Sonoma County voters headed to D.C. to welcome, protest Donald Trump’s inauguration

America has never before witnessed a presidential inauguration weekend like the one shaping up at present in Washington, D.C.

Typically, there's at least a civil facade of reconciliation and unity to the swearing-in festivities that follow by just 73 days the election to decide who occupies the White House. This year - as has been roundly noted - after an ideologically and emotionally supercharged campaign for the position of leader of the free world, the chasm between those who cheer the administering of the oath of office to 45th President Donald Trump and those who deplore it is especially deep and jagged, daunting and wide.

There is no great migration from Sonoma County and the North Coast to Friday's rites on the west front of the Capitol. In November's election, Sonoma County voters favored Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton over Republican Trump by a gaping margin of nearly 69 percent to 22 percent.

But there are local people who feel compelled to make the journey, either to welcome Trump or to defy him in what looks to be a huge Women's March on Washington on Saturday.

We met with a few to discuss what it is about the new president that has them feeling expectant, or girding for battle.

Counting on president-elect

It wasn't Dean Zellers' idea to trek to D.C. for the inauguration. His son, Bailey, a 2014 graduate of Sonoma Valley High, asked him about a year ago, “If Trump wins, would you go?”

The younger Zellers meant, would you go with me? It surprised Dean Zellers that the 2016 presidential campaign ignited his son's interest in politics, and, moreso, that the teen seemed to adopt a conservative, common-sense perspective similar to his own.

“That's the craziest thing,” said the elder Zellers, 51, and a self-employed Sonoma insurance broker. “I didn't think my kid listened to me about anything.”

Yes, he told Bailey, who's now 20 and working as a bicycle mechanic in Portland, he would go with him to see Donald Trump become president. The trip is on.

Dean Zellers, who said he votes as an independent - because neither major party “really represents” - finds much he likes about Trump.

“He may be a billionaire, but he talks like he's your next-door neighbor. That's why people are amazed and have flocked to him.”

“And I don't care that he's not polished,” Zellers added. “That's what we like about him. Polished, we've had polished."

Principally, Zellers said, there are three primary things he counts on the real estate titan turned Commander in Chief to do:

Provide the country a strong military defense.

Allow the economy to thrive by removing excessive fees, restrictions and other obstacles that he said hamper businesses and thwart people who'd like to start a business.

“This is not an economy,” Zellers said, though the nation has marked 70-plus consecutive months of job growth and Sonoma County's unemployment rate stands at 4 percent, the lowest in nearly a decade.

“There's a regulation and rule for everything,” Zellers said.

Repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, President Obama's landmark health care law.

A specialist in health insurance, Zellers said, “My personal opinion is that it was never about insuring and helping people. It was about control of the marketplace. It was meant to fail.”

In a five-page letter to Congress, Zellers offers specific recommendations for a simplified, national health plan that would not require all residents to purchase health insurance but would encourage them to do so through tax deductions. He contends that a good deal of what is wrong with Obamacare can be made right with “easy fixes.”

From Oregon, his son had no trouble saying why he most wants to be at the Trump inauguration on Friday.

“It's a historical event,” Bailey said. He expects that 50 years from now, people who were there will recall it in terms similar to those used by eyewitnesses to other major moments in the story of America.

Beyond that, he said that having been up close to Trump at a rally in Reno that he attended with his dad just last November makes him eager to be in his presence again.

“To see him in person,” said Bailey, “is way different.”

Unable to remain silent

This will be 65-year-old Ellen Bowen's first political demonstration.

“I'm not an angry protester. That's just not who I am. I really live my life very conservatively,” said Bowen, a Santa Rosan who will head this week to Washington for the women's march that will happen the day after the inauguration.

Bowen is a registered Democrat, a mother and a Christian who has worked for 44 years as a licensed clinical social worker and has never before felt compelled to take to the streets in protest.

“I usually think of myself as a behind-the-scenes ‘trench worker' when it comes to effecting positive change in the world,” she said. “Now, however, I can no longer in good conscience be silent.”

“I really, truly have so many reasons for doing this,” she said.

The day after the November election, Bowen said she was physically sick from the stress of worry over what Trump might do to the country as president. The therapist notes that among Trump's worrisome traits, “he doesn't have even a short fuse. It's like he has no fuse.”

A list of the people or interests he has called out for criticism on Twitter since his election runs from the media and auto and plane manufacturers to Hollywood and Broadway actors, American intelligence agencies, and, on Saturday, the Civil Rights icon and veteran Georgia congressman John Lewis.

“I don't trust the president-elect and I am deeply offended by his behavior,” Bowen said. “I'm really worried that it's going to encourage more abusiveness and violence.

“For 44 years I have witnessed firsthand the damage done to children, families and partners by domestic violence,” she said, adding that she's horrified by the example Trump sets, including his offensive comments about women.

As she prepares to make the trek to the counter-inauguration march, Bowen is fielding advice and messages of concern.

“My 90-year-old mother says, ‘You'd better keep a low profile, I don't want you getting hurt.'?”

But at this moment in America, Bowen said, she feels strongly that a low profile will not suffice.

Generations to make trek

Santa Rosa resident Amy Robinson's politically curious 9-year-old daughter badly wanted to travel to Washington this month to witness the inauguration of the first female president.

Obviously, they will not watch Hillary Clinton be sworn into office Friday. But Robinson, 44, and her daughter, Vinca, are making a trip to Washington anyway - to protest Saturday as part of the Women's March on Washington.

“It's going to be the first day of a brand new political environment, so it's really important to stand up and say I'm not going away just because it's a new political environment,” Robinson said.

Robinson, a writer and historian by training, plans to fly first to Philadelphia, where she and her daughter will meet up with her 75-year-old mother. All three generations of women will take a bus to Washington to participate in the march.

Robinson has a long history of political activism: She helped organize against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan during the presidency of George W. Bush and was involved with Occupy Santa Rosa. But Trump's election hit home in an intensely personal way, she said.

“The most emotional response I had immediately had to do with my daughter, and the future of her body, and her ability to control her body and her risk of sexual assault,” Robinson said. “(Trump's) behavior, and the way that it has normalized the assault of women's bodies, is really frightening as a mother.”

Still, Robinson stressed the devastation and uncertainty she felt on election night is felt daily by people of color, those facing religious discrimination and hatred - particularly Muslims and Jews - and many others with whom she intends to march in solidarity. She views the protest as an important way of standing up early and clearly to potential Trump administration policies that could make the already vulnerable even more at risk.

“It's incredibly important to be visible in our resistance, to not just sit in our comfortable living rooms and sign petitions,” Robinson said. “For me, personally, and for my daughter, I hope it will just be a reminder that we're not alone. It is a really powerful, empowering experience to be in a march like that, be willing to be out in the open with strangers, and stand up and say we're standing in solidarity.”

Ultimate girlfriends' jaunt

For Sarah Tendall and Jenny Levine-Smith to fly off together to D.C. in a few days will be sort of the ultimate girlfriends' weekend.

The pair of Santa Rosa educators don't know what to expect of the East Coast weather or the crowds, but they're pretty sure the focus of their trip, the post-inauguration women's march, is going to be enormous, and it will be important.

“I think democracy is in danger,” said Levine-Smith, 37, director of the preschool at Santa Rosa's Congregation Beth Ami.

She said she is so motivated to oppose what she sees as threats to social justice and the nation under President Donald Trump that there was no question that she would march in response to his swearing-in Friday. The only question was where.

There will be demonstrations in Sonoma County and elsewhere in the Bay Area. Levine-Smith and Tendall, friends since the days they taught together at Roseland Charter Middle School, agreed the magnitude of the peril warrants their taking their message to D.C.

For Tendall, 38 and the coordinator of a mentoring program for Roseland high-school students, the march on Saturday is something to look forward to in this time of uncertainty.

“Who really knows how many people will be there? I think it's safe to say more than the day before,” she said.

Both she and Levine-Smith said they expect the march to energize them for the challenge of resisting Trump administration policies, mandates and attitudes harmful to women, children, immigrants and others.

Levine-Smith said she's eager to act on the right of Americans to protest and oppose a government that doesn't act in their interest. “It is important,” she added, “that we don't just celebrate that we have those rights, but that we exercise them fiercely.”

She said she expects the march will “get me ready to do the very serious work that is ahead of us.”

Belief in Trump's potential

“It's going to be a bit of a zoo - and cold!”

Santa Rosa's Edelweiss “Eddie” Geary spoke of Friday's inauguration. The chairwoman of Sonoma County's Republican Party, Geary will stay home to celebrate the dawning of the Trump presidency.

Well aware that she holds a minority view on the generally liberal North Coast, she believes Trump has the potential to make life better for most Americans by greatly reducing the federal bureaucracy and restoring reason and fairness to issues such as immigration.

The daughter of immigrants from Italy who she said followed the rules, Geary hopes that Trump will address illegal immigration through initiatives that make the legal process more inviting by streamlining it.

“The system for becoming a citizen is tedious and taking way too long,” she said.

Regarding health care, Geary said Trump and the Republican-led Congress have a chance to resolve what she sees as the myriad shortcomings of the Affordable Care Act. “There's real work to be done to replace it,” she said.

Geary looks to the new president and Congress to adjust the mindset that every problem in society can be corrected by government. “Every law you pass, in one way or another, limits freedom,” she said.

A former teacher who works now as a vocational counselor, Geary said some of what detractors say about Trump is true.

“He is obnoxious at times,” she said. “Political correctness has kind of gotten shot at.”

But it's her observation that much that has been alleged about the 45th president is false or exaggerated.

“Talk about fake news,” she said. “So much has been said that's not true, that's been twisted.”

Geary finds that Trump is determined not to be intimidated or forced into conforming behavior by the Democrats and the press as he pursues a better course for the country. She finds the demonizing of the president-elect and of Republicans in general to be extremely unfortunate and disconcerting.

Local Republicans should not have to fear that displaying placards supporting Trump invites vandalism to their cars or homes, or worse, she said, but they do.

What would Geary say to all of the North Coast people who regard the inauguration fearfully, even angrily?

“Believe it or not,” she said, “Republicans are Americans and they love this country.”

Staff Writer J.D. Morris contributed to this story. You can reach Staff Writer Chris Smith at 707-521-5211.