BETHPAGE, N.Y.—Peggy Rakas had come up with a plan. She had smuggled her forbidden piece of paper past security. All that was left to do now was do it: protest Donald Trump at a Donald Trump rally.

She suddenly wasn’t sure she was brave enough.

Rakas, a 59-year-old elementary school band teacher, had read about Trump events. Until she felt the testosterone in this Long Island warehouse, she didn’t quite understand what they were like. How crowded, how macho, how unwelcoming to dissent.

“I don’t know if I have the nerve to pull the sign out,” she said, quiet, as Trump started speaking. “It’s kind of scary. This whole scene is.”

The Trump rally has become the most contested space in American politics, as much battleground as public meeting. Alarmed by his racism and authoritarianism, veteran activists and ordinary citizens around the country have mobilized to peacefully challenge him on his own turf. His supporters have sometimes responded with fists and slurs.

Rakas was undeterred. When she found out Trump was speaking near her home last Wednesday, she knew she had to confront the Republican “bully.” The day before, she invited her Facebook friends to come with her.

Three of them posted the same response: “Be careful!” There was only one taker.

Jake Finkelstein, 17.

Finkelstein, a high school senior, poet and Bernie Sanders devotee, is a friend of her daughter Leann. He had never protested anything. Rakas had last protested in the 1980s.

But Finkelstein had a rare tolerance for discomfort: he rode a bike from the Atlantic to the Pacific last summer, 4,400 kilometres, to raise money for the non-profit that helped him through a struggle with substance abuse. She had experience as a Democratic volunteer. And she had a car.

Off they went, the two of them and Leann in a Prius hybrid, heading into the closest thing to a lion’s den a presidential campaign has seen in decades.

“I will not let this bigotry and hatred go uncontested in my backyard,” said Finkelstein. “I just want to let it be known that this is a loving place.”

“When a man who is as divisive as Donald Trump comes, we need to stand up and protest,” said Rakas. “So I’m here to stand up and protest.”

They had settled on a silent statement. After a stint in the barricaded “free speech zone” outside, they would walk into the rally hiding little “Bullying Stops Here” printouts like the ones that hang on the walls of Rakas’s school. They would hold them as Trump was speaking. And Finkelstein would take off his jacket to display his purple Sanders T-shirt.

Benign stuff. Still a risk. Protesters at other Trump speeches have been punched in the face for less.

But the protesters keep showing up. Many of them are African-American supporters of Black Lives Matter, Hispanic advocates of immigration reform, and Muslim students. To them, Trump is a personal emergency.

“We’re not talking about marginal tax rates or something here,” said Mohammad Khan, a Muslim activist who helped organize a protest outside a New York hotel Thursday. “When your opinion is that Muslims should not exist in this country, then it becomes more than a difference of opinion. Then it becomes an existential threat to our communities.”

Protesters have blocked a road in Arizona and occupied a Holiday Inn in Wisconsin. They have unfurled banners reading “No human life is illegal” and “End hate speech against Muslims.” They have chanted “dump Trump” and “Trump is hate.” They have worn yellow Holocaust-like stars and white Klan-like hoods.

It isn’t clear that they’re making a difference.

When Trump is not endorsing violence against them, he is laughing them off as entertainment, winning primaries all the while. Even Republican voters who oppose him seem to prefer him to the people shouting during his speeches. His supporters remain as entrenched as ever.

“They’re stupid kids,” said Alex Frandi, 53, a Long Island crane operator with an American flag tattooed on his head. “I don’t listen to stupid kids.”

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The protesters don’t particularly care about short-term polls. By trial and error, said an organizer with the Stop Trump National Network, they will figure out the tactics to help defeat him. No matter what, the organizer said, there is a “moral imperative” to take a stand against “proto-fascism.”

“In this moment, if you are doing nothing, you are on the wrong side,” said the organizer, who requested anonymity to avoid harassment from Trump fans.

The Long Island venue was huge, a hangar-like structure big enough for 12,000. But it was almost full by the time Rakas and Finkelstein arrived, and they were forced to wait in security lines with hundreds of men.

The Trump supporters became sullen when the guards temporarily stopped letting people in, like hockey fans grumbling through a blowout loss. Someone swore about Hillary Clinton. A giddy young man started a chant of “Let’s Go Islanders,” then “Build That Wall.” Rakas, cheery and confident minutes earlier in the protest zone, grew apprehensive.

But she and Finkelstein plodded forward. They found a spot near the back of the room, where the crowd was sparser and Trump was a mere speck of distant hair.

He railed about trade and immigration and incompetence. Finkelstein muttered mockery. Then a protest erupted up front. Thousands of Trump supporters chanted “asshole” as they might at an Islanders game.

Finkelstein, ignoring the menace in the air, revealed the Sanders shirt. A young man behind him shot a homophobic threat in his direction.

“We should hang this f-- up by his skinny jeans,” he said.

Finkelstein, shaken but not showing it, turned around, smiled at him, and turned back to Trump.

Another protester began demonstrating in the distance. Trump urged the crowd not to hurt him.

“F--- that,” said another man near Rakas and Finkelstein. “Hurt him, hurt him,” said a third man. “They’re terrible people,” Trump declared of reporters.

There it was: the bullying again. Trump was winding down. If they were going to carry out their protest, it was going to have to be soon.

Rakas, smiling a small smile, took her sign out of her purse, unfolded it, and held it close to her chest.

Finkelstein held his sign in front of his face for a minute or so. A few Trump supporters looked him up and down. Nobody said anything.

Defiant, he raised the sign higher, above his head.

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