Mary Hunsinger was in pain this morning. Real pain. The kind that wraps itself around a joint and lives there, unbothered by most medication or plans for the day. It was the kind of pain people use as a reason not to leave the house. Not to stand. Not to walk a block.

And yet she was one of the first ones out this morning.

At the corner of Smith-Enke Road and John Wayne Parkway, she unfolded a metal chair onto the hardly used corner sidewalk and unfurled her homemade “NO KINGS” sign. She leaned against the arm of her chair while she pumped her fist. An American flag waved somewhere behind her. She had never attended a protest in her life. Not once. Not until now.

“I’ve been laid up for months with a bad knee,” she said, as a steady stream of honks made conversation hard to hear. “I have to stand up. I can’t watch what’s going on. Especially the racism.”

Hunsinger was one of an estimated 250 protesters lining John Wayne Parkway this morning.

“I don’t like what Trump says or does,” she said. “It’s from him. It’s not from the news. It’s not from other people. It’s exactly what he says and what he does.”

Hunsinger calls herself an Independent. Never joined a party. Never marched for one. But now, here she was, sitting in a chair along a stretch of road that had, for one day, turned into a river of protest signs, American flags and car horns.

Cars streamed by in both directions, honking nonstop from the organized time allotment of 9 to 11 a.m. Passengers waved while drivers worked the horn. Some cars seemed to be circling the block for repeat passes. Truck drivers leaned on their horns in long, chest-rattling blasts. And Hunsinger waved back, even when standing hurt.

This was perhaps Maricopa’s largest protest of the year, against a president who earned overwhelming support in this city and county.

Three of every 5 Pinal County voters voted for Donald J. Trump last year. He carried the county with a similarly overwhelming majority in 2020. Maricopa mirrored that outsized support, according to county data. Registered Republicans outnumber Democrats here by thousands: 14,490 to 12,041, according to the Pinal County registrar. Another 17,690 are registered Independents.

And yet, the streets were lined with throngs of Maricopa residents under one message: “NO KINGS.”

“We’re the people,” said one protester holding a sign that read “WE THE PEOPLE MEANS ALL OF US.”

“This is about us. This is about our rights.”

Music played; organizers handed out water under the beating sun; a group of teens tried to get a chant going. The horns drowned them out. Someone brought a tray of cookies. A woman somewhere in the middle kept shouting “First Amendment!” between honking cars and was rewarded every time with cheers.

But the mood was not casual. People smiled and waved, but they were there because they were angry.

“This is joyful,” one protester said, “but when you drill into it, people are afraid for America. It seems to be changing in a real way.”

Kathleen Stevens was one of those protesters. She waved at passing cars, gripping her own handmade sign. She said she didn’t come for party politics. She came because she believes the country is in danger.

“[Trump] is militarizing our country and he’s turning it into a fascist state,” said Stevens, “and we have to fight back against that. I love our country and I want to keep it a democracy. I want people to have freedom and equality.”

She surveyed the line of protesters. Some held signs about healthcare, others about free speech, others about voting rights.

Michelle Fredericks held a cardboard sign that read “NO CRIMINALS. NO SPOILED BRATS. NO KINGS IN THE [WHITE HOUSE]” in bold, black letters. She said her granddaughter asked her what it meant.

“A spoiled brat is really not a good person,” she said. “They’re privileged. And that’s what Trump is. All his life he’s been privileged, and a spoiled brat likes to get their way. If they don’t get their way, then they throw a tantrum or take it out on whoever stopped them from getting their way.”

Does a street protest change hearts and minds?

She shook her head.

“People need to educate themselves. They just listen to Fox News or whatever fits what they already believe. They won’t go look anywhere else. They won’t even try.”

Down the line of protesters, a man in a bright red full-body lobster costume waved silently at cars while sweat dripped down the plastic claws.

“It’s very hot in here,” offered the Glennwilde resident who wanted to be known only as The Lobster. “But it’s worth it.”

Lobster’s wife, Emily, stood beside him draped in an American flag like a cape.

“No Kings Day is really about government overreach,” she said. “They think they can just do anything now. But this country doesn’t belong to kings.”

“I have right-leaning parents,” she said. “I made a whole list of everything that’s happening, a whole page to our constitution and showed it to them. I was raised in a Christian home. My parents raised me with old-fashioned values. But now I see those values being said, but not lived. Especially by people who say they’re Christian but then support policies that hurt people.”

Her husband lifted a lobster claw again and waved to a honking car.

Robert O’Brien waved a “WE THE PEOPLE” flag, one that is often seen at conservative events.

This was his first rally with his wife, Elena. They found the flag fitting.

“There was a lot of talk online that today was going to be dangerous,” said Robert O’Brien. “I heard everything from ‘Antifa buses are coming’ to ‘You’re going to need bail money.’ But look at this.”

Elena O’Brien gestured to someone offering water, strollers parked nearby. Bruce Springsteen played from a speaker.

“It’s just classic rock and honks and cookies and water,” she said.

Jeff Northrup, something of a local celebrity in the sidewalk protest game, walked the rows smiling. He didn’t bring his usual Trump effigy.

“He’s got backup today,” someone shouted as they passed him.

Volunteers in yellow vests walked the line. They were trained by Indivisible, one of the groups behind the national No Kings organizing effort. They helped keep people out of traffic and de-escalated tense drivers.

“This isn’t about violence,” one volunteer said. “It’s about defending democracy.”

By 10 a.m., the line stretched nearly two city blocks. At one point, a woman in a straw hat did her own attendance count out loud, pointing as she went.

“I got into the 40s, then lost count as another wave of people arrived.” A second count later reached over 200. Organizers put the total at 250 to 350, as the crowd came and went.

And through it all, the horns never stopped.

The No Kings movement, which organized Saturday’s demonstrations across the country, began in June as an effort to mobilize people who believe the current administration has undermined the Constitution. The messaging is deliberately patriotic. No Kings organizers encourage volunteers to use “American founding language, not partisan branding,” according to guidance on their website.

Maricopa’s was just one of 45 protests across Arizona and hundreds of organized protests across the country. Nearby protests were held in Casa Grande and Chander. The events are organized by Democratic or left-leaning groups. The movement’s website instructs participants to de-escalate any confrontations and non-violent protest.

Whether street protest would translate into votes in November was another matter entirely.

“People are waking up,” said Hunsinger, the Independent protester with the bad knee. “You can’t sit at home and complain if you don’t vote.”

Stevens, the protester who described the U.S. as a fascist sate, agreed. “This is how it starts,” she said. “People see this and they start thinking. And then, yeah, hopefully they vote.”

Fredericks, with the “NO SPOILED BRATS” sign, wasn’t convinced. “I don’t know if this is enough,” she said. “Democrats need a better message. They need to market like Republicans do. You can’t just hope people vote.”

Emily, Lobster’s wife, said the protest was a beginning, not a finish line. “This gets people talking,” she said. “People who never thought about voting might now. But you can’t stop here.”

Even The Lobster had something to say about that. Through the foam suit came one simple comment: “Vote.”

Not everyone at the protest trusted that message. One car drove by with a passenger chanting Trump’s name. Another tried to “roll coal” on the protest. For the hour InMaricopa reporters were on the scene, no conflicts were witnessed.

“These aren’t radicals,” offered O’Brien. “These are schoolteachers. These are grandmas. These are veterans. These are people who bought water at Basha’s before coming out here. This is America. Simple as that.”

Mary Hunsinger rose from her chair for the first time in nearly two hours. Her knee was stiff. But she didn’t regret coming, she said.

She lifted her sign one last time for the traffic still passing before heading down the rocky slope to her waiting car.

“This is important,” she said. “Hopefully it wakes some people up.”