Our Encounter with the Protesters of Fargo.
It was a clear, windy afternoon over the I-94, where the bridge stretches like a silent ribbon connecting two sides of a fractured city. And there, right on that bridge in Fargo, North Dakota, they stand: Judd and Wendy Hoff. Two people. Two bodies against the cold. Two voices against forgetting. In their hands, a sign bearing four simple digits: 8647 – a quiet message, carried alongside the American flag, in view of the passing drivers.
And then suddenly - three patrol cars, flashing lights, uniforms. No charges, no warning. Just questions. Intimidation. And the next morning - a phone call. The Secret Service is investigating.
What may sound like a ridiculous overreaction is a harsh reality in the year 2025. The number 8647 – by now a subtly coded protest against Donald Trump – has become the subject of a potential criminal investigation. The accusation? Unclear. The intent? Intimidation.
We meet Judd and Wendy at the edge of a dusty parking lot, not far from the bridge. Wendy wears an old corduroy jacket, her gaze is alert, calm, steady. Judd seems like someone who prefers watching to speaking – but when he does speak, it’s with clarity. "We just want to say what needs to be said," he tells me. "Nothing more – but not a word less."
The two live minimally, almost nomadically. No permanent address. Few possessions. But a steadfast determination to move from city to city, to find bridges – physical and metaphorical – and to visibly oppose what they call the “new authoritarianism.” Their protests are quiet. Legal. Visible. And now, through a bureaucratic reflex, perhaps criminal.
They are not asking for pity – they are asking for solidarity.
An attorney willing to represent them is requesting a $2,500 retainer. An amount that, for people like Judd and Wendy, marks a boundary – between free speech and silence, between resistance and retreat. "If we raise the money, we’ll keep traveling. If not, we’ll still stay loud," Wendy says. And she means it.
What moves us is not just their courage, but the calm with which they face it. No grandstanding. No rage. Only the firm conviction that protest should not be a privilege – it must be a right.
And yes, they say it plainly too - if a woman in Minnesota can raise $500,000 just for hurling a racial slur at a child, then surely it must be possible to gather a fraction of that for people risking their freedom to give democracy back its voice.
They call it “fearless resistance to fascism.” I call it civic courage.
As we say goodbye, the sun is already low. Judd pulls up his hood, Wendy holds the sign firmly. Behind them, trucks rumble along the highway. And I think – maybe resistance doesn’t begin in grand halls or on social media. Maybe it starts right here. On a bridge. With a sign. And two people who keep standing when others have long since looked away. Judd and Wendy, on the road for justice – and for an America that refuses to go silent.
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