With a red carnation tucked in her white peacekeeper’s vest and a long braid trailing down her back, Nancy Chabot weaved through a New Hampshire State House plaza bathed in the trumpeting of car horns and the soft strumming of a guitarist as he sang “This Land is Your Land.”

Chabot has been a peacekeeper at dozens of protests over the years across the state, monitoring the crowd and de-escalating situations before they come to a boil. Saturday’s protest against the Trump Administration, which at its mid-afternoon peak packed thousands into the heart of downtown, was going well.

“It’s been a good energy,” she said.

If the energy starts to turn, like when an argument gets heated, as happened at a few points Saturday afternoon, peacekeepers will help turn the temperature down.

Bob and Eilieen Ehlers heard shouts erupt from a cluster of protesters, who had been formed in a circle around a small group holding Trump flags and signs, blocking their message. The Ehlerses spoke with a man in a red Trump hat, who declined to share his name, and while both the circle and the group at its center held their position, the yelling stopped.

“People mostly want to feel heard,” Eileen said. “And we just want to keep everyone safe.”

Rainbow and American flags, caricatures of Donald Trump and signs that said “No Kings” lined Main Street on Saturday afternoon as protestors mobilized to decry a presidential administration they viewed as authoritarian. It was one of around 30 protests across New Hampshire and around 2,000 across the country coinciding with a military parade held in Washington D.C. and the president’s 79th birthday. While it was the latest in a string of similar demonstrations in Concord during the last few months, Saturday’s was among the largest.

As rusting Subaru Outbacks, tall pickup trucks and shiny SUVs alike lapped Main Street, honking in support, the crowd members pumped their fists and cheered.

That wasn’t really Todd Pickering’s style. The Belmont resident stood quietly, hands in the pockets of his cargo shorts, anchoring a large American flag against him. He let it and the “Canada” baseball cap on his head do the talking.

An independent who used to back candidates from both sides of the aisle, Pickering, 63, hasn’t been to a ton of political protests.

He hoped, in coming, he’d help inspire others to act: both those who chose to stay home and political leaders in the spotlight.

“A lot of people want to do this but are afraid,” he said. “If you stand on the sidelines too long, the next thing you know, your democracy is gone.”

He gets that Democrats don’t have a lot of political leverage right now. But he wants them to do more.

“Be visible, be vocal,” he said. “I’ve got no love of Democrats, but they’re the ones that will stop this.”

He also wants them to take seriously the need to win elections.

“2026 is not that far away,” he said.

Samantha Devine, 16, was attending her first protest since moving to Concord.

While she hopes the protests will rouse Republicans to change their views, like Pickering she wants Democratic political leaders to put up a stronger fight.

“I want them to stand up for us. I want them to stand with us,” she said. “I want them to try and get people to listen and understand, because they have so much more voice than we do.”

Christopher Farrell, co-founder of 50501 New Hampshire, hopes that images from the event weigh on people who voted differently than him.

“There’s no one thing you’re gonna be able to say to a Republican or a MAGA,” that would change their minds, he said. “But there could be one thing that they see or that they hear that makes them research, and that’s really all we need.”

Farrell, a Weare veteran who homeschools his children, never imagined himself an activist six months ago. But he knew he was fundamentally opposed to the Trump administration and dove in forming the state chapter of 50501 — 50 protests, 50 states, 1 movement.

Their first event in February drew a few hundred. He’s learned a lot since then — about getting information out to people about the rules, building relationships with other activist organizations and using different social media platforms to their advantage.

As he spoke with the Monitor, he heard the yelling that the Ehlerses responded to and strode over.

People surrounding counter-protestors isn’t something he smiles on, and he looked on anxiously as the confrontation cooled to a simmer.

Farrell, too, hopes that each protest draws a bigger crowd.

“Do not be ashamed. Do not be scared,” he said. “We’re setting a seat at the table for you guys to come out.”

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