Photos and videos of 2026 Salem No Kings rally

Yesterday I attended the first No Kings rally of 2026 at the capitol mall here in Salem. Per usual, the signs were music to my Trump-hating ears.

My wife got there before me, but I ran into Laurel and her sign before entering the crowd of attendees, who totaled about 5,000.

Salem Mayor Julie Hoy got called out for her Trumpian MAGA love.

This sign laid out the situation clearly.

There was a No Kings dinosaur.

And the iconic blow-up frog.

Nice blend of Iran war and Epstein files.

This woman was on crutches. “I run better than the government.” Nice.

Here’s a 50 second You Tube video of horn honking and sign waving along Center Street.

And here’s a 3 1/2 minute You Tube video of Attorney General Dan Rayfield speaking at the No Kings rally.

On the fake news front, according to the Statesman Journal, our supposed “paper of record,” at the No Kings rally the attendance was hundreds, or 1,500, or 5,000. Well, at least readers had a 1/3 chance of knowing the correct figure, 5,000.

I have no idea why the Statesman Journal shared this inaccurate post on Facebook that said “hundreds protest President Donald Trump on ‘No Kings’ day at the Oregon State Capitol on March 28 in Salem.” As of this morning, the post had over a thousand comments. They seemed equally divided between “I was there, you’re crazy, thousands were at the rally” (true) and “I count about 25 people in the photo, so there were less than a hundred” (false).

Another Statesman Journal story said “Thousands gathered in Salem” and “More than 1,500 people were still standing along Center Street by 2:30 pm.” Another SJ Facebook post said “An estimated 5,000 people rallied near the Oregon State Capitol for the third iteration of the global No Kings protests on March 28.” Finally, they got it right,

The correct answer, according to the Salem Reporter and KGW News (on its 11 pm show last night) is what I said above: 5,000. This comes from a Salem Police Department estimate, not the organizers of the rally, who estimate 5,000-7,000. It’s unfortunate that the Statesman Journal put out drastic undercounts of the actual No Kings rally attendance before belatedly reporting the accurate figure — perhaps after reading about it in the Salem Reporter.