Why one woman quit her job to travel full-time and protest against Trump

CHICAGO – There’s a good chance you recognize Nadine Seiler.

Seiler, 59, has developed a knack for being in the right place at the right time to be photographed by the media while protesting former President Donald Trump and conservative policies such as Project 2025 to redesign the federal government.

Several news photographers have captured Seiler's protests across the country since at least 2019, from Chicago to Milwaukee and Miami to the home of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in Virginia.

This was not how she had planned to spend her retirement savings when she came to the USA from the Caribbean country of Trinidad and Tobago almost 40 years ago. But with her bright makeup and her eye-catching signs, protest has become her calling. In Chicago, she sleeps in a friend's van to keep costs down.

“I'm crazy,” Seiler said, laughing. “Nobody who is completely sane would do something like that.”

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Nadine Seiler of Waldorf, Maryland, is pictured in this August 20, 2024, photo taken at a pro-Palestinian demonstration outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

On Sunday, she waved a banner as protesters marched down Michigan Avenue, and reappeared at a pro-Palestinian march on Tuesday wearing a “Stop Project 2025” headband. She has also been interviewed by national media for her work preserving Black Lives Matter signs.

In addition to her opposition to Trump, she has recently protested against the Gaza war and abortion restrictions. She is keen to make it clear that she is not a young radical or an activist funded by black money, but just an older woman who wants to share her point of view.

Seiler came to the United States as a young woman on a tourist visa and overstayed her residency permit. She obtained her residency through a marriage that later ended. For years, she worked in private homes, mostly as a cleaner and organizer. That gave her a lot of flexibility in her schedule, and now she has largely put her work on hold so she can travel around the country and protest.

Seiler said she is frustrated and disappointed that Trump's supporters are so willing to support and encourage his autocratic tendencies. She hopes that the media attention their protests get will spread far enough to sway those voters one by one.

“America goes around the world telling people to be democracies, but you can't do that if you're an authoritarian country yourself,” she said as pro-Palestinian protesters marched nearby and chanted.

Yanna Krupnikov, a professor of communications and media at the University of Michigan, said Seiler is part of a group of people who feel a personal obligation to share their views. Unlike most of us, who are content to talk to friends and family or perhaps volunteer for a political campaign, a certain segment of the population feels an inner urge to protest.

“You feel like you have to tell others, you have to warn others,” Krupnikov said. “For people who are deeply involved, political expression is very immediate, it feels like something important that they can do. Politics is so abstract and disconnected, so vast, that sometimes it feels like we can only express ourselves and hope that others hear.”

Seiler said she feels the same way. Over time, she has befriended other protesters, including Guy Young, 70, whom she met at a protest against the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. When Young heard Seiler planned to protest the DNC, he immediately offered her his van, which was parked on the street in front of his house, as a bedroom.

During the Democratic National Convention, Seiler protested during the day and then returned to his neighborhood with Young. In the morning, he brought her a sausage on a skewer wrapped in a pancake.

“She gets better room service than at the Hilton,” Young said, laughing.

Seiler said she can travel on a shoestring to supplement her savings, which she uses to fund her protests. She said she heard a FOX News commentator wonder aloud how she can afford to keep showing up, and suggested Seiler might be paid with illicit liberal money.

Why one woman quit her job to travel full-time and protest against Trump

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