprised you how big the participation has been?
Taylor: It did the initially, right? So, we did the Hands-Off rally here at City Hall in Eugene, and we didn't really have a good idea of how many people to expect, and we had over 2000 people register on mobilize, and somewhere between 3,000-4,000 people show up over the course of the day. And for No Kings one, we had around 10,000 no kings two, around 12,000 and this last one in Springfield, about half that, around 6,000 so. And yeah, it's amazing to see that many people show up, but at this point, I'm not surprised. And I'm not only not surprised because we now have organized several of these and we see what's possible. But I'm not surprised, because nationally, the resistance to the Trump regime and to the fascist nature of what they're doing is impacting everybody, and as it impacts everybody, more and more people are willing to show up and do the work.
Dunne: Yeah, you mentioned a couple things, like some of the apps and stuff, as someone who now organizes these types of things. How important is social media in terms of getting people to come but also to hear your message?
Taylor: It's a mixed bag. Okay, social media is we certainly utilize it so different groups and different organizations in our coalition, like 5051 are really good at using social media. The same for the party with Socialism and Liberation, and so they do some great work to make sure it saturates the community. But you know, really, most of this work is person to person, and getting people out means you have to do a lot of different things. So, it's not just social media. It's traditional media as well. And it's canvassing, you know, getting out on the streets to get the word out, put out the traditional hand, you know, handouts that are from flyers that people would see going to businesses that are, particularly in this case, along the route, to give them a heads up, and, you know, to make sure that they're ready for what's going to happen. There's a lot of ways that outreach takes place. And quite frankly, no matter how many ways you do it. It's never enough going to a No Kings event.
Dunne: Are you surprised to some degree about the mood in the crowd? Because obviously, you know and covering these events. As a journalist, I've seen it's kind of 5050, there seems to be a lot of anger, but that there's also a lot of hope. I'd love to get from your perspective, if there's a way in which you can describe the mood that happens either just this most recent one or all three.
Taylor: Well, you know, I think in the times we live in hope and joy are two sides of the same coin, right? That when you talk about getting together with the size of crowds and the numbers of people we're seeing, it's in part, anger being expressed justifiable and clear. So, if you listen to the speakers for no kings three, they made their grievances very direct, but at the same time, it's a celebration.
Dunne: I know it just happened, but I mean, when you meet with your leadership team or the organizations that that you talk about, do you have kind of a debrief, and are there, sort of lessons learned from each one of these events to the next?
Taylor: Oh, yeah, there's, there's always a debrief. So, the debrief always is the next meeting, right after the event. And you know, there are lessons learned, or things we learn we can do better at each time we go each time we make one of these events happen. So, you know, I talked about the medics teams and the de Escalation Teams, but now we're getting together bike brigades. So, you know, another, another level of organizing. Right this time we actually had the bike shop Gears and Shifts. Organize a ride from Eugene City Hall over to Springfield. So, we find new things going on all the time. Two last questions, the first of which is this, putting on an event like this.
Dunne: Who's the ultimate person or group that you want to hear, what the protesters, what the marchers, what the dancers are saying?
Taylor: Well, actually, I think it's the people themselves that we really want to hear it right. That in reality, when we begin to talk about democracy. We're talking about empowering people, and what we want to see emerge as we get a larger movement with more power, is the ability to exercise that power, not only to influence our representatives, but really to build a world we want to see.
Dunne: Stan, my last question for you is this, you know, for people listening who maybe were at the marches and whatnot, you know, what's your message to them?
Taylor: Now, one of the things that is really important, and when I talk about Power to the People, part of that is engaging, getting people to embrace their agency and to embrace your agency, you need to get involved. So, for example, ACES is now 26 different organizations. If you tuned into aces, you would find that there's an organization that you would be willing to get involved with because it meets your own passions. And that's what I would say, is take the next step, move from individual anger into collective action by joining in others who are doing organizing to make change.
Dunne: Good enough. He's Stan Taylor, one of the leaders of individual indivisible. Eugene Springfield, Stan, thanks so much for coming in and talking to us.
Taylor: Thank you very much.
Dunne: Our next guest is with the Oregon journalism project, and she'll let us know about how older, higher income people are leaving the state. Khushboo Rathore, a reporter with The Oregon journalism project. Great to talk to you again. Thanks so much for coming on and speaking with us.
Khushboo Rathore: Yeah, thank you for having me on again.
Dunne: Enjoyed your article that you wrote. Believe the title was new. Census data shows Oregon is losing residents in their prime earning years due in part to costly housing. Just give us a general overview of what your article was about. What you found out?
Rathore Yeah, I was basically looking at some census data, and I found out through looking at some data they had on people moving in and out of the state, not including international movers, kind of found that people in these, you know, the in their middle ages, really, this period from 35 year old's to about, I want to say their 50s were moving out of the state faster than they were moving in, and so and so.
Dunne: Generally speaking, those folks tend to be more established in their career and are making more money, right? Versus 20 somethings.
Rathore: Yes, absolutely.
Dunne: Okay. Is there an idea, and I kind of tease a little bit with the headline, but why is this happening?
Rathore: It's hard to attribute it to one specific factor, but one of the things I did hear about from many people when I was speaking to them about this was that housing affordability, and especially, you know, in Portland, which sometimes tends to reflect a larger trend in the state. Portland used to be a much more affordable city. People in less affordable cities, you know, used to move here are thinking, you know, we'll get the city life experience without having to pay as much. Now it's no longer that. So, a lot of the movement out of the state was from Multnomah County, which obviously does have a larger population, but it was still significantly lower net domestic migration than any other area in the state. What are some of the implications of this?
Dunne: You know, the economic implications of folks making a pretty good living no longer here in the state, and not, you know, obviously, spending their taxes and other parts of their wealth for the benefit of the state.
Rathore: Yeah. I mean, Oregon has such a high dependency on income tax that when you're losing these people who are in their higher earning years, you're also losing a lot of money. And like you know, Aditya Gadkari from eco Northwest says your jurisdictions that are kind of reliant to a certain level on this income tax money are then losing a lot you. Of their ability to provide services that are reliant on that money. So, it kind of creates, to some level, a never-ending cycle of, oh, people are moving out, so we're losing the money, therefore the services are worse. So, people don't want to come in, so we're losing even more money. So, the services continue to deteriorate.
Dunne: Is this rising to the level of maybe some of our elected officials looking at this and thinking, maybe there are some potential fixes they need to look at, because obviously, this could become a long-term problem?
Rathore: I think to some level, you know, officials have realized this. Obviously, the governor's office and the legislature have been working on affordable housing policy. But the problem is, we won't really see the impacts of it for a long time, and it's also we're in a really difficult economy right now, especially when it comes to construction.
Dunne: Yeah, yeah. Are you mentioned Multnomah County? Are there, in looking at the data, were there other areas in the state where this is, you know, as pronounced, if not more so, or almost as pronounced as Multnomah County, like you talked about?
Rathore: Not nearly to the same level. Obviously, you know, the counties that were born in bordering Multnomah have a pretty similar impact. What was interesting was the net growth in a lot of the rural counties, and then in Lane County, a lot of it can be attributed to the growth can be attributed to a lot of college students. Yeah. So, people, really, yeah. And I think it's interesting, because its great having kids come in and go to the University of Oregon, or up in Benton County going to Oregon State University. But of course, they're not necessarily spending as much money at the state level as, say, somebody who's a well-established income earner in their 40s or 50s, right?
Dunne: Yeah, yeah. Well, be interesting to see how this trend sort of tracks going forward. Khushboo Rathore, who covers the state for the Oregon Journalism Project, Khushboo, again, always appreciate you coming on.
Rathore: Thanks again for having me.
Dunne: That's the show for today. All episodes of Oregon On The Record are available as a podcast at KLCC.org. Tomorrow on the show, Oregon is a national leader in attracting data centers, and a business reporter with The Oregonian will explain the positive and negatives of this trend for our state. I'm Michael Dunne, host of Oregon On The Record, thanks for listening.
