ALTAMONT — Every Thursday evening since April, a score or more of protesters has stood on the edge of the village green, lining Main Street with handmade signs protesting President Donald Trump.

In the hour between five and six o’clock, drivers passing by often honk in solidarity. Occasionally a Trump supporter will shout in protest.

Michael Seinberg says he has made lists of license plates of the cars with drivers who have shouted threats or obscenities and handed them over to the police because he believes it constitutes harassment.

The police response? “They said thank you,” Seinberg reported.

On July 10, he was at the protest with two signs he says he created, drawing on his years of work as a graphic designer. One featured a photograph of Trump with a pig’s nose and said “Grifter In Chief.” The other featured a chicken’s head with Trump-like eyes and hair and said, “He Doesn’t Give a Cluck.”

Seinberg’s wife, Meg Seinberg-Hughes, a retired school librarian, started the protest group. “She wanted to speak out …,” said her husband. “We had to say something.”

David Grapka and Joe Slack, regulars at the weekly rally, sat on a park bench as they waited for the protest to start. Grapka pulled out his harmonica and played a song he had learned during protests more than a half-century ago, “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother.”

Asked what difference they thought the protest was making, Slack said, “We’ll see it in the midterms.” Referencing the 2026 Congressional elections, he said, “If people can keep their focus, we’ll make a difference.”

For Carol Rothenberg, an important part of the rallies is gathering food for hungry neighbors. She pointed to a nearby bin with a sign that said, “Food Pantry — Thank you!” “We’re protesting but also collecting donations for the Altamont food pantry,” she said.

Asked how the two were connected, Rothenberg said, “As funding has been decreased … there have been more needs from individual families. We wanted to be able to give back and this is one way to give back.”

Several newcomers came to the July 10 rally because state Assemblywoman Gabriella Romero was expected to attend.

She didn’t give a speech but talked to individual protesters and held a sign that said “People Over Profits.”

Asked why she was at the rally, Romero said, “I was invited.”

She went on “I’m outraged just like everyone else about Trump and the rise of fascism and this quote — big, beautiful bill — unquote. The seven Republican legislators that represent sections of New York state abandoned the working class to vote for billionaire donors. It’s important to remind people we’re upset.”

Romero said she has attended other larger protests and was “excited to see folks that are really energized” in the small village of Altamont.

Fran Porter, who extended the invitation to Romero, said the group has joined Indivisible as a chapter named Helderberg Indivisible. 

The progressive Indivisible movement was founded in 2016 with Trump’s first election, beginning with a handbook published online by congressional staffers outlining ways to peacefully resist the shift to the right in the executive branch. Albany County now has seven chapters.

“They watched how the Tea Party was effective and put out a manual,” said Porter of the Congressional staffers who founded the movement.

After the 2016 election, Porter said, she was concerned about the disproportionate powers being used by the executive branch.

“I joined with my neighbors in recognizing this is not the way it should be,” said Porter of supporting the current protests.

She went on, “We need more members of our community to stand up and speak out.”

The name Helderberg Indivisible was chosen, Porter said, because people from Berne and Knox are among the protesters who come to Altamont, at the foot of the Helderbergs, for the weekly rally. She estimated “maybe 50” people belong to the group.

Altamont has about 1,500 residents while Berne and Knox each have about 2,700.

Asked if she subscribed to Erica Chenoweth’s research — frequently called the 3.5-percent rule — that nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts, and those engaging a threshold of 3.5-percent of the population have never failed to bring about change, Porter said, “I trust the research.”

Joining the national organization, Porter said, will give the local protesters “access to national groups and resources, to action plans and analyses.” She gave an example of an analysis of what she called the “big awful bill” and how many New Yorkers on Medicaid will be affected.

“We need to help people understand what was in that bill,” she said.

Asked why she thought most of the protesters were older rather than the youth movement that fueled the civil rights protests and the protests against the war in Vietnam, Porter said, “I think, frankly, older people have more time. Many of us are retired from our jobs.”

Porter herself is retired from her career in state government where she directed programs in nutrition for the elderly and for pregnant women. She ran for a seat in the county legislature on Democratic and Working Families Party lines in 2019.

Porter concluded, “We’re going to go on as long as it takes. We’ll be peaceful, efficient, and effective.”