As Wisconsin prepares for its Tuesday primary, a diverse band of activists is trying, but not always succeeding, to subvert the Republican frontrunner

'No hate in our state': undercover protesters take on Trump in Wisconsin

“I’m nervous,” said Mary Sanderson, her heart thumping as she scanned the Janesville convention center minutes before Donald Trump was due to address the crowd. “I can’t find any of my friends.”

The 67-year-old medical interpreter from Madison, Wisconsin, had queued alone for more than four hours to get inside the 1,000-person capacity venue on Tuesday. But, unlike the vast majority of attendees, Sanderson was not here for the full speech. She was prepared to be arrested.

“I think it’s time us older people stepped up to shut down his hate,” Sanderson said on the Saturday before Trump’s Janesville event.

On Tuesday, she had stuffed a fabric sign under her bra, which read: “No hate in our state.” She had planned to pull it out “like a parachute” and wave it as Trump spoke.

Sanderson was part of a bigger plan, concocted days before Trump’s appearance in this small, majority white town in southern Wisconsin, to disrupt and perhaps cancel the Republican frontrunner’s town hall event. But as the cat-and-mouse game between Trump and the growing, diverse band of protesters willing to throw their bodies on the line intensifies, it became clear on Tuesday afternoon that the billionaire had won this round.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mary Sanderson inside the Janesville convention center: ‘I think it’s time us older people stepped up to shut down his hate.’ Photograph: Oliver Laughland/The Guardian

Another group, about 10 people strong, had been asked to leave the venue just before they made it inside. They had concealed large banners and planned to tape their mouths shut to condemn what they described as Trump’s hate speech.

Following raucous scenes in Chicago earlier in the month, where Trump was forced to cancel a large rally, and mass arrests in St Louis at an event on the same day, Trump’s schedule in Wisconsin, which will hold a crucial primary next Tuesday, shows that he has taken these damaging PR losses into account.

The Republican presidential candidate looks set to avoid Wisconsin’s bigger, more diverse cities, and has planned town hall events – rather than rallies – in low-capacity spaces within smaller towns.

“He has completely lost control of the big venues,” said Stephanie Roades, a 38-year-old organizer with Showing Up for Racial Justice (Surj) and the leader of the group ejected before Trump’s town hall on Tuesday. “It’s easier with a crowd of a thousand people to know who the disrupters are going to be.”

She advised them to bring signs made of cloth, stuffed away where a pat down searches would not reveal them

In Janesville, the strategy succeeded in flushing out protesters seeking to enter the event who were overwhelmed by the volume and dedication of Trump supporters.

Roades said her group was photographed and aggressively questioned by supporters in the line, who then tipped security off about their presence. The fact the group had a single black member, who stuck out in the overwhelmingly white crowd, appeared to have alerted suspicions, she said.



“It’s like people are little vigilantes.”

In recent weeks, following the shutdown in Chicago, online groups such as Lion Guard for Trump have formed, aimed at spotting planned disruptions on social media and tipping off the authorities. Before Trump took to the stage on Tuesday, an announcement was made on the loudspeaker calling on supporters to hold Trump signs over theirs head and chant “Trump, Trump, Trump” if they spotted anyone inside seeking to disrupt.

Hundreds of protesters picketed outside the Janesville event, and a 15-year-old was pepper-sprayed by a Trump supporter, according to Janesville police, after punching him during a heated argument.

But protesters, too, are trying to stay one step ahead. In the lead-up to the Janesville event, the Guardian was granted extensive access to the diverse band of activists who had carefully planned their attempts in the days before.

During a series of meetings held in Milwaukee, Madison and in Janesville itself, protesters from a variety of campaign groups, including those affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement and immigrant justice campaigns, studied previous actions against Trump around America, devised methods to evade local security and law enforcement as well as the secret service, which ultimately ended unsuccessfully.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest On Tuesday, a girl protesting at a Donald Trump rally in Janesville is escorted by police after being pepper-sprayed by a man. Photograph: Amber Arnold/AP

Roades, who watched the Chicago shutdown unfold on a live stream, presented a brief PowerPoint presentation on previous Trump protests. She suggested people wear only one layer of clothing to avoid suspicion they could be concealing banners, she advised them to bring signs made of cloth, stuffed away where pat-down searches would not reveal them.

Others discussed sewing their messages into the inside of their T-shirts, and planned to pull them off later, or bringing in a pair of crutches to hoist smuggled banners into the air. All agreed that black protesters should be protected by their white counterparts, by keeping them in the middle of any group, rather than on the outside where they risked more violence.

“It’s going to be an intense crowd there,” said Ricky Diaz, a black 28-year-old whose involvement in direct action began after the fatal police shooting of Dontre Hamilton, a black 31-year-old with paranoid schizophrenia who was shot 14 times by a white officer who was later fired, but not criminally charged over the incident.

“Folks of colour are clearly at a higher risk. Full stop. Everyone in there’s probably got a gun,” Diaz said.

A lot of people were just really scared and backed out at the last minute Stephanie Roades

In recent weeks black protesters at Trump rallies have been punched, kicked, shoved, violently arrested and heckled by Trump supporters in overwhelmingly white crowds. Diaz backed out from the event in Janesville, a 92% white city, that had been the site of a large national KKK rally in 1992, which prompted protests and violent clashes.

“A lot of people were just really scared and backed out at the last minute,” Roades said.

Mary Sanderson elected not to unfurl the banner stuffed inside her bra. “I couldn’t find the right moment of hate,” she said after Trump’s speech concluded.

But one man, 54-yearold Greg Gelembiuk, an evolutionary biologist also from Madison, unfurled an A4 piece of paper that photoshopped Trump’s face on to a clown mask. Gelembiuk calmly refused to take it down as the crowd chanted “Trump, Trump, Trump” and he was escorted away.

The disturbance was minor in comparison with previous disruptions. But, as primaries loom in New York and Maryland, where larger, more robust protest movements in major cities have longer histories, it remains to be seen whether Trump will be able to keep the protests shut out.