Honks rang out as cars passed under the Adobe Creek Bike and Pedestrian overpass on Friday evening, in support of a protest determined to inspire people to vote in this year’s Nov. 3 midterms. The protest, hosted by Indivisible Palo Alto Plus, included festive music, dancing, and colorful posters that lit up in the night.
The event, “Bannering 101,” ran for four hours and reached over 60,000 cars. The group’s bannering team stages protests on overpasses along Highway 101 as part of the Visibility Brigade, a national network that coordinates bridge protests across the country.
The protest’s message to commuters was clear: read the ballot, understand your options, then go vote.
In addition to bannering on the bridge, the protesters played fun music and dressed up in colorful costumes to create a call to action for democracy in a fun, engaging way. “We’re coordinated with bridges all across the country,” an anonymous protester, who has been bannering since Feb. 2025, said.
Indivisible is a large national progressive network that contains local chapters organizing against Donald Trump’s agenda. Their Palo Alto Plus chapter was founded as a result of the 2024 election. The chapter organizes multiple protests a week in Palo Alto and surrounding areas.
As dusk settled in, the protesters brought down the original posters and replaced them with projected slideshows. The projection featured slogans against the current government such as “No Kings” and “Anti-ICE.” Additionally, signs endorsed specific propositions in California, including “Yes on Prop 40.”
The demonstration aimed to spread the “the anti-MAGA word.” The anonymous protester said the protest was not an event aimed specifically at President Donald Trump.
“This is not a protest against Trump per se. This is a call to action of citizenry to show up to vote,” they said. “That’s what our purpose out here is: to get people to stop and think.”
Demonstrator Bruce* came out to protect the vote. “We feel like once the election happens on Nov. 3, the administration is going to try some dirty tricks to possibly steal it,” he said. “So we’re trying to join the community together and all band together and be a big enough force [that] maybe that can’t happen.”
“We really do have a voice, and right now we still have the ability to come out here and protest. If it helps one person feel like there’s somebody out there fighting for them, that is enough,” Nancy* said.
For Lisa, a local math and physics tutor, the biggest concern is immigration enforcement. She watched Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Minneapolis earlier this year and worries the same will happen here. “My students are already scared, and it’s impacting their education,” she said.
Several signs backed Prop 40, a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of California’s billionaires. The health care workers union SEIU-UHW placed the measure on the ballot to fund health care programs, while opponents added a competing measure, Prop 41, that could block it. “[For Prop 40], we are just taking [money] back for one year,” Bruce said. “It’s just simple math for me.”
Protestors said that response is the point of the event’s tagline: Joy is resistance.
“If they come out here ready to fight and you throw a punch, that’s exactly what they want,” Bruce said. “When we have joyous resistance, they don’t really know how to handle it.”
Nancy said she draws on her sermon from her synagogue for inspiration. The sermon says that no one can repair the whole world, but everyone can do one thing. “If everybody did one thing, the world would change overnight,” she said. “I encourage people to find their one thing.”
Others had more immediate courses of action. “Get your vote in if you haven’t already, and keep an eye on the news. Because we need to protect our democracy every day, not just on Election Day,” Lisa said.
The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 3. Upcoming Indivisible Palo Alto Plus events are listed at indivisiblepaloaltoplus.org.
For more information on the General Election, refer to the M-A Chronicle Voter Guide.
